[9.58 a.m.Tuesday, 29 July 2003 ]
BARRACLOUGH, Mr Lindsay Ralph, Captain, Licola Fire Brigade
Mr Barraclough
Yes, thank you. First off, I would like to say thank you very much to this
bipartisan committee. Your visit is really appreciated. I thank all parties for being part of it. I
have a number of things here, photographs et cetera, that I would like to give to the committee.
If I could, I would like to start by reading a letter regarding CFA safety that I am sending to the
Minister for Police and Emergency Services. May I read this?
CHAIR
Yes, sure.
Mr Barraclough
I have six copies here. I would like to read it, though.
CHAIR
Okay.
Mr Barraclough
It is to the Honourable. Andre Haermeyer and it is of today’s date. It is
headed ‘CFA Tanker Safety’. It says:
Dear Mr Haermeyer,
As a Captain of a fire brigade surrounded by massive fuel build up, that your Government is encouraging in the mountains, I am very concerned for the safety of our brigade members with allegedly serious deficiencies in CFA tanker design, that could seriously threaten our safety. I am in possession of sections of a report allegedly into the deaths of 5 fire fighters at Linton on December 2 1998,from Mr David Packham, a former CSIRO bushfire scientist of around 40 years standing. I quote from page 44:45. Tanker protection systems
There is considerable literature and interest in tanker protection systems for burn overs. A visit was made to inspect the NSW tanker protections and it is hard to escape the conclusion that the CFA tankers are inadequate in their safety features. Heat shields that rely upon the thermal properties of polyester resins (plastic and fibreglass) are probably safe up to a radiant impact of about 8 kilowatts per square meter. Previous studies of radiation in fires suggest that design safety thermal loads of 100 kilowatts per square meter are required.
He has listed the references here. It continues:
Recent US experiments are suggesting loads of up to 170 kilowatts per square meter. An estimate made in this report suggest loads of 28 kilowatts per square meter for this fire.
Under these loads the fibreglass shields are not only ineffective but also dangerous, as they now become a very effective fuel. Empty fibreglass tanks add to the risk. The plastic content of the shields and tankers make up a secondary fuel load that once ignited would insure little survivability for any crew who escaped the initial radiation from the wild fire.
Unprotected tyres without cooling sprays also greatly decreases the survivability of the current design of tankers. Crew protection in the bus shelter behind the cabinet is most unlikely to be effective in a severe fire.Reliance on hand held sprays for radiation and cooling protection is primitive and uncertain. Simple woollen blankets are helpful but heat reflective properties are required.
The inability to put up heat screens to protect window glass is also a weakness in current tanker design. Then there is the heading ‘Recommendations’ at page 51. I have the list of recommendations too, I might add.
Recommendation 43 states:
Fire units to have their heat shields immediately abandon fibreglass heat shields immediately and replace them with aluminium or other suitable metal and to have a program of replacing fibreglass water tanks within the next three years. Fire tankers to have a water spray system with at least 200 litre of dedicated water fitted within the next three years. Water sprays to protect tyres to be installed immediately. Heat reflective curtains and the removal of toxic plastic from units to be investigated immediately.
Recommendation 44 states:
Improved woollen blankets, with reflective properties to be investigated, developed and provided within one year. The use of balaclavas as now issued in NSW be adopted immediately.
Recommendation 45 states:
Large tankers not to be used in forest areas off unformed roads and the CFA to consider the provision of faster, lighter tankers to improve their operating range and speed of response in first attack.
My letter to the minister continues:
Along with other Brigade members we have burnt a sheet of fibreglass (much of our tanker is made from this) and have been utterly horrified with the flammability.
That is an understatement too, ladies and gentlemen.
The letter continues:
I have taped David Packham being interviewed on radio 3GG several times and spoke to him, he is one of the most credible people on bushfires I am aware of. He did not supply any of the above material and it would appear he has been legally gagged from warning about what happened at Linton .
I have studied media photographs of the Linton tragedy and noted the burnt out CFA tanker from a fire with an intensity such that it left the leaf canopy intact, even on small trees.
