Berejiklian Government bows to National Party slash & burn mentality in its media release but the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry tells another story

In which the NSW Nationals through Deputy-Premier & MLA for Monaro John Barilaro insert into a government media release their dislike of national parks and unexploited Crown land. 

NSW GOVERNMENT, media release, 25 August 2020:

The NSW Government has released the independent NSW Bushfire Inquiry, which examined the causes, preparation and response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires.

All 76 recommendations will be accepted in principle, with further work to be done on specific timelines to give communities assurance that changes will be made to keep them safe.

Any issues not covered in the report that are still relevant to the protection of property and life will also be further examined.

Resilience NSW, led by Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, has been tasked with coordinating and overseeing the implementation of the Inquiry’s recommendations as the government finalises its approach.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian thanked former NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens and Professor Mary O’Kane AC for their hard work on this report.

“The NSW Government has worked in lock-step with the RFS and Resilience NSW to ensure the state is as prepared as it can be to face the next fire season, but the learnings from this Inquiry will help us further improve our preparedness and response,” said Ms Berejiklian.

“The NSW Government has already delivered more than $45 million in additional funding, announced in May 2020, to fast-track hazard reduction and deliver upgrades to our firefighting capability.

“This was a terrible bushfire season and we will look at all the steps we can take, especially in relation to helping people protect their property.”

The findings of the report show that there is an opportunity to strengthen governance and responsibility, which we are in the process of addressing.

The report also acknowledges the significant contribution of both climate change and the vast expanse of the state’s bushland towards these devastating fires.

Deputy Premier John Barilaro said all 76 recommendations in the Inquiry are based on the harsh lessons learnt from the catastrophic bushfires of last summer.

“Last bushfire season was unlike anything we have ever dealt with before and we need a government response to match,” Mr Barilaro said.

“Things like strategic hazard reduction and better land management no matter the tenure are essential when it comes to keeping our communities safe.”

Minister for Police and Emergency Services David Elliott said NSW is more prepared than ever before for the 2020-21 fire season.

“We have already begun implementing the Inquiry’s recommendation to replace and retrofit the fleet, with 120 new trucks and 70 refurbished trucks to be rolled out before the end of the financial year,” Mr Elliott said.

“I would like to thank all our emergency personnel and volunteers who made us all proud over this relentless bushfire season.”

Read the Final Report of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry

Find out about the NSW Bushfire Inquiry and public submissions

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In which the conclusion was reached that when it came to bushfires, precautionary hazard reduction had limited value and, assumed land management practices in national parks and state forests or on private land did not significantly influence whether a fire started or a fire's outcome.

FinalReport of the NSW Bushfire Inquiry, 31 July 2020, excerpts, pp. 49, 52-53, 56:

2.2.2.1 Fuels on different types of land

Another common theme in the feedback to the Inquiry has been that fuel is managed better (or worse) on different types of land, with national parks in particular being criticised for ‘locking up’ land and allowing fuel to accumulate putting other landowners at risk, and that activity such as grazing should have been allowed in the parks to manage fuel loads.

The Research Hub examined this question using the Bees Nest fire in northern NSW as a case study to see whether aspects of fuel structure in forests – in terms of its cover and vertical connectivity – differed between different tenures: conservation estate (national park and State conservation area), State forest and privately owned land. These aspects of fuel cover and vertical connectivity are the factors considered likely to influence the likelihood of high intensity crown fires occurring.

The analysis used airborne LiDAR imagery to look at vegetation cover of the understorey (0.5-5 m height), lower canopy (5-15 m height) and upper canopy (greater than 15 m height).

In summary, this analysis showed that fuel cover and vertical connectivity between fuel levels were similar across different land tenures, and that there was no clear influence from inferred different management practices (for example, logging in State forests or grazing on private land) on the fuel properties of the forests on different land tenures. Therefore, in this case study area in northern NSW, the resultant bush fire hazard may have been similar across land tenure and the forest flammability (represented by measures of fuel structure) did not appear to have been a significantly influenced by different land management regimes.

The Inquiry notes that this work is only one case study and, as noted in the Research Hub’s report, relies on certain assumptions about management practices on the different tenures, and does not exclude the possibility that variations in logging and livestock grazing practices (e.g. different harvesting treatments, stocking rates etc.) could result in different results, or that different forest types might respond differently. However, as an initial case study, this points to some important issues that should be examined further in a more detailed investigation of the information generated from the 2019-20 fires across NSW.

