The history of fire in Australia is matched by an equally rich history of inquiries, recommendations and struggle to implement lasting change. The Stretton royal commission into the 1939 Black Friday bushfires in Victoria established many of the elements of modern, organised fire management. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission resulted in a major shift in policy from “stay and defend” towards evacuation. The NSW parliamentary inquiry into the Christmas 2001 bushfires led to a system of rigorous development control for fire-prone areas that is envied in many parts of the world.
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But many recommendations of such inquiries lie ignored or discarded after failure of implementation, most notably the planned burning (hazard reduction) targets and property buyback schemes recommended by the 2009 royal commission. The bulk of inquiries have been state-focused and restricted in scope and technical capacity. They have largely ignored any analysis of the feasibility of implementation of recommendations.
None has grappled fully with the prospect of adaptation to a world transformed by heat, drought and fire under climate change.
The legacy of past successes and failures and the challenges posed by the future means that any national inquiry must do more than provide political cover for governments and their agencies while the crisis subsides in our collective consciousness.
The terms of reference, scope, duration and technical capacity of any national inquiry will be critical to its ability to deliver a formula that can rise to this challenge and be implemented pragmatically and effectively. To do this, a national inquiry must encompass several critical facets.
First, it must conduct the forensics. This will include formalising the interacting roles of climate change, planning, land tenure and management, fire suppression strategies, tactics and logistics, among many influences on the way the fires started, spread and eventually affected people.
There must be an analysis of losses and transformations to ecosystems, species and environmental services produced by these fires, including the ability of agencies to measure, evaluate and respond to these impacts. The overall successes and failures in our planning, preparedness and response must be honestly evaluated, including the resourcing, funding and structure of fire and land-management institutions.
Second, there must be more than a summary of lessons learned: a feasible and fully costed blueprint for living in a more flammable future must be produced. Difficult questions must be answered, and innovation must be embraced. Many of these questions and ideas have begun to be aired in public discussion. An inquiry must welcome, sift and comprehensively test these ideas.
It must determine the level of risk we may be willing to accept. I must also determine the mix of interventions, the allocation of public and private responsibilities, human and technological capacity, and the costs required to achieve an acceptable level of risk, now and into the future. It must paint a realistic picture of the likely transformation of our unique ecosystems and the role that our choices play in shaping them.
Third, to accomplish these tasks, a national inquiry needs to be supported by a national technical task force that is fit for purpose: fully resourced, supported and drawn from the formidable body of expertise in wide-ranging disciplines in our universities, institutions and other agencies.
Such a task force needs the time, funding and independence to support the work of the inquiry and to objectively evaluate the wealth of information and ideas that stem not only from this crisis but similar experiences before and elsewhere.
A task force of this kind needs national funding and agreements with the institutions, whose experts would need to be seconded. This will be necessary to deliver the kind of independent, focused capacity required to conduct the detailed forensics and develop options for a future blueprint. In the past, inquiries have often relied on the good will of the experts, squeezed in and around the demands of their existing jobs. A national task force will require a dedicated, independent capacity if it is to avoid these limitations.
Scott Morrison has an opportunity to be known not only as the incumbent Prime Minister during our greatest bushfire crisis, but as the leader who guided us towards better co-existence with fire in the future. The way in which he frames and conducts this inquiry will determine his legacy.
Professor Ross Bradstock is director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong’s School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences.
