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Professor John Quiggin is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow at the School of Economics, University of Queensland

“A striking feature of the data is that aggregate emissions have remained unchanged since 2008, although GDP has increased by 15 per cent in that time. The fact that the link between GDP growth and emissions has been broken is encouraging evidence that we can achieve substantial reductions in emissions without damaging living standards.”

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Professor Kevin Parton is from the School of Management and Marketing at Charles Sturt University. He is a Strategic Professor in the Institute for Land, Water and Society

“The National Greenhouse Accounts reveal that the total greenhouse gas emissions in Australia rose by 0.6 per cent over the last year and Australia remains on track to meet its Kyoto Protocol target. This result is just about what was expected, and indeed is ‘no big deal’. This target itself is a straw man, given that it involves an increase in emissions, when we actually need to reduce them.

What is much more important is what is likely to happen in the future. The carbon pricing under the government’s ‘carbon tax’ policy should assist the effort to contain the growth in emissions. However, even with the carbon price, it is unlikely that there would be a fall in emissions during 2012 unless there is a dramatic fall in economic activity in the remainder of the year (which none of us want).

To reduce Australia’s carbon emissions significantly will need a change in the way the economy works and a transition, as soon as possible, to a low carbon technology. However, there is currently not great optimism about the rate of progress. Electricity generation is the sector with the largest emissions. The best renewable prospect in this sector is wind power, but we are at an embryonic stage when it comes to the roll-out of this technology. Coal will be king for many years to come. Even with the carbon price regime implied by the introduction of the government’s ‘carbon tax’, there will be little incentive for generators to replace coal fired power stations.”

 ———–

Adjunct Professor Rob Fowler is Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law at the University of South Australia

“I note that whilst these latest accounts indicate we appear likely to meet our 2012 Kyoto target, Australia continues to increase the rate of its national GHG emissions, especially from electricity generation. The broad international consensus is that reductions in the range of 25-40% by 2020 are needed to avoid significant climate change, so we are a long way behind the chase. That objective also makes the current nationalcarbon tax goal of a 5% reduction by 2020 look pretty lame.

The immediate, key question is what target for GHG emissions  reductions by 2020 will Australia indicate to the Climate Change Convention meeting in December this year, when the next commitments beyond the Kyoto protocol targets will need to be defined. A target of 5% will not put us anywhere near the level of reductions expected of us by the international community.”

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Professor Graeme Wines is a Professor in Accounting in the School of Accounting, Economics and Finance at Deakin University

“The release of the National Greenhouse Accounts assists in putting into perspective the magnitude of the task facing Australia in its attempts to reduce emissions from 1990 levels. It also highlights the specific areas in which major reductions are required.

The Greenhouse Gas report reveals that total net emissions are now 13.6 percent higher than in 1990. But the percentage change over that period varies greatly between sectors, with some sectors actually exhibiting decreased emissions. The land use (including land use change and forestry) sector has emissions 59.2 percent lower than 1990 levels, although the decreasing trend here has mainly been driven by declines in the conversion of forest land to cropland and grassland. Decreased emissions are also recorded for the agriculture and waste sectors (down 8.1 and 19.1 percent respectively).

While these percentage decreases appear significant, they need to be put into perspective by comparison with the sectors exhibiting increases. The three sectors noted above exhibiting decreases represented reductions of 65.3 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent, down from 196.9 tonnes in 1990 to 131.6 tonnes in 2010. The energy sector, though, recorded the greatest increase in emissions, with a 44.2 percent increase from 1990 levels. But this increase amounted to an additional 127.9 tonnes of emissions, an increase roughly twice the magnitude of the decrease in the three decreasing emissions sectors.

This highlights the magnitude of the task facing the energy sector in attempting to substitute renewable energy sources for current ones.”

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US scientists have questioned GM monitoring protocols in the US after investigating escapee canola plants living outside of cultivated fields. These populations were found to persist from year to year and reach thousands of individuals. The authors also found that the escaped plants could hybridise with each other. Below several Australian scientists independent of the study respond.

Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you would like to speak to an expert or for a copy of the embargoed research, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

Other resources:

There is an Office of the Gene Technology Regulator fact sheet on GM canola approved for commercial release in Australia online here, including key dates for state approvals.

The Regulator is currently considering an application for the commercial release of another GM canola line into the environment. Information on this application is available here.

The Risk Assessment and Risk Management Plans for each of the canola lines approved for commercial release in Australia are also available through the GMO Record on the