 Thanks for coming. I'm joined today by Craig Lapsley, Bob Barry and local member Russell North. Today is day 50 of fires in Gippsland, so this has been a long tarfall. The fire in the pitch started on February the 9th. I know that it's been frustrating for the people of Morwell. It's been frustrating for the firefighters and their support team, but it's also frustrating and disappointing that this fire was deliberately lit. The police have had now a number of leads from the community in regards to this deliberately lit fire and we thank the community for coming forward to assist police. I have to say that this has been the most coordinated effort that I've seen from a firefighting effort. DEPI, CFA, Parks Vic and the MFB all contributing to be part of this team to assist in putting out this fire. In addition to this, we've had firefighters coming in from Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Tasmania and South Australia to help the Victorian teams contain this fire backed up by enormous support teams. The Ambos, Red Cross, St John's, they have done an amazing job. The strategies that have been put forward by the Fire Service Commissioner Craig Lapsley and the Fire Chiefs right across the board are slowly starting to work. In fact, the fire is now 85% less than what it was at the peak. So that's great news for the people of Morwell. It's some relief for the firefighters as well that those strategies put in place are now starting to see great results. I think that it's a great tribute to the firefighters and the patience of the people of Morwell to get to this particular point. We will not rest, however, until all of the fire is completely out. We still have some way to go. Today, as you can see, the wind is starting to pick up and today will be one of those telling days. And we hope that with the amount of resources that are part of this firefighting effort that we put in today, we'll ensure that the fire and the wind that's around will be contained. I'll now hand over to Bob Barry to give a brief from the Incident Control Centre. As the Minister has said, today's a very difficult day for us on the line. The wind chains that came through just after 10 this morning will satisfy us slightly, but not too far hopefully. We'll continue to move forward. Our suppression tactics on the ground are working quite well. Our team approach to this incident with the interstate forces as well as our own is working quite well and we should be able to continue to move forward in the weather that we will get over the next few days. But as I said today, we could step backwards a little bit, hopefully not too far because the good work that's been done has actually seized less fire on the ground than what there was at the early stages of this incident. So we'll keep up the good work. We'll continue to move forward. If we can continue to move past the 85%, we'll work towards heaning back to the mine at some stage, the mine faces, particularly the northern and southern banners. The mines are continuing to put water mains in place to support us and as they go in, we can step back from those areas and concentrate on the other hotspots, particularly on the floor of the mine. But there's been fantastic work done by the ground crews today, as I said, from all the states that are involved. Tasmania, New South Wales, ACT, Queensland and South Australia, together with our own MFB, DEPI and CFA have been doing a fantastic effort and not a truer word spoken that this year we work as one. That's it, thank you. Okay, thanks Bob. I think the most important thing is we're not there but we're close and so if tomorrow we'll residents stick with us, the next few days we'll tell the story of when this fire will actually be out. Then I suppose it's about how we support the more well community and clean up and that's still a step away but without a doubt the work that firefighters have done, the morale around our crews is something that's exceptional and it's been well supported by Amlund's Victoria and Victoria Police and other agencies. So it is a true team effort and when you look at what's been brought together in a way in which we've deployed resources but different resources to do different parts of the fire. I don't think that's something that over the next few weeks we'll explain that because it just hasn't been about water, it's been about water and foam, it's been about big trucks, little trucks, it's been about aerial appliances and helicopters, it's been about people on the ground with hose lines so it's deployed all of those things to get to the point we're at. The next few days will be the telling time, we'd like to think that over the weekend we would be able to say this fire is out but it's too early to say that but let's make sure that we give the support to our firefighters that they deserve which we're doing, great teams doing great things. Thank you. Can you give us a bit of an idea of exactly what's going on? There was concern about the southern batters as well as the northern northeastern, where are you at in terms of physically this fire? Well it's still in the northern batters, only a small partner now so that's been reduced and that's been a primary objective of the incident controllers as they come on and off. Bob Barry's the current incident controller been on for the last four days and their key focus in the four days was to reduce the fire in the northern batters. In doing that they've got only a small part now that's very hot that's been worked on today and held due to the which weather conditions. There is more fire and heat in the southern batters and they'll move obviously it's working on it now but we'll move their attention to that shortly to ensure that they secure that as well. So the northern batters has been the key and the reason for the northern batters to be the key is that's the most or the closest part of the mine to the normal community. It's the part of the mine that puts up the most smoke over the community, it's the part of the mine that puts up the most ash over the community and it's the part that normal community can actually see. It's adjacent to the Princess Highway seen by the road and that's been the key initiative is to get the fire out of the northern batters as the first priority working with the southern batters and then extinguishing the southern batters so that's been a plan that's been in place for a number of weeks and the last four days they've been very successful at that. I might go back to Bob for that but I think it's first worthwhile reflecting on last week. Last week we had weather conditions that were hotter but had the wind speeds up to be similar and saw the fire actually increase but also come out of the mine so we had a grass fire running out of the mine. Last night they did experience a small grass fire near the Hazelwood Power Station due to the fact that a good plan in place to have resources around the outer skirts of the mine was able to extinguish that very quickly but it tells you about the dynamics of this of this mine. It's not just about the open cut itself it's about the grasslands that are adjacent to it and also the way in which the mine has rehabilitated some