I have noted the disturbing comments from the surviving fire fighters quoted in the media that the CFA tanker was burning even during the short time the wildfire was going through.
It looks to me, Minister, that the CFA fire fighters who died on the truck at Linton were incinerated not from the wildfire but the design and construction of the CFA fire truck with over a tonne of plastics, which has not been rectified since you have became Minister.
It is most concerning to me as a CFA Brigade Captain, that if this quoted material came from the suppressed Packham Report, I could be up for “Contempt Of Court” for passing this information on to my Brigade members and “Industrial Manslaughter” for not passing a serious safety concern on. I would hope you appreciate, Minister, that I do have a strong personal concern for the safety and well being for CFA crew members, and hope you do.
On June 20 this year during an interview on Radio 3GG, Minister, you said: The Coroner has the right to intervene in any fire that he sees fit and investigate what in fact occurred and he has been kept very closely informed by the Emergency Services Commissioner right throughout the fires this summer and is keeping a very close eye on the inquiry that is taking place by the Emergency Services Commissioner. If the Coroner deems fit at any stage to intervene—he’s entitled to do so, but by all accounts he seems pretty happy with the way this inquiry is being conducted and has no major issues in the way the fires or the emergency back in January and February was dealt with.
I do not get any comfort to learn that the Coroner is being informed by the Emergency Services Commissioner, essentially investigating his own performance and the performance of his department with almost none of the accepted criteria for a proper inquiry. I also note your comments that the Federal Inquiry with much of the criteria for a proper public inquiry is political Star Chamber exercise.
I ask the following questions:
(1)Is the material from David Packham I quoted from the report suppressed by the Victorian State Coroner, from the Linton Inquiry, and if so why did the relevant agencies, CFA and DNRE, fight to have a serious tanker safety issue that a Coroner is supposed to expose—suppressed?
(2) If this is from the suppressed Packham Report, what protection do I have as a Captain from “Contempt Of Court” using this information to warn Brigade members that our CFA tanker is likely to be an utter death trap if caught in a burn over?
(3)What is going to be done to rectify CFA fire tankers that appear to me to be highly flammable mobile coffins?
(4)Who is allowing CFA tankers to remain in use with these safety concerns and will they be charged with “Industrial Manslaughter” over the failure to rectify these problems with any future Linton type deaths?
(5)Is safety concerns for CFA tankers the reason why they were removed from the Cowangie Brigade before the Big
Dessert fire entered farmland? This left the Brigade to fight the fire with private appliances and farm utilities with water tanks on the back. Is failure to address truck safety a reason why any of the cases where CFA tankers did not turn up, or were withdrawn from protecting farms and homes with the 2003 fires?
(6)What monitoring and accounting is there of the CFA, as it is noted that there was very serious problems with the National Safety Council for some time before the deficiencies in the organisation were exposed?
I would appreciate a prompt response to this letter, Minister, as the safety of my Brigade members is of considerable concern to me.
Yours sincerely,
L. Ralph Barraclough,
Captain Licola Fire Brigade.
I would like to give honourable members six copies of this letter. Unfortunately, I am not a man of great means; I am only a pensioner. I wanted to give you colour photos. On the front side, this is a photograph of the tanker that the people in Linton died in. I ask you to note the overhanging canopy of trees. It would appear to be almost untouched from this. I ask you to note the size of the small trees, which had three- and four-inch trunks. I also ask you to note on the back a DSE tanker made out of steel. They have not made a great deal of noise about it. I believe this photograph was taken on Mount Selwyn. I am also led to believe that they lost two of these tankers. I do not know what the other one looks like. I ask the honourable gentlemen here to take considerable note of the differences in the burn-outs of these two vehicles.
I have another letter here to the Hon. Mr Steve Bracks, basically bringing him up to date with the serious lack of burning et cetera. I can give you that in a minute. The photograph of the DSE tanker was taken by my brother and personally given to me. This photocopy you have was taken out of a copy of the Melbourne Age. I also have other copies of similar photographs from the Herald Sun. This one is taken from the Melbourne Age of 12 January 2002.
