The world was stunned at the ferocity of the fires that engulfed Victoria on a day that will be seared into our collective memory forever. World leaders expressed their heartfelt sympathy to the victims of the fires and were generous in their offers of aid to help. The Australian community rallied to the cause and dug deep to fill the coffers of the bushfire appeal. Ethnic communities generously donated large sums of money. I am proud to say that students of Port Moresby Grammar School in Papua New Guinea conducted a very successful fundraising campaign for victims. It is indeed a truism that adversity brings out the best in people. In speaking to the motion I pay tribute to members of the emergency services who responded selflessly and heroically to fight against the fires. Men and women, professional and volunteers, young and old, standing side by side in the face of the worst fires in our history, generated enormous pride in our firefighters, police, paramedics, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses, Salvos and all of our community organisations.

I pay particular tribute to my brother Rod, who is a professional firefighter with the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Conservation. Over the years Rod has been in a number of life-threatening situations where he has been isolated on his dozer as fires raged around him. He has required counselling to alleviate the stress caused by those incidents. He, along with his workmates, worked throughout the Victorian fires and many were beginning to feel the strain well before the fires were extinguished. Their work, much of it unsung and unheralded, will continue long after the fires are extinguished. The words “courage”, “mateship”, “sacrifice” and “endurance” are engraved on four granite pillars at the Isurava battle site on the Kokoda Trail. Those same words could be engraved on similar granite pillars at Healsville, Kinglake, Churchill and other towns ravaged by the fires.

Now, as we comb through the ashes of the fires we have to begin the task of review. There is no doubt that such a catastrophic event deserves nothing less than a royal commission, and I congratulate the Victorian Government for acknowledging that fact. I hope that rural people with experience and local knowledge are not denied an opportunity to express their views without fear of retribution. Earlier in the debate my colleague the Hon. Richard Colless provided an analysis of the ingredients and conditions necessary for a bushfire to turn into a devastating crown fire. His knowledge is based on his review of scientific papers and his personal experience. His views are supported by Mr Phil Cheney, a CSIRO scientist and one of our foremost bushfire experts. In his submission to the Australian Capital Territory coronial inquiry into the 2003 bushfire crisis, he referred to Judge Stretton, who wrote in the report of the royal commission that inquired into the 1939 bushfires:

There is one fundamental policy of fire prevention and of protection against fire. There is only one basis upon which that policy can safely rest, namely, the full recognition by each person or department who has dominion over the right to enter the forests of the paramount duty to safeguard the property and the rights of others. No person or department can be allowed to use the forest in such a way as to create a state of danger to others.

According to Cheney, if conformity to that rule cannot be brought about, the offender must be put out of the forest, or, in the case of a public department, its authority curtailed or enlarged so that the rule may be enforced, or voluntarily observed as the case may require.

According to Cheney, land management agencies actually include anyone who manages land, including private citizens, forestry companies, agricultural companies, catchment authorities, absentee landholders and government forestry and park authorities. Each has a core business and fire affects that business in different ways. Fire needs fuel, and fuel determines how far and how fast it will travel, how difficult it will be to round up and stop, and how much havoc and destruction will be wrought if the beast enters one’s property. So it is not just the landholder on whose property the fire starts who is responsible for the damage; all landholders affected contribute to both the spread and damage by the way they manage the fuel on their land. The basic premise is simple enough: if you own the fuel you own the fire.

Another expert, David Packham, a researcher from Monash University’s climatology group who has specialised in bushfires, said that governments had abandoned responsibility for the one control they had over wildfires—the state of the forests that fed the flames. Mr Packham further said:

Due to terribly ill-informed and pretty well outrageous concepts of conservation, we have failed to manage our fuel and our forests. They have become unhealthy, and dangerous

The politicians who willingly accept this rubbish use it to justify the perpetuation of the greatest threat to our forests, water supplies, homes and lives in order to secure a minority green vote. They continue to throw millions (and no doubt soon billions) at ineffective suppression toys, while the few foresters and bush people who know how to manage our public lands are starved of the resources they need to reduce fuel loads.

It is hard for me to see this perversion of public policy and to accept that the folk of the bush have lost their battle to live a safe life in a cared-for rural and forest environment, all because of the environmental fantasies of outraged extremists and latte conservationists.

In a letter to his local paper, the Weekly Times, on 25 January 2009, Mr Packham predicted that Victorians were facing a very critical situation in which 1,000 to 2,000 homes could be lost in the Yarra catchment, the Otways and/or the Strezleckies, that 100 souls could be lost in a most horrible and violent way, and that there was even a threat to Melbourne’s water supply, which could be rendered unusable by the ash and debris. Horrifically, much of this has come to pass—and it was not yet the end of the bushfire season at the time he wrote that article. It was a horrific prediction, but as we now know it erred on the side of caution. The reality of the disaster was actually much worse. Mr Packham’s letter continued:

In the face of this inferno, the perpetrators of this obscenity should have the decency to stand up and say they were wrong. Southeast Australia is the worst place in the world for bushfires, and we must not waste any time in getting down to the task of making our bush healthy and safe.

I believe that hell will freeze over before radical environmentalists in the green movement admit they are wrong in their opposition to fuel reduction in our forests. Despite the views of our scientific experts in bushfire management, governments around Australia continue to allow the views of quack scientists from those misguided ideologues to prevail. Liam Sheahan is a living example of one adversely affected by such irresponsible, misguided and discredited environmental and political quackery. He cleared 200 trees in close proximity to his house as a precaution against bushfire. For this he was prosecuted by his local council and spent more than $100,000 defending his right to protect his family and his property against the inevitable. When the inevitable happened his house was saved while others perished. Those councillors will have blood on their hands for the rest of their lives. They should issue a public apology to Mr Sheahan and provide him with full recompense for the cost of his defence against their misguided prosecution. None of them will, of course. They will go to ground and resurface on taxpayer-funded committees where they will continue to peddle their environmental quackery.

As the ashes cool, as the dead are laid to rest and the task of rebuilding lives and communities begins, we must ensure that dreadful loss of life and property is never forgotten. We must ensure that the royal commission does not become another set of carefully bound documents whose findings will eventually be gelded by bureaucratic inertia and ongoing sabotage by quack environmental scientists in the radical green movement. Before people say that could not possibly happen, let me place the following quote from Mr Phil Cheney of the CSIRO on the record. He said:

The truth was hard to find. Accordingly, it was sometimes sought in other places as I am entitled to do. Much of the evidence was coloured. Much of it was quite false. Little of it was wholly truthful. Some people were afraid that if they gave evidence they would not be given future employment. Departmental officers were, in the main, youngish men of very good character who were afraid that if they were too outspoken, their future advancement in the departments employ would be endangered.

That is not an original quote from Mr Cheney. It was written by Judge Stretton in his report of the royal commission inquiring into the 1939 bushfires—65 years ago! It was quoted by Cheney in his capacity as an expert witness to the Australian Capital Territory coronial inquiry into the 2003 bushfire crisis in the Australian Capital Territory. According to Cheney, the quote had a contemporary and decidedly unhealthy ring about it. Black Saturday has provided chilling evidence that governments in Australia are more concerned with pandering to zealous green environmentalists than they are about protecting people’s lives from the ravages of bushfires. We must ensure it never happens again. I asked by brother Rod what he regarded as the most important action we could take to prevent it ever happening again. He believes that the State needs to appoint a chief fire officer who has the authority to override all other agencies in the planning and execution of a coordinated fuel reduction plan. We can only hope. I congratulate the Hon. Mick Veitch for bringing this notice of condolence before the House.