ex-Mayor Murrindindi submission "too late" for Bushfire inquiry

Lyn Gunter, former mayor of Murrindindi Shire wanted to appraise the bushfire inquiry, the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, of her evidence of problems with the response and recovery processes following the Black Saturday bushfire disaster.

This 6th May 2010 TV news story does not make it clear what her evidence was actually about!!

Ms Gunter was apparently interviewed by inquiry staff, but the prepared document was deemed to have been created "too late" to be accepted, even as a lowly public submission.

IMO, the Commissioners should make an exception for pertinent evidence from someone so intimately engaged with the local recovery efforts, so that the whole Victorian community, an the whole nation's emergency response apparatus at all levels of government can learn from this tragedy.

[The ex-mayor of Murrindindi and "voltscommissar" share a surname, but are not related by blood or marriage as far as she and I can determine]

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Black Saturday
• 2009
• bushfires
• royal
• commission
• manmade
• disaster
• lit by the hand of man
• murrindindi
• mayor
• stretton
• 1939
• Esler
• Barber
• 1977
• Ash Wednesday
• 1983
• electricity
• fires
• Jack
• Rush
• Teague
• Pascoe
• Mcleod

[ROBwithaB]

Brumby has slithered his way out of this one by the seat of his pants.

How can any enquiry be meaningful without including the leadership?

Where does the buck stop?

[ROBwithaB]

From the beginning, this entire enquiry smells of political expediency. They don't really want to find out what happened, because that would entail people having to admit that they made mistakes. Such responsibility for system-wide failures would need to extend all the way up to the state (and possibly even national) government.

But they do need to be seen to be "doing something" and "taking action".

So they'll just draw this whole thing out and keep talking about it until people lose interest.