Victoria’s premier has vowed to request a formal review of the state’s disastrous bushfire season, to be led by an independent disaster advisory body.
The announcement follows days of pressure on senior government figures over issues such as the state’s bushfire preparedness, the state of the Country Fire Authority’s (CFA) firefighting equipment and the agency’s resourcing.
Angry residents also flocked to the site of a government press conference in central Victoria on Tuesday, demanding to ask questions of the premier.
Late on Thursday, Premier Jacinta Allan said her government would request the Inspector General for Emergency Management (IGEM) hold a formal review into the disaster once the fire risk had subsided.
“These fires have caused immense heartbreak across Victoria, and we are standing alongside affected communities as they begin the difficult task of rebuilding their lives and livelihoods,” she said in a statement.
“When communities are hurting, our focus must be on recovery and support.
“We are not out of the woods yet with high-risk fire danger days ahead.
“Once the risk is reduced, we will request a formal review into this bushfire season led by the Inspector General for Emergeny Management, not politicians.”
Multiple communities across the state were evacuated as crews battled out-of-control blazes fuelled by catastrophic conditions last Friday.
The bushfires, some of which have now been burning for more than a week, have so far scorched more than 400,000 hectares of the state.
Tens of thousands of livestock and 900 structures — including about 260 homes — have been lost to the blazes, and one person has died.
Firefighters pushed for upper house inquiry
The premier’s announcement followed pressure from groups including the United Firefighters Union (UFU) to hold an inquiry into the bushfires.
In a joint statement, the UFU, CFA Volunteers Group and Across Victoria Alliance (AVA) said the scale of the devastation had been foreseeable and preventable.
The groups called for an inquiry in state parliament’s upper house, saying years of under-investment in Victorian fire services by the Labor government had left communities with aging fire trucks and bushland overgrown with grasses.
“These fires have exposed deep and longstanding failures by the Allan Labor Government to properly fund and resource both career and volunteer firefighters, resulting in career and volunteer firefighters being placed in unnecessary risk in their endeavours to save life and protect property,” they said.
They say private firefighting units had to help CFA and Forest Fire Management crews battle the blazes.
The UFU is locked in a long-running and bitter EBA dispute with the state government.
The CFA Volunteers Group is not affiliated with or endorsed by the CFA and has been fighting the controversial Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund.
The AVA is made up of 27 landholders and farmer groups and has been involved in farmer protests against land access by government workers and other government policies.
On Monday, the CFA disputed claims that funding had been cut and that its volunteers and brigades were not prepared for the fire season.
CFA Chief Fire Officer Jason Heffernan also defended authorities’ response to the fires on Wednesday, saying conditions had made it impossible for firefighters to do more.
“Fires were not stoppable if you did not put the fire out in the very early, incipient phases of those fires,” he said.
Media attention has also turned to the agency’s most recent annual report, which could contain detailed financial information but is yet to see the light of day.
Emergency Services Minister Vicki Ward on Thursday said steps were being taken to table the report outside of a parliamentary sitting as calls grew for its release.
“My focus is on the people of Victoria, those people who have experienced such trauma in less than a week, the fires that they’ve experienced, the noise, the intensity, the fear, the worry,” she said.
The IGEM was established in 2014 to oversee the state’s emergency processes.
The independent agency undertakes reviews and uses evidence-based information to improve the state’s emergency responses, according to its website.
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