2.2.2.2. Would more hazard reduction have helped?

…..In general, recent bush fires (unplanned fires) appeared to have a greater influence on preventing fire spread than recent prescribed burns, and while some recent prescribed fires had an influence on reducing fire severity, many had no obvious influence on fire severity. These effects are shown for the three case study areas in Figures 2-11, 2-12 and 2-13.

Overall, this work concluded that prescribed burns can reduce the severity of subsequent bush fires. However, “this effect is less than that of wildfires, it is short lived, and it is less effective under severe fire weather conditions”, findings that are consistent with much of the available literature…..

Another important question is whether fuel load or age had an impact on the number of successful ignitions. Certainly, dryness had an impact on the efficiency of ignitions by lightning (i.e. many lightning strikes resulted in ignitions because the fuel was so dry).

While this question cannot be answered with certainty for the 2019-20 season, research by Penman, Bradstock and Price (2013)123 on the Sydney basin found that, on days of Severe or Extreme fire risk, with a Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI)124 value greater than 50, the likelihood of ignition in younger fuels (recently burnt areas) is still high. This work found that fuel reduction is likely to influence lightning ignitions on days with low values of the FFDI – however, it notes that days with low FFDI values are not the conditions when large, serious bush fires tend to occur.
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Court of Appeal rejects Adani's application to search an activist's home & Supreme Court orders Adani to pay $106.8 million to four companies - in part due to its own "serious dishonesty"

ABC News, 27 August 2020:

Mining company Adani secretly sought to raid the Brisbane home of an activist to seize evidence but failed twice, court documents have revealed.

Adani and its Carmichael Rail Network applied for a search order, known as an Anton Piller order, against Benjamin Pennings in June this year.

It claimed Mr Pennings had possession of "confidential information on a computer at his home" which was being used in a concerted campaign of "intimidation and conspiracy" against the Galilee Basin coal project.

As part of the application, Adani claimed Mr Pennings had information to which only company executives and other select staff and contractors had access.

Anton Piller orders are searches carried out without notice to the defendant to ensure that evidence cannot be destroyed and is preserved to be used in judicial proceedings.

Adani's court application and subsequent appeal in July were also heard ex parte, meaning they were both heard without notice.

Adani has described Mr Pennings as the "principal" of a group of political activists called the "Galilee Blockade", whose objective is to prevent the development of the mine and railway.

In rejecting Adani and Carmichael Rail Network's appeal last week, the Court of Appeal ruled the evidence was "wholly inadequate to justify the order sought".

"The appellants have failed to establish the likelihood that Mr Pennings has any confidential information or that he has any confidential information stored at his home," the Court of Appeal judges said.

"They have failed to establish the likelihood that the use of any confidential information has resulted in any loss."

The Court of Appeal also raised concerns about the impact of a search order could have had on Mr Pennings' partner and children.

"Surely, to permit a search of a defendant's house, with the humiliation and family distress which that might involve, lies at the outer boundary of the discretion," the Court of Appeal judges said.

"This is because, for reasons that anyone can understand, the 'shock, anger, confusion' and the 'sense of violation and powerlessness' will be much greater in such a case and may be suffered not only by someone who is proved in due course to be a wrongdoer, but by entirely innocent parties as well."……

Read the full article here.

BACKGROUND

Mining Pty Ltd & Anor v Pennings [2020] QCA 169 (17 August 2020)

The Adani Group appears to have been the applicant or been named as a respondent in around seven court cases between 2013 and 2020.

This is the latest:

Adani Abbot Point Terminal Pty Ltd v Lake Vermont Resources Pty Ltd & Ors [2020] QSC 260 – 26 August 2020. Adani ordered to pay $106.8 million.

Excerpts from the judgment:

“[197] The applicant’s conduct was deliberate, not just heedless or indifferent ⁸¹ to the position of the remaining users. The applicant was fully cognisant as to the effect its behaviour would have in increasing the fixed costs to the remaining users. It desired that effect in order to advantage itself financially. That is, to achieve a gain for itself, the applicant engaged in calculated behaviour to the disadvantage of the respondents.⁸² This is evident in the timing and structure of the QCPL transactions.”