CHAIR
Thank you for that information.
Mr Barraclough
I do not know if this is the suppressed report. I have had a lot of trouble
getting these from people. They have been scared shitless to give me these things because of
contempt of court. That is the document. I do not know if that is the suppressed document. If that
document is suppressed, I would urge you to have a federal royal commission into the coroner’s
investigation into Linton because, as a captain of a fire brigade, I am not being told of the
flammable nature of these tankers. If anybody wishes to doubt how much fibreglass burns, I will
do a demonstration for you right now.
CHAIR
We don’t need to do that.
Mr Barraclough
I can assure you there would be flames coming that high off this stuff.
What they call the fire refuge has roofing sections made out of it. I will be doing this outside
afterwards and you can look at it. It is frightening. Our brigade members were just horrified
when they saw what happens.
CHAIR
Okay. Thanks, Mr Barraclough. With this document, you said that people were
concerned that there may be some contempt of court issues. We will look at it. It may have to be
accepted as a confidential document. But we will make that decision.
Mr Barraclough
That was in the public arena for brigade safety. We have had a burn over
at Licola.
CHAIR
You mentioned people were concerned about providing you with the document.
Mr Barraclough
Yes, absolutely.
CHAIR
But it is a public document?
Mr Barraclough
No. I do not know. I suspect that is a document that is legally suppressed
by the state coroner. If that is the case, I think there should be a royal commission into this
bloody Linton tragedy.
CHAIR
We will have a look at that first before we utilise it further.
Mr Barraclough
I would like to give you a couple of other things. This is a letter to the
newspaper by one of the people that ended up on the so-called expert inquiry into the return of
cattle grazing after the fire. There is my reply to the letter. There is a letter from one of the
professors at Melbourne University supporting what this gentleman said and the subsequent
testimony of a fellow to the 1939 inquiry, which clearly states that they burnt the areas where
these two so-called scientific people claim they did not.
I would also like to give you two copies of this photo. It notes that ‘the inquiry, which resumes on Monday, has also heard claims from the Wilderness Society that cattle grazing should be withdrawn from the high plains to reduce fire hazard. Cattle created bare ground in grass areas, allowing shrubs, one of the most flammable plants of the alpine region, to establish themselves, the Wilderness Society said’. There is also a statutory declaration, which is material you have in my submission. It backs that up. They are quoting monitoring plots on Bogong. This is a monitoring plot. There is the notice on the fence there. The vegetation they say cattle grazing encourages is basically out of control inside the monitoring plot and stops where cattle grazing starts.
CHAIR
Let me make it clear. Are you saying that the photos demonstrate the complete
reverse of what the committee found?
Mr Barraclough
The environmentalist groups, the so-called scientists that the Bracks
government is using. What I am saying there in the statutory declaration is very blunt. I will read
the last section of the statutory declaration for you:
Over the years I have noted disturbing trend by ecologists, environment groups and like-minded people to substitute fantasy for science. I suspect the whole basis of their profession (ecologists) is so flawed that this has become an almost accepted practice by many of them to maintain their theories. These are theories that I believe overall seriously threaten the safety and wellbeing of rural communities from bushfires in the very environment they are trying to protect and save.
CHAIR
Thank you for that as well.
Mr Barraclough
I would like to give the committee these two photographs. These basically
show regrowth. We believe it is from the 1939 fires. It was killed in the 1998 Caledonia fire. You
can see the small size of the snow gums. These are snow gums that I mentioned in the
submission were killed in the top of Charlie’s country. I believe they were killed. I will show you
photographs of rock fracturing. I do not have it. I did not bring it. These were killed in the areas
where there were rocks fractured and so forth. There is no record of fracturing from a previous
fire. These trees are hundreds and hundreds of years old. They are growing in an area where
trees after the 1939 fire are just so sick. These are over a metre through.
