The release of the bushfire royal commission‘s final report is a huge deal down here. There’s multi-page wraparounds on both the Sunday Hun and the Age, for instance. And while the initial focus, particularly in the Hun, has been on the competence or otherwise of several much-maligned heads of the emergency services, the recommendations of the commission have far wider implications than the future career prospects of Christine Nixon or Russell Rees.
The release of the report is, of course, in the context of a looming state election campaign, and Peter Ryan, the state leader of the National Party, isn’t wasting any time:
The Victorian Liberal Nationals Coalition supports in principle and will implement in government each and every recommendation made by the Royal Commission.
John Brumby should adopt the Coalition’s approach and implement all recommendations as soon as possible.
It doesn’t take long perusing the Commission’s report to determine that “implementing all recommendations” is neither a straightforward task, nor something a government should commit to.
While it’s not the sexiest recommendation, undoubtedly the most costly is Recommendation 27:
The State amend the Regulations under Victoria’s Electricity Safety Act 1998 and otherwise take such steps as may be required to give effect to the following:
- the progressive replacement of all SWER (single-wire earth return) power lines in Victoria with aerial bundled cable, underground cabling or other technology that delivers greatly reduced bushfire risk. The replacement program should be completed in the areas of highest bushfire risk within 10 years and should continue in areas of lower bushfire risk as the lines reach the end of their engineering lives
- the progressive replacement of all 22-kilovolt distribution feeders with aerial bundled cable, underground cabling or other technology that delivers greatly reduced bushfire risk as the feeders reach the end of their engineering lives. Priority should be given to distribution feeders in the areas of highest bushfire risk.
According to this story, it’s going to be a multi-billion dollar exercise to implement that recommendation, though it’s not clear what the incremental cost over business as usual is. Even so, it’s a very large infrastructure expenditure.
For any other investment of this magnitude – or even ones of much smaller magnitude – you’d expect some cost-benefit analysis to be performed. But does the commission do so? Nope. To quote the report.
The Commission’s recommendations are framed against the view that there is a serious risk that must be dealt with. Implementation of the recommendations will entail considerable cost. Some of that cost is inevitable because of the age and deteriorating state of the distribution network. Replacing much of the network in the short term is unavoidable: it is a question of what it is replaced with. The Commission is not, however, in a position to take into account cost implications and the impact on communities; those are matters for government to determine and assess.
So…let me get this straight. The Commission doesn’t know how much their recommendation is going to cost – but knows it’s a very big number – but is making a definitive recommendation on it anyway?
Now, the commission is probably right that detailed cost-benefit analyses are beyond its scope. But any government that took this recommendation literally – rather than as an opportunity to look into this issue in more detail and come up with some appropriately costed options, attempted to calculate the benefits, and made a decision on that more informed basis – would be grossly irresponsible.
I wonder if Peter Ryan’s constitutents would be so keen to see “all recommendations” implemented as soon as possible if they thought they were paying for them, as distinct from the usual National Party assumption that city folk will happily cross-subsidize their country cousins.
Consider this an open thread to discuss issues relating to the Commission – this is just one of dozens of recommendations, and many of them are likely to prove equally politically contentious. Which ones have you noticed?
What is entirely missing from the media discussion of this is that it was the Kennett Government that broke up the SEC and privatised it off. Before privatisation, the SEC had a programme of investing in replacing electricity infrastructure (power poles, power lines, etc.) in bushfire prone regions, to the tune of $60 million p/a (keep in mind that this is in early ’90s dollars, and that after inflation in real terms that figure is substantially higher). In turn, that infrastructure programme was put in place based on recommendations from the Ash Wednesday Bushfires Royal Commission.
The theory behind the privatisation was that the private sector could deliver power to Victorians more efficiently than than a public utility such as the SEC. (The irony is that the powerlines running through Kinglake are now owned by a xcompany called SP Austnet, which in turn is owned by the Government of Singapore.)
Anyway, what has happened over the two decades or so since privatisation is that many of these utilities have cut “costs,” including investing in upgrading infrastructure.