“[203] The applicant’s behaviour in attempting to disguise or camouflage the true basis of its dealings with QCPL involved dishonesty – [117] ff and [122], and so far as this proceeding is concerned, involved serious dishonesty – [98] and [121].”

PACIFIC HIGHWAY UPGRADE: flooding fears surface in the Clarence Valley in 2020

ClarenceValley Independent, 26 August 2020:

As the new highway nears completion across the Lower Clarence, fears have been raised about what happens during a flood, due to the highway apparently acting as a dam at various locations.

The areas around Ferry Park to Shark Creek (where rising floodwater first breaks the river’s banks) and Chatsworth Island (where long sections of the highway “act like a dam wall”) are locations where floodwater behaviour will be affected.

And, with the Bureau of Meteorology announcing that there is a 70 per cent chance of La Nina developing (“roughly three times the average likelihood”), which “typically increases the chance of above average rainfall across much of Australia during spring”, the flood modelling in Pacific Complete’s Hydrological Mitigation Report,Glenugie to Devils Pulpit could be put to the test sooner, rather than later.

In general terms, according to a letter from Transport NSW, in answer to an enquiry by Chatsworth Island resident Shane Williams, changes to flood behaviour across the Clarence River regional catchment are as follows:

• A minor increase in flood level to the west of the highway;
• A minor decrease in flood level to the east;
• A minor increase in flood duration to the west and also to the east in some areas; and,
• No perceptible change in flood velocity or direction.

The mitigation report states in the overall flood impact assessment that resultant increases in flood levels across the floodplain are“considered minor and generally meet the limits set by the flood management objectives”.

On flood duration, the report states that, overall, any changes in duration “meet the limits set by the flood management objectives (less than five percent increase)”, however, at “some small localised areas … between Maclean and Iluka Road … the flood duration is predicted to be affected by more than five percent”.

“Under existing conditions, most of the land within the Clarence River regional floodplain is flooded for more than 72 hours for the 20, 50 and 100-year ARI (average recurrence interval) events,” the report states.

“For the 5-year ARI event, areas around the fringe of the floodplain are flooded for a range of durations from less than six hours up to 72 hours.”

The report states that “there are small increases in flood level between five millimetres to 15 millimetres in the Clarence River main channel” and that “there are no impacts to the township of Maclean in the 5 and 20-year ARI flood events, as the Maclean levee is not overtopped”.

While the levee “is overtopped under both existing and future conditions for the 50-year ARI event … and a large part of Maclean is flooded”, the report notes that “further analysis” of the 50-year ARI event is incomplete and that “mitigation measures are under investigation”.

At Harwood “a minor increase in flood levels upstream due to the bridge piers” is an expectation……

Read the full article here.

BACKGROUND

Glenugie to Devils Pulpit hydrological mitigation report update - Maclean levee 2017 [PDF]

Cartoons of the Week

Cathy Wilcox

Wes Mountain

Graeme MacKay

As if the NSW Northern Rivers doesn't have enough on its plate, here's Pete!

IMAGE: realestate.com.au

TV chef and wannabe social media 'influencer' Pete Evans has his two-level Malabar home (left) on the market again.

Word is that he is making his ten hectare Round Mountain Farm, near Pottsville, home base as he prepares to open a healing clinic in Byron Bay now that Channel 7 has apparently tired of his antics.

That's right readers, your eyes didn't deceive you, the man who peddled glorified light shows as preventatives against COVID-19 and was fined more than $25,000 by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) over false claims he made about the "BioCharger", wants to run an alternative healing business in The Habitat, Byron’s new commercial precinct which has reportedly attracted health and beauty outlets.

The same man who without any scientific or medical training gave alarmingly bad advice to osteoporosis sufferers and was publicly slammed by the Australian Medical Association.

Who promotes 'anti-vaxxer' sites as well as the debunked "Plandemic: Indoctrination" conspiracy film on social media and, suggests putting doTERRA essential oils in your chicken broth - regardless of the fact that these oils are rarely advised to be taken internally.

Finally, this is the man who thinks 'fat shaming' a woman is a fun thing to do on Facebook.