This one here shows what I am talking about—the ancient single-trunk snow gums. I believe trees like this were most likely growing before 1770. This is the very sort of vegetation they want to preserve with policies that virtually ensure their destruction. These are trees that grew after the 1939 fire or thereabouts. Can you see the difference? These are multi-trunk trees. These old ones are ancient trees. If the Aboriginal burning were as haphazard and as slapdash as they would have us believe, I want to know where these ancient multi-trunk snow gums are. I have been looking for them and I have not been able to find one ancient tree the same as these new ones that we are seeing. I am not saying they are not there but I have looked for years and I have not been able to find them. You will also see where the fire stopped along this boundary fence. This was grazed three times in 10 years. This one was grazed every year but that still did not have enough cattle on it to stop the job. I gave you the Bracks letter, didn’t I?
CHAIR
Yes.
Mr Barraclough
That is the end of my presentation.
CHAIR
Thank you, Mr Barraclough. The information you have provided to us is very
useful. I assume that you will be taking these matters up with the Victorian government further
as well. Can I ask in that respect whether you have made a similar submission to the Victorian
inquiry?
Mr Barraclough
Yes, I made a submission to the Victorian inquiry which is almost
identical to yours apart from the fact that I tacked a couple of pieces in there saying that I did not
think much of the way the Victorian government was going about it. I have also said I cannot
remember where I put it in that submission that I considered it a cover-up inquiry. I was very
critical of the way they were going about it. But it is almost identical to the one I gave you.
CHAIR
What has been the consequence of that submission? Have you heard back from the
inquiry at all?
Mr Barraclough
I had an acknowledgement back from Mr Esplin’s office that they have it.
I have had nothing more than that.
CHAIR
But there have been no public hearings of that inquiry in this region at all?
Mr Barraclough
There have been none in Licola. I live quite a considerable way away from
here. We were not actually burnt out in this fire. We were threatened by it, much to our
amazement, because we thought we were very safe. We had never heard of a fire travelling west
the way this thing did before. It should not happen either.
CHAIR
In your recommendations, which are in the last part of your submission, you talk
about a major review needed for the two agencies, Parks Victoria and the DSE. You talk about
the management of crown and public land. Do you believe that there ought to be one
organisation that is responsible for fire suppression and fire prevention across the board?
Mr Barraclough
It is a real problem with this. The problem is that we just feel so unsafe with the DSE and Parks Victoria from what we saw with the Caledonia fire. All the feedback I have had with this fire is that our fire brigade is basically going into a mode where we have a secret fire plan so we can try to defend ourselves. We consider ourselves more at risk from the
firefighting effort that the DSE or Parks Victoria are in charge of than we do from the actual
bushfire. I know that is a horrible thing to say, but we have never been burnt out at Licola. There
have been places burnt out there. But we have never lost an occupied house at Licola since 1863.
If they put these people in charge of us, which it looks as though they can do, this is an
incredibly frightening thing to us. But overall, yes, there should be a competent overall body in
charge of the whole lot. But I stress the word ‘competent’, and it should have local knowledge.
CHAIR
Is the CFA the organisation that should have that overall control, do you think?
Mr Barraclough
I believe the CFA is considerably better than the DSE and certainly Parks
Victoria. There should be overall one competent body. I am very worried that they are going to
end up with a National Safety Council type organisation out of all of this. That frightens me
enormously. I do not see any of the problems that should have been rectified after the Caledonia
fire, after this fire, being rectified at Licola.
Mr HAWKER
Mr Barraclough, thank you for your very detailed submission. You make a
number of points about the Caledonia fire in 1998. You talk about inaccurate and untruthful
information. You talk about the people being gagged.
Mr Barraclough
Gagged?
Mr HAWKER
Gagged. You talked about a group officer, John O’Brien. Is that right?
Mr Barraclough
He gagged me.
Mr HAWKER
He has gagged you, sorry. You were gagged.
Mr Barraclough
I was gagged. I do not know exactly. He got up at a meeting saying how
he stopped the media from commenting on what was going on at Licola. He essentially gagged
me. Our prime defence is trying to expose what is going on and what they are doing to us.