of the land. Actually I might hand it to Bob. As I said the wind chains came in this morning about just after 10 and it's gone round to the west south west which will put the smoke back over the mall community today and that will continue for the rest of the day. The wind strength will stay up until at least six o'clock tonight when they're predicted to abate and hopefully then move into the next few days. In relation to what we've done today we've done significant planning to cater for the wind both the wind change and the top period after. We're actually through the wind change now so the heightened level of preparedness can although we've got to stay on standby where the tension is off us now that the wind changes occur. So the word appears that it will trigger grass fires today. We've had no fires and no escapes from the mine with the wind chains so therefore the threat to the actual power station itself has reduced considerably but we will continue our presence there to make sure we get through the whole day without any without any escapes. It's been a massive firefighting event at the moment. Is firefighter fatigue and people being forced to work as consecutive days becoming more concerned than you guys? Firefighter fatigue is always an issue for us. I'll just stay to game. The number one priority for us at this firefight is the safety of our personnel and the well-being of our personnel from all ages and we're very strong on that. We change our crews out of the mine every two hours so they come out they're medically tested before they go in they work two hours they're medically tested again they rest for two hours they're medically tested before they go back in and then they work another two hours they can only work four rotations so fatigue for them on the on the ground is being managed. For the other people around them fatigue is also being managed from the incident management level right down to the cold base. Is it a growing concern along with a firefight accident? Look we are managing our resources quite well there are certain periods that impact on us greater this weekend is a long weekend so from our perspective there will be an impact in relation to resourcing but we're continuing the fight at the moment it's our focus and we are still a resource to protect the well-being of our personnel. How do you comment on in the hindsight given what you know now I guess but did you underestimate this fire in the very early part of the day in a very early time? No I don't think we did and I'll explain why I think that's it. On the 9th of February we had a fire that ran down the Princess Highway we also had a second fire that started over in Traffill. Both of those fires have not been put pressure on the Hazelwood Mine they put pressure on the Alorn Open Cutting and also APM and also the TNC got more well themselves. So two fires in that sense the resource management from that evening were additional resources were brought in particularly large structural type vehicles that is aerial lines and pumpers from the Dandenong Frankston area was critical and they then went through a process to make sure that we had resources in Open Cutter Hazelwood, Alorn and the APM mine the APM mill. The APM mill was a critical fire in its own right that was we had the potential to lose the mill in totality from what was a fire adjacent to it in wood stocks and wood chips. So you think about that it was a pretty dynamic environment on the 9th, the 10th, the 11th of February and APM was dealt with effectively your lawn open cut took a little bit longer and the fire we believe three fires were in the in the Hazelwood Open Cut as a result of those graphs and those fires. So yeah I think we've done well I've got no doubt in my mind that when we look back we'll understand the fire progression better but as far as resources aircraft support and the resources we put in on Monday Tuesday Wednesday we built the resources for the Trove Valley were quite significant for the fires we had. Should the mines operator have better prepared the lands in between the mine and the power station? I haven't had a look at that yet but they intend to and that will also be part of the government inquiry. We're also doing a short review of what is the fire management and fire prevention and fire protection strategies around open cuts and the adjacent land and we'll complete that and hand that over to the inquiry that the government have announced. I think it's premature for certainly me to make comments on that in the sense that we've been focused on the extinguishing of the fire but we're quite prepared to have a rigorous look at what is the fire prevention fire management around the open cut. A land adjacent to and the provisions of how we do plan. Are you surprised that a month on January 9th the Department of State Development Business and Innovation as part of its one of its compliance meetings actually inspected the mine plan here? I'm not aware of that inspection and that's something that we'll once we've extinguished we'll talk to that government department and understand that too. In terms of resources have we ever seen anything like this in Australia before? I think we've moved to a different level of resources the fact we've got aviation tenders from multiple numbers of airports across southern Australia resources from all neighbouring states including Queensland and we're using specialist people that haven't been used in in brown coal firefighting before so I think we have moved to a new area. I've got no doubt the international eye is on what's happening in normal. We've got interest from right across the world about brand coal firefighting particularly in open cuts and anyone that understands the coal industry brand coal is somewhat different than black coal and it's in particular resonates in Victoria. Any idea what sort of help will be offered to more residents to help clean up their properties? There's a plan being developed now that obviously will present to government shortly and we'll do that with not a latrobe city but government departments to understand what is the cleanup of streets or recreation areas how to support individual households to to get the right equipment and support to clean up it's a critical part for those that have relocated away from all world to come back they need to know how to clean up and that'll be that'll be the emphasis in the next 48 hours. Are you still hoping to contain the fire by the end of the long weekend? I believe we're on track for that I think the the progression of the of the last four days has been extremely successful we just got to be careful of today with the wind we've got that we don't lose ground if we don't lose ground today I think the long weekend will see success of where we where we land with this fire today. Like I said the cleanup plan will be important it's not just about smoke over more well we've got where ash has been deposited across across more it's actually inside houses it's on cars it's in recreation reserves so the cleanup plan will be important to advise people when they should come back and that's something that we've nearly finalized and we've released in the next 48 hours.