The end result is that we have a Royal Commission reporting on a series of bushfires started by fallen powerlines (which should have been upgraded to aerial bundled cable and concrete poles and would have been a decade ago, were it not for Kennett’s privatisation programme) more or less presenting the same key recommendation that the Ash Wednesday Bushfires Royal Commission did.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media have been focusing on scapegoats such as the “evil arsonists,” the “meanie greenies” (see Miranda Devine’s quite insensitive column suggesting environmentalists were not only to blame for Black Saturday but should be strung from lamp-posts), and more recently a narrative about Christine Nixon rather than asking tough questions about the role the privatisation of Victoria’s power grid (and subsequent underinvestment) played in Black Saturday.
Meanwhile, Ted Ballieu and the Coalition seeking to turn this report to their political advantage is really quite sickening, given that it was their predecessors in the Kennett Government who were responsible for the under-investment and privatisation in the first place!
Hmmm. Lots to go through.
There was indeed a failure of leadership – but it was a systemic failure rather than the failure of a few individuals who did behave entirely in accordance with the standards of their peers. It is amusing to see how quickly and how savagely their fellows turned on these same individuals – when those who are now doing the vilifying would have done, or failed to do, the same sorts of things had they themselves been in the hot-seats on Black Saturday. [Perhaps there is a parallel here with the eventual coondemnation shown for leadership action by Archbishop Hollingsworth in protecting the group interests of the Anglican Church - had they been in his shoes, they would have done exactly the same]. Of course, none of this scapegoating helps the victims or the future victims of bushfires one little bit.
What we do not need is any more rorts and rackets dressed up as “improved fire safety” regulations. There are a lot of really effective fire prevention and bushfire survival methods out there that don’t make rorters and racketeers even richer – ones that don’t even cost a brass razoo – so let’s get ordinary people to come forward with their all ideas and inventions, submit them to field testing, reward them for coming up with their ideas and inventions and then make them available to the general public either free or at minimal/subsidized cost. It irks me that opportunists are now going to make a fortune out of the preventable deaths of a few hundred of our fellow citizens.
I’ve only read the media reports so this is pretty superficial, but it seems a pity that the biggest recommendations are farcically impractical. Putting infrastructure underground, at a cost of gazillions, and buying out people who’ve put their houses in the wrong spot. What, compulsorily?
More prescribed burning sounds “great”, except that it’s actually hated by everyone when it does occur, with the wine and tourism industry complaining mightily every autumn, not to mention the EPA, and the window for doing this safely in autumn getting smaller and smaller every year. Let alone it’s often of dubious effectiveness.
Meantimes, the 800 pound gorilla is climate change.
Oh, and evacuations still wont work. You simply cannot evacuate the Dandenongs, the Otways, the Grampians, Castlemaine, etc etc etc every hot day in summer. It WILL NOT WORK.
Wilful, on a related topic I’d love to see the court stoushes that would result if the “no-resale policy” was implemented on Mount Macedon…
Probably the best thing from the RC has already happened, with new Building Code regulations for bushfire zones already in place. Not sure they’re perfect, but I don’t claim any expertise there. Our new house will have to be moderately compliant, we’re about a km away from a Wildfire Management Overlay.
I haven’t had time to read the Report as closely as I’d like, but on fuel reduction burning it seems like the Royal Commission has managed to stop short of prescribing a Big Dumb Specific Number with a Big Dumb Statutory Mandate (which Athol Hodgson was calling for). The 5 per cent per annum target for public lands seems to be phrased in indicative and aspirational terms, with at least some recognition of the factors which would preclude the specific burning plans for different zones and regions all adding up exactly to a big dumb number statewide, and which would preclude the actual burning able to be undertaken in a given year equalling the big dumb number.
yes Paul, but how do you think the media will report on the big dumb number every year when the DSE Annual Report is tabled? The idea may be nuanced, the politics certainly wont be.
AmishThrasher @ 1 said:
Isn’t this regulated by the AER now? In SA ETSA have to submit to the AER capital expenditure spending for approval because the revenue they spend on infrastructure will change electricity prices.