Mr HAWKER
You also made the comment, ‘When the fire got out of control, thoroughly
inaccurate and misleading information was given to the public to try and conceal a raging
bushfire in the alpine national park.’
Mr Barraclough
You are spot-on. That is exactly what happened. We damned near lost our
tanker and crew driving into a fire that Parks and DSE were evacuating from. We had a burnover.
We could have very well had a Linton type thing there. Not only that but they stopped the
CFA communications caravan from setting up at Licola. They would not give them power at
Licola. Licola is an area with appalling communications.
Mr HAWKER
There is one other point that you made:
The only thing that appeared to have been done well during the fire was the manipulation of ABC radio into reporting what a good jobs Parks/DNRE had done.
Mr Barraclough
Absolutely.
Mr HAWKER
I am just wondering whether you would have any comment about this year’s
fires along those lines.
Mr Barraclough
Well, I have to stress that I was not actually at this year’s fires but, yes,
with respect to the reporting over the radio, while you had people like Mark debate Bono on the
ground doing quite a reasonable job, there were also very serious problems with what was
coming over the radio. An example of this is where you had a fire I think it was around Mount
Selwyn which was over the dividing range in another area. The stuff that was coming over that
we were getting was from the south of the divide, whereas this area to the north of the divide had
the potential to just come down and burn the whole lot out. Now until I sent out an email, I was
walking out to Mount Howitt which was a 12-hour round trip for me from Licola because we
do not trust any information up there to see what was happening for myself. I was getting
feedback from the people in the north-east. That is certainly one incident where they were being
told that the problem was in hand and so forth. I had very grave concerns about this fire. That is
one specific example. Once I sent that email out, and I sent it to the media, it was rectified within
about two hours.
Mr HAWKER
Thanks.
Mr SCHULTZ
Mr Barraclough, in your submission under the heading ‘Section 3 Lead-up
and 2003 fires’ you make some comments that I would like you to elaborate on, if you would not
mind. In the first paragraph under the heading ‘Preparedness’, you in part state:
We knew from five years previously that the DSE’s firefighting effort could pose more risk than most bushfires would. We were also aware most of the CFA career officers knew far too little of what might confront us or how to successfully combat it. We were also acutely aware that both these groups had a poor opinion of us and our concerns. It was for these reasons we kept our fire plan secret. Would you like to elaborate to the inquiry on what you were talking about in some detail there. What plan are you referring to keeping secret?
Mr Barraclough
Okay. They gave us a plan at Licola. I would have given you the dates in
there when that happened. That fire would have come in to us from the north or north-east. It
would have come over Mount Howitt or somewhere over up the Moroka. Now in all honesty, I
will not use the language we used, you could spit on it and bloody well put the thing out. It was
not a serious threat. You could burn back off the Macalister River and you could put it out. But
their plans were to put a firebreak to the west of us and burn back from the west when the fire
was coming in from the east, which put us as the meat in the sandwich, and a pretty hot meat it
would be, I might add. So we rejected that plan and told them to come back with something
better.
To this day, I have never had a reply to the letter from the DSE. Of course, I sent this to the media because that is the only protection we have got. The only media that picked up on it was the Stock and Land. I cannot say how grateful I am to the Stock and Land. They had to pester and pester the DSE. Eventually, David Tainsh said, ‘Look, there are 12 fallback positions between the fire and Licola.’ In other words, ‘What are they worried about?’ I would like to know where these 12 fallback positions are. Certainly Howitt Road was a fallback position but the fuel build-up in the snowgrass there is such that I would suggest it could be as high as five to six times the volume of the extreme category. I will enlarge on that. It is the extreme category on the scale of where we measure fuel loads. I am accredited to do that. You poke down a ruler and measure the height.
If you have double the volume, you will get a fire of approximately four times the intensity. If you have four times the volume, you are looking at a fire of approximately six times the intensity. There would be very little of that country out there that would not be four times the volume of fuel. Most of it, I imagine, would be between four and six times. That is one of the places they planned to have a fallback position.
