13 NEXT STEPS
13.1 The Commission is required to deliver a final report on 31 July 2010. A further 28 weeks of public hearings are scheduled to examine the issues specified in the Commission’s terms of reference.
13.2 The dates that the Commission has tentatively set aside for public hearings are set out below:
Hearing Block 2 — 24 August to 24 September 2009
Hearing Block 3 — 5 October to 5 November 2009
Hearing Block 4 — 16 November to 17 December 2009
Hearing Block 5 — 1 February to 4 March 2010
Hearing Block 6 — 15 March to 1 April 2010
Hearing Block 7 — 12 April to 13 May 2010
13.3 The Commission will normally sit from Monday to Thursday of each week. The Commission’s usual hearing hours will continue to be from 9:30am to 4:30pm, with a lunch recess between 1:00 and 2:00pm.1 Details of the public hearings will be published on the Commission’s website.
13.4 When the Commission resumes hearings on 24 August, its initial focus will be an examination of building standards in bushfire prone areas. This will include matters such as materials used in construction, fire-resistant house features, and designs for building bushfire bunkers.
13.5 It will then hear evidence about the structure and regulation of the electricity industry in Victoria, after which the Commission will then investigate each of the following fires:
• Kilmore East
• Coleraine
• Pomborneit-Weerite
• Horsham
• Beechworth-Mudgegonga
• Murrindindi
• Bunyip
• Churchill
• Bendigo
• Redesdale
• Narre Warren
• Delburn.
13.6 During the forthcoming hearing blocks, time will be set aside to examine progressively the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the 173 people who died in the 2009 Victorian bushfires.
13.7 In this interim report, the Commission makes 51 recommendations, focused on changes that can be implemented prior to the 2009–10 bushfire season. The Commission requests the various authorities and agencies responsible for each recommendation to report back to the Commission about matters raised in this report.
13.8 Specifically, parties are to provide to the Commission:
• an Implementation Plan by 30 September 2009 — being a brief advice setting out the proposed response, allocated responsibilities and schedule to implement a recommendation; and
• a Delivery Report by 31 March 2010 — being a more detailed report on the progress made towards implementig each recommendation and, where appropriate, the outcomes and effectiveness of the response.
13.9 In respect of each recommendation, the Commission is seeking a single report. Where a number of parties are responsible for a recommendation, the Commission would appreciate one party coordinating a single, consolidated report. Further, with respect to Recommendations 6.4 and 8.2, the Commission requests the Municipal Association of Victoria to coordinate the Implementation Plan and Delivery Report, consolidating the responses by relevant individual municipal councils.
13.10 Evidence as to the extent and effect of implementation by parties of the recommendations made in this report will be heard at an appropriate stage during future hearings.
13.11 Other topics the Commission currently plans to address include:
• climate change and fire weather
• psychological trauma among bushfire survivors
• methods for prevention, detection and management of arson
• demographic changes and growth in the rural/urban interface
• land use planning for private land, including vegetation management and defendable space
• public land management, including fuel management, prescribed burning and roadside clearing
• operational and organisational issues for Victoria’s fire agencies, and emergency management generally
• essential services
• insurance
• the economic cost of the fires
• recovery
• education
• terminology for fires
• emergency procedures, such as refuges.
13.12 To complement the public hearing process, some of these topics will be pursued using different methods for obtaining relevant information, including expert panels. The Commission will continue to seek out and receive evidence from researchers and other experts, and further research and analysis being conducted by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre into the 2009 Victorian bushfires will be considered. The Commission will identify priorities for future bushfire research in Australia.
13.13 The overarching focus of the work of the Commission will remain on the protection of human life. Matters to be addressed for the final report are derived from the Commission’s terms of reference. Recommendations to minimise the likelihood of a recurrence of the tragedy of February 7 will be provided to the people of Victoria in memory of family and friends lost to the bushfires.
CLICK FOR IMAGE
footnotes
[1] Practice Note No. 1 [12]