Here’s an example:
http://www.aer.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId/736389
wilful – much like some seaside councils are proposing planned retreats for areas with problems from storm surges, perhaps we need some planned long term retreats (eg no rebuild policy) for those areas of very high bushfire risk?
True enough wilful #8, and this morning the OO is once again giving David Packham a run with his conspiracy theories about the Greens and his calls for a very big, very dumb number (12 per cent of all public land or about 1,000,000 hectares per year).
Graham @2.
It’ll be interesting to see how the recommendations for incident management and fireground responses are implemented over time.
It seems in Victoria the C&C system is unwieldy and prone to failure. People in (eg) Rees or Nixon’s position who are so far up the chain of command can’t be relied on emergencies like last years fires. That should be obvious especially with a situation that evolved as fast as last years did.
In fact it shouldn’t be their job.
It should be the job of IMTs and ICCs not the upper echelons of the hierarchy.
A few points I’d like to make:
Firstly, I have an issue with the level of detail, or more accurately the lack of it, in relation to community bushfire education. It is set out in Recommendation 2 of the report:
Hopefully the importance of community education is reflected in its place at No. 2, but the substance of this recommendation is completely lacking. It is more like a motherhood statement than a recommendation for any sort of substantial change.
And yet there is clearly an acceptance within the Report that there is a need to develop community knowledge and self reliance. It is because this recommendation is so lacking in substance that we are not getting any debate about how to engage, educate, consult or empower communities living with bushfire. This crucial issue of community/individual relationship with government is not, as far as I can tell, examined by the Report.
Secondly the Alternative Technology Association have issued a well considered and useful press release
http://www.ata.org.au/news/media-release-bushfire-safety-renewable-alternatives-can-cut-hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-from-cost-of-network-replacement/,
suggesting an alternative to the very expensive underground cabling or powerlines. This idea and possibly others like it, need to be taken up and supported.
Jules (on 11):
Yea, verily!
Everyone:
There seem to be two groups that came out teflon-coated and smelling of roses:
First: The hit-and-run “screaming greenies” (as opposed to genuine, committed and well-informed conservationists). Weren’t they the real cause of the massive build-up of fuel – with goverment being merely too timid to stand up to their bullying and theatricals?
Second: The Australian Defence Force. When eventually they did come in, the service personnel of the ADF did a mighty job and deserve all the praise we can shower on them. BUT …. what about that killer delay in rendering Aid To The Civil Power? That murderous shilly-shallying should never have happened. Don’t blame the individual Officers and NCOs who were on duty that weekend because that was a SYSTEMIC disaster just waiting to happen.
By the way, just who was the nong-nong lurking in the Defence Procurement set-up who had a whim that Australia shouldn’t have any Beriev fire-fighting and multi-task amphibious aircraft? Hope that scoundrel ends up in the fires of Hel*l.
Do the Russians use the Beriev seaplanes?
Cos if they do whats happening now (wildfires over there) will give us a good look at how effective they can be.
“Weren’t they the real cause of the massive build-up of fuel – with goverment being merely too timid to stand up to their bullying and theatricals? ”
No.
It was submitted by more than one witness that one of the problems facing Victorian land management agencies responsible for hazard reduction burning is that they are seriously underfunded and understaffed as a result of successive budget decisions by State governments.
It is also worth bearing in mind that the Royal Commission’s recommendation for a long-term fuel reduction burning program aiming to treat 5 per cent of public land per year would, if implemented, represent a higher rate of burning than has been achieved historically in circumstances in which, as wilful said above, the window of opportunity for conducting prescribed burns will be getting smaller.
In addition to a shortage of resources…In practice the burning off of suitable tracts of bush (or places deemed suitable by the DSE, anyway) was severely limited both in the Black Saturday fires and previous years due to changing rain patterns, wind and other weather patterns.
THerefore a lot of bush that was scheduled for burnoff was not (ie. could not be) burned off.
I live on 100 acres of cleared land in central Victoria that I bought two years ago. When I’m not sitting in front of the computer I’m outside planting native trees and bushes. I’ve even brought woody debris onto my property because numerous small native birds rely on it. As a result my property will be a very high risk place during a fire.