The only other one I could think of would be some tracks out around Mount Selwyn. They were not having any success holding the fire out there. It was a fallback. The fire comes through. Here is our next fallback position. There is a walking track which is about that wide and overgrown. If they could not burn back from the Macalister River, how the hell were they going to burn back from a bloody walking track? There are probably one or two jeep tracks in the Caledonia, which is closing the stable door after the horse has gone. We still have a way to go before we are up to 12.
I do not want to be too critical of the CFA because it comes down to individual people there. I have got a lot of respect for the area manager, Ian Symonds. I have tremendous respect for our previous regional officer. I hardly know the new regional officer. We had people coming up supposedly advising on safety at Licola telling us not to worry about fibreglass roofing sections and what they are calling a fire refuge for up to 250 kids and however many tourists come in there. They were telling them I have documented this in a statutory declaration ‘Don’t worry about the water supply coming down there in a fire. Polypipe won’t burn if it’s full of water.’ There is a bit of polypipe. This is the opinion of their experts. Kevin Higgins’s place brought water supply down. It was full of water in the Caledonia fire. I can get a land rover load of this. It does not look too good to me. I am not an expert on polypipe.
Mr SCHULTZ
Can we just get back to the comment you made in your submission: ‘It was for these reasons we kept our fire plan secret.’
Mr Barraclough
Yes, okay. We were noting how they were not letting people burn back.
When they held the brigade meeting up there I am leaving out the bad language they had
very little to say. They were not prepared to have an incompetent bunch like this lot burning us
all out because we are not accustomed to being burnt out. There are three areas up there. One is a
wind tunnel. It is going to be bloody hot in there. It is farmland. It was burnt out in 1938, not
1939. We knew exactly what happened in there. We decided that we would have our own plan.
After two weeks I did nothing but make up drip torches. I do not have to tell them up there. They
know how to use drip torches. We had drip torches with everybody I trusted up there. You cannot
just give one of these things to somebody that does not know what they are doing. But some of
these families have been there since the 1860s.
Mr SCHULTZ
So to protect life and property you used locals with local knowledge to do
back-burns that were not approved by the DSE
Mr Barraclough
No. We did not do them. We were preparing to do them.
Mr SCHULTZ
So you were preparing to do them in the interests of saving lives and
property in the community?
Mr Barraclough
Yes, absolutely.
Mr SCHULTZ
Because the DSE had a history of not listening to or acting upon
Mr Barraclough
And stopping people from doing the very things that needed to be done. I
mean, we were learning this from people up in the north-east. There is also a very serious
concern. I have brigade people asking me on a regular basis, ‘Does the government have a
deliberate policy here to burn us out so they can get rid of us and make the whole area a national
park?’ I have no answer to that. I really do not know if that is the case. But if it is, if they do
want to get rid of us and make the area a national park, they have a bloody good policy to
achieve it.
Mr SCHULTZ
Thank you for that. I now move to paragraph 3 of your submission under section 3 headed ‘Lead-up and 2003 fires’ where you say: For years, the DSE had concentrated its efforts around the gravy train that followed large fires with a policy of throwing money at the fire until it rained. This was propped up with and I just want you to think very carefully about this - careful media spin-doctoring and scathing attacks on anyone trying to expose the truth. Would you like to elaborate on those two sentences? There is one relating to the DSE
concentrating its efforts around the gravy train that followed large fires. I presume that that is
when an emergency situation is called which triggers an amount of money. Could you also
elaborate for this inquiry’s benefit on your statement that this was propped up with careful media
spin-doctoring and scathing attacks on anyone trying to expose the truth.
P
Mr Barraclough
I have not documented the scathing attacks on me. However, for anybody
listening to the media before they got the upper hand and they started to ignore me because they
did not have any answers, I can assure you that I had more than one or two scathing attacks on
me. When the media rings up and says—and this is what the media people are feeding back to
me ‘We’ve got this story from Ralph Barraclough. What’s your comments?’ the media people
are coming back to me and saying, ‘Look, that fellow’s been discredited.’ Now I do not believe I
have been discredited once. They say, ‘No, we’re not commenting on that.’ They are also just
denying there is a problem. They are also saying that the criticism that I have handed out to them
is harsh and unjustified. I do not believe it is. What was the next one?