It seems that Evans may have sensed a vacancy, since former tennis coach and "esoteric healer" Serge Benhayon removed himself from the local spotlight after he spectacularly lost a defamation case in 2018 to the tune of an estimated $1.2 million payout to the respondent and then Universal Medicine was stripped of its Lismore Business Awards after a review by the Lismore Chamber of Commerce.

Grafton still chasing after its lost Regional City classification

Grafton, NSW
IMAGE: www.visitnsw.com

The 2016 national census recorded the population of Grafton in the Clarence Valley as 10,385 people living in 4,696 dwellings, with an average household size of 2.27. 

Last year it was optimistically estimated that the population had grown to 10,629 people - an increase of 224 people in the last 3 years - though how many of these are Pacific Highway road workers who will soon move on to other areas is not known.

The fact of the matter is that Grafton's population in the 28 years between the 1991 and 2016 census only grew by est. 125 people. 

Grafton, which was made a city over 135 years ago, has been in decline now for at least the last 20 years. Its regional city status was removed by the Baird Coalition Government in 2016 when it was reclassified as a strategic centre.

It is unlikely to have city status reinstated while the local population continues to age and, in some years more people are leaving or dying than are coming into Grafton as permanent residents.

Clarence Valley Council continues to hope and throw money at an intractable problem........

The Daily Examiner, 21 August 2020:

Clarence Valley Council’s local strategic planning statement will form the basis of council’s direction with regard to their plans over the coming years.

It is a large document that has received submissions over the past months from community groups, government organisations and ratepayers having their say about how it should be approached.

As the draft of the plan came before this week’s Environment, Planning and Community committee, Mayor Jim Simmons took the opportunity to question the balance of where the priorities lie.

Mr Simmons said he supported the focus on returning Grafton to regional city status, and the emphasis on the strategic importance of Grafton, the surrounding infrastructure and industry.

However, he was concerned the draft was too Grafton-centric. “When I read this document, the first thing that hit my head … is the emphasis placed on expenditure in Grafton and the surrounding areas,” Cr Simmons said.

“I would like the rest of the information in the report to also hit me in the face, and get a little bit excited over what it means for areas outside Grafton.

“I’d like to see the same thing hitting me in the face for the Lower Clarence — in fact the whole Clarence Valley.” It is a sentiment reflected in comments made on the draft planning statement. The report to council notes there were a number of well-articulated concerns raised about the focus placed on Grafton and the apparent emphasis, and therefore council spending, in and around Grafton.

“This included requests for no more spending on a number of areas, including the airport, a possible freight hub, efforts to grow the population and promoting Grafton as a Regional City,” it states.

“Some submissions stated that Grafton is not an attractor for residents of the Lower Clarence, who are more likely to use Ballina and Lismore for shopping, medical, air travel and other needs.” The report states despite these submissions, it was recommended council continue to support the promotion of Grafton as a Regional City, to provide for the community and grow the economy and provide job prospects and social opportunities.....

When someone on Clarence Valley Council staff can't add the dollars up

If local government administration in the Clarence Valley thought it could quietly adjust a $9,576 maths error it found it was mistaken...... 

The Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2020:

An accounting error has led to council staff underestimating the cost of a councillor pay rise.

The controversial decision to raise the rate of remuneration for councillors and the mayor was passed at the Clarence Valley Council’s July meeting and was expected to cost $88,012.

However, in the monthly financial report tabled at the Corporate Governance and Works committee meeting yesterday, the figure had grown to $97,588 – with no explanation.

While acknowledging staff had already provided an answer as to why there was a difference, Councillor Greg Clancy asked that it be explained again for the public record.

Director of corporate and governance Laura Black said the reason for the discrepancy was because the original calculation for the adopted budget was not correct.

“We didn’t pick that up until such time as we did the re-calculation when council last month adopted the option for the increase,” she said.

“The report itself should detail that and doesn’t do that.” Mr Clancy then wanted clarification on whether the mistake would have some bearing on the motion carried at the previous meeting, which specified the $88,012 to be reflected in the monthly financial report.

“I can’t understand how we can have two separate figures. When we have a motion that says $88,012 and the table here is $97,588,” he said.

Council general manager Ashley Lindsay said council was in fact correcting the record with the monthly report, but agreed with Ms Black in that it should have contained an explanation. 

Ms Black added that councillors had not yet adopted the change to the budget, something which would occur at the quarterly budget review…..