What I really want is a government agency that will provide state of the art advice on how I can people like me can make our properties safe(r) in the event of fire. I don’t want the environmental values of my property or the surrounding bush sacrificed through excessive hazard reduction burns.
Folk who are not prepared to accept the increased risk of property destruction and death from fire associated with maintaining environmental values should not live in the bush.
There is so much complicated risk management in prescribed burning, it is a hell of a job. I wouldn’t do it, I reckon those who take it on are courageous.
Try to reconcile all of the following factors, if you would like, without resorting to nonsense like “in the olden days” and “aboriginal wisdom” (about which we know practically nothing):
1. a very narrow window (late March to mid-May typically) in which to conduct pretty much the entire program – but very variable weather during that period. Only getting worse with climate change.
2. an increasingly litigious, selfish society that doesn’t like to be inconvenienced, led by increasingly powerful tourism and viticuture interests.
3. huge human safety risk – with the fact that DSE are liable for any life or property lost in a prescribed burn, but not for wildfire. Let alone atmospheric pollution issues.
4. Massive technical and skills challenges in getting this done (you really DO NOT just light a match), against an ageing workforce that was gutted by Kennett in the 1990s.
5. a genuine commitment to ecological burning, but simply a lack of sound science to make decent informed judgements, or (for example) two species co-located that have conflicting requirements.
6. very vocal stakeholder groups always ready to complain (naïve greenies on one side, dickhead burn the lot types on the other side), all seeing conspiracies everywhere.
So if you think you’ve got the solution to the above, well join the large club of critics of the DSE. But chances are you are as ill-informed and partial as the rest of them.
Yes, Wilful, I agree that it is very complicated. For example, we still have massive holes in our scientific knowledge about fire ecology.
I’m not in Victoria, so this is an anecdote.
My parents live in Sunbury, they are getting on a bit, so to avoid the heat they went to Tassie (where it was just high 30s) during the Victorian heatwave that happened in the weeks leading up to last years fires.
When they returned they said the amount of fuel on the ground had increased by several hundred percent. And when I was down there in April last year they showed me examples in area they live. I was actually stunned by the amount of fuel I saw in St Andrews on the roadside when visiting friends in the fire effected area. Obviously only the wind change stopped that stuff burning.
In and around Sunbury in some treed areas there was probably a foot of fuel on the ground – leaves, twigs and branches, most of which was dropped during the heat wave.
Nightmare scenario basically.
The same thing is probably the case across the areas of the state that got cooked in the heatwave.
That fuel load on its own would be enough to drive fire into the crowns of trees in conditions like Feb 7 last year.
There is no responsible way that fuel load could have been burned off between the heatwave and the Feb 7 fires.
There may be a place for controlled burning, I’m not disputing that, but there is no way controlled burning would have stopped the Black Saturday fires (imo – obviously, but I think it’ll stand up). If anything there could have been several out of control fires already burning at midnight Feb 6 if anyone had attempted a fuel reduction burn between the heatwave and Feb 7.
So there’s still the problem of massive fuel loads that can’t be blamed on Greenies or not letting the Dept of Scorched Earth live up to its name. Controlled burning is not a panacea and it concerns me that its being portrayed in the media as tho it is.
It seems to me that, accepting that whatever is done must fit into cost constraints, the best measures are going to be adaptive.
It’s much too late to stop people living too close to the bush. Nor, realitically, can you develop a schedule feasible way of ensuring that everybody leaves at the ideal moment, in part because the ideal moment is a different moment from when everyone else who realises it’s the ideal moment and lives along the same roads should leave.
IMO the most plausible plan that should be cost feasible would be to develop localised fire havens in places where pretty much everyone within about 15km could get to by car via multiple secure routes, given adequate notice. It would have to be big enough to accomodate (temporarily) everyone registered there, be suitably provisioned and maintained, have local power and water and wireless access to the system and would porbably be on the highest local ground. You’d want to be able to park large vehicles under shelter and land a chopper there. New developments that were too exposed to fire or didn’t have adequate access to the secure roads you’d want to build to the haven woulkd simply be denied. A levy on council rates would support the work.