Mr SCHULTZ
The first one was with regard to the DSE concentrating its efforts around the
gravy train.
Mr Barraclough
Well, you only had to look at what came into Licola. They went for
nothing. They had everything there. There was just money rolling around left, right and centre.
What happened? On 6 January, I think, the local people did a count of them. Out of 600, about
30 of them came in dirty. I have always understood firefighting to be a dirty business.
P
Mr SCHULTZ
Finally, in the same document under the same heading, at the bottom of the
page it says: The information blackout and misleading information about what was going on at the beginning of a fire burning in from the National Park was also a big worry. Would you like to acquaint the committee with what you were referring to there?
Mr Barraclough
Absolutely. They were broadcasting messages over ABC Radio—I mean,
where else—saying that private property was not being threatened when private property, from
what I have been able to find out, was actually burning. This about 10 or 10.30 in the morning
on 2 January 1998. They were also saying that the fire they expected on 2 January would be
contained in the Caledonia Valley when they were fighting that fire approximately 10 miles
outside the Caledonia Valley somewhere between two and three o’clock the previous day. That
was the DSE people. I want to say that this information, while it was a damned nuisance it was
certainly a damned nuisance to people that did not know what was going on—to us personally,
we had seen very rapidly when we saw what was going on that we needed to have our own
information line. We did not have it quite organised at that stage. For us at Licola it was a
damned nuisance. For the actual people out there threatened by it, they had been in the bush all
their lives. It did not put them at great risk at all. It was a bloody nuisance for us as a fire
brigade, but not for the actual land-holders on the ground. They were able to work out for
themselves what was going on, and nobody would believe those buggers anyway.
Mr SCHULTZ
So could the inquiry deduce from what you have just told us that the reason
you were quoting these historical happenings from 1998 to 2003 was to illustrate the point that
the culture you were concerned about with regard to DSE and other government agencies has not
changed?
Mr Barraclough
I think John Scales’s submission adequately sums that up. With respect to
this little fire, 10,000 hectares was the wording in the submission.
Mr McARTHUR
I require just a couple of brief answers. Some of the material has been
dealt with. Is the Licola fire brigade happy with your submission? Do they support what you are
saying in that?
Mr Barraclough
It has been read by not all members but members of the fire brigade. We
set up a committee because there is so much of this stuff going out. I asked that a committee be
set up to vet the material that I was sending out. They set this committee up. It has been running
for quite some time.
Mr McARTHUR
So with respect to your fairly lengthy document, the Licola fire brigade
agrees with the comments you made in that?
Mr Barraclough
The committee that has read that has agreed with that.
Mr McARTHUR
So it is a genuine position of the Licola fire brigade?
Mr Barraclough
I would hope so. I do not believe I would have any trouble getting a motion of support for that document whatsoever.
Mr McARTHUR
People have read it and they have not commented adversely on the
material you are putting forward?
Mr Barraclough
Not one solitary thing. I would not be interested in putting anything in a
submission where brigade members were commenting adversely on it. It does not mean to say
that that is not liable to happen, but, no
.
Mr McARTHUR
Thank you. It is just proving the bona fide nature of the document. I also
notice that you were an environmentalist in the Franklin Dam era. So you do have
Mr Barraclough
And I have been associated with the bushwalking industry for over 30
years now. I am very proud of it.
Mr McARTHUR
So you are a committed environmentalist?
Mr Barraclough
Absolutely.
Mr McARTHUR
You talk about three recommendations. There is the great alpine fire
fiasco in 2002. I will run through them quickly. You have covered a couple of these things.
You state:
In 1998 and again in 2003 Parks/DSE were completely incapable of fighting a large fire in the environment created with excessive fuel in a National Park.
So you are referring to two things: excessive fuel and that they were incapable of fighting a fire.
Could you give a quick comment on those two things. They are pretty strong recommendations.
Mr Barraclough
What exactly do you want me to comment on?
