After the great Victorian bush fires of 1939...did we have climate change back then or just fires??
Anyway with Morrison mooting Royal Commission to investigate, aka, push it down the road, a quick check shows that many of the Recommendations 1939 Inquiry have yet to be implemented. Due to lack of political will, eg, Cost and/or it might upset some section of the vote.
Oh and then the war got in the way.
Then there were other big fires...there are no small ones here...over the years, the last in 2009.
The resultant 2009 Inquiry came up with most of the same suggestions as the 1939 Inquiry.
10 years on - Nothing!
We have already had countless bushfire inquiries. What good will it do to have another?
The Conversation
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By Kevin Tolhurst
Posted1 day ago, updated1 day ago
Good fire and land management needs to be done with long-term perspective, not a short-term political focus.(Supplied: Gena Dray)
As our country battles the most extensive fires of our lifetime, there are increasing calls for a
royal commission into the states and territories' preparedness and the Federal Government's response to the disaster.
A royal commission has
coercive powers beyond a government inquiry, and the need for one implies there are facts and evidence that would otherwise be "hidden" to an inquiry or review.
Research I've recently conducted with other fire experts has concluded there have been 57 formal public inquiries, reviews and royal commissions related to bushfires and fire management since 1939, most of which are listed
here.
I have given expert evidence to at least seven of them, including the
2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.
That is more than one inquiry every two years in the past 80 years. Do we need yet another?
Previous reviews that went nowhere
Some of the recommendations of the
Stretton Royal Commission following the
Black Friday fires of 1939 have still not been fully implemented.
Many of the recommendations of the
subsequent 56 inquiries have not been fully implemented either, so it raises serious questions about whether another royal commission will offer anything new or compelling.
The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission had a budget of $40 million and ran for about 18 months.(AAP: Andrew Brownbill)
Royal commissions are also expensive and time consuming. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission had a budget of
$40 million and ran for about 18 months.
This cost did not include the very considerable time and resources committed by various government agencies, companies and individuals who prepared and presented evidence to the commission.
When these costs are taken into account, I estimate the total cost of the commission to Victoria would have been much more.
This begs the question as to how money spent on a federal royal commission could be better used to deal with bushfire management across the country.
A comprehensive fire management plan already exists
In response to the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and various other inquiries, fire managers from government agencies in all states
A better way forward
Over the past 20 years or so, the tertiary education for land managers, such as professional foresters and rangers, has been reduced to the level of generic "environmental science". This has largely been due to the politicisation of public land management.
Bushfire science is complex and fire management even more complex, so we need to have highly trained and qualified people managing our parks and forests. Instead, we typically have groups of individual specialists trying to collaborate without the strong leadership and direction such a task requires.
Are hazard reduction burns effective in managing bushfires?
RMIT ABC Fact Check finds the link between planned burns and the risk of dangerous bushfires can be a complicated one.
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We do not expect a physicist or chemist to build a bridge, even though they could provide great detail about the forces acting on it and the metallurgy of the structure.
Instead, we employ engineers. Likewise, we should not expect botanists, zoologists, ecologists or environmental scientists to manage the natural landscape. That, however, is what is happening now