If people didn’t like the levy, then they could sell up and leave. Some settlements might be abandoned and that would be OK. National Parks could purchase at unimproved land value and when the parcels were coherent, include them in the stock or use these as buffer zones.
Jules #21, another point is that the weather conditions prior to and on Black Saturday were so extreme that material which would not normally have been fuel was converted to fuel by the ambient temperature and the aridity.
“not letting the Dept of Scorched Earth live up to its name ….”
Oh grow up. DSE does not operate that way.
Paul @23.
Yes, good point.
The extremity of the conditions was such that in the days leading up to the event the media accused the Victorian government of panicking. That got forgotten quickly.
The spread of the fire was so fast that in places it would probably have been due to a kind of cascading explosion of vaporised eucalyptus oil and various pyrolysis gases.
There would have been more eucalyptus oil in the air than ever before in the history of Victoria, (ie since whitefellas got there.) Thats just one example of the way the condition on and leading up to that day contributed.
And an example of how bad it will get again if those conditions come round again.
By definition that sort of heat following upon the sort of drought conditions Victoria has been through for (… is it most of this century, sure seems like it?) however long it was means that fuel reduction won’t make that much of a difference.
Fuel reduction burns don’t stop crown fires in that sort of hyper-extreme situation.
They might (in some circumstances) in conditions that are just plain dangerous, but it appears that Black Saturday could be described as beyond dangerous – more like hellish conditions.
You could not have heard a more definitive Premier on the Friday before the conflagration. he was everywhere, with apocalyptic warnings. I don’t know what else could have been done in the media space, save personally knocking on people’s doors.
“You could not have heard a more definitive Premier on the Friday before the conflagration.”
That is perfectly true.
In today’s Age, an op-ed by Gavin McFadzean of The Wilderness Society, and a report quoting Athol Hodgson, Phillip Ingamells, Phil Cheney and Michael Clarke.
Jules (on 14):
Believe so (though missed seeing Russian news this week). Not just seaplanes – they’re amphibians and, incidently, can be used in counter-terrorism operations and ecological emergency situations too; (and no, I’m not a salesman for Beriev)..
FDB (15) and Paul Norton (16):
Points taken. Afterwards, thought I should have said “governments AND responsible conservation and landcare groups”
Wilful (19) and salient (20):
Good points.
Jenny Barnett was a highly respected researcher into bushfire and land management. Tragically, she herself died in the Black Saturday fires. It is ironic that Victoria lost one of the very people who could help work towards a better policy.
http://vnpa.org.au/admin/library/attachments/SubmissionsNEW/VNPA%20Preliminary%20Submission%20to%20the%202009%20Victorian%20Bushfires%20Royal%20Commission.pdf
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=AMv31n1_OB.pdf
Wilful’s comment at #19 reminds me of my distinguished colleague Pat Weller’s eponymous Law:
“Anything is possible to the person who doesn’t have to do it.”
“FDB (15) and Paul Norton (16):
Points taken. Afterwards, thought I should have said “governments AND responsible conservation and landcare groups””
Still a way to go Graham. Burning needs certain conditions, and as Helen says the window narrows all the time – it’s actually not safe or practical to burn much more than we have in recent years. The solution (at least, limiting things to burning for now) is better targetting – which may even result in less overall km2 burnt, but at greater cost than the ‘big dumb number’ approach apparently favoured by some.
FDB@32: it doesn’t matter what burning approach they use, the cost is going to be significantly higher than it is now.
My fear is that they’ll keep loading it onto the insurance levy which will just encourage more country people to drop their insurance altogether. I agree with the suggestion of making it a dwelling levy or a per head levy. The accurate measure would probably be resident nights with a time-varying risk multiplier, but a per inhabitable dwelling levy is more doable. The need to cover people living in “temporary accomodation” like caravans and tents makes that less accurate than ideal, but it does cover the holiday homes as well as the permanent residents so it’s a start.