Mr McARTHUR
You are saying there was an excessive build-up in the park.
Mr Barraclough
A frightening build-up.
Mr McARTHUR
And they were incapable of fighting the fire. That is what you are
suggesting.
Mr Barraclough
Yes, incapable of fighting the fire in that environment with the way they
go about it. Yes, I think that has been more than adequately demonstrated.
Mr McARTHUR
In the second one you talk about the information blackout. You have
answered other members on the panel about that. In the third one, you suggest that in 1998 and
2003 Parks and DSE were not extinguishing fires when this should have happened. Are you
saying that they should have put the fires out in the first instance and they could have done that?
Mr Barraclough
With the Caledonia fire, it is common knowledge that they were not trying
to put that fire out. I was not there, but I have had person after person on the ground from the
department, bulldozer drivers and contractors, telling me that they do not believe they were
trying to put that Caledonia fire out.
Mr McARTHUR
What was the rationale for not putting the fire out?
Mr Barraclough—You would have to ask them that. But I do note that within a handful of
days there was a very well-oiled plan in place for getting rid of cattle grazing and any group they
disliked out of the park. God, they put that plan together very fast.
Mr McARTHUR
Let’s go back to the first 48 hours of the fire. Are you saying there is
pretty good evidence that people did not aggressively try and put the fire out?
Mr Barraclough
I am being told repeatedly by people from the department and contractors
that were there at the time that they do not believe they were trying to put that fire out.
Mr McARTHUR
What would have been your experience as the fire captain of Licola?
What would you have done with a lightning strike or an early fire outcome?
Mr Barraclough
I would not have stuffed around trying to keep a bulldozer out of there for
hours on end for environmental reasons. I certainly would not have been trying to have bulldozer
drivers trying to remove the leaf mould and just sticks off the ground but not put their blade into
the soil. This got away, I believe, because they would not allow a bulldozer to go into a riparian
zone, which is the thickets along creeks, to just put a firebreak in there. It was absolute bungling.
They had a government bulldozer sitting up around Mount Tamboritha for hours and hours
before they were allowed to go down there. The first bulldozer, I am told, to arrive there—there
is just a little bit of doubt about this—was a bulldozer driven by Document O’Doherty, owned
by John Elliott. It got there at about two o’clock in the morning.
Mr McARTHUR
Thank you.
Mr HAWKER
In your submission, you talk about water pollution. This is back on the Caledonian fire. You followed up on a political basis with Minister Garbutt. You state:
Minister Garbutt has also said (when in opposition) in a letter (3 June 1999), As you would know, I have written several letters to the Minister for Conservation and Land Management (Marie Tehan) and raised this issue in Parliament, and I have not received a satisfactory reply either.”
Then you go on to say: After repeated attempts to find the Hansard record and repeated requests to Minister Garbutt for the Hansard references, she admitted in a letter (11 Asia-Pacific region 2000), “When I wrote to you earlier last year it was my intention to raise these matters in Parliament. Unfortunately, the opportunity did not subsequently arise. I apologise for any subsequent confusion on your part.” What was the confusion on your part?
Mr Barraclough
The only confusion I could possibly have is believing that she had brought
it up in parliament, which she had not. I can assure you that, after dealing with a minister who
had asked me to stop faxing the health concerns of women and children suffering serious
problems from being burnt and so forth, none of this surprised me whatsoever.
Mr HAWKER
Thank you.
CHAIR
Mr Barraclough, thank you very much for your evidence today, your submission
and the additional information you have provided to us. It is very valuable evidence for our
inquiry.
Mr Barraclough
Thank you, gentlemen. I really do want to say how much I appreciate this.
It is far better seeing a thing like this going on than all this coming up within litigation, because
it has to come out in the open and this is a much better way to see it happen. I congratulate you,
and I congratulate you on the way you have conducted this.
CHAIR
Thanks very much. We will have a short break for a cup of tea. We will then have
the open forum. There are a number of people who have their name down for that.
Proceedings suspended from 10.44 a.m. to 10.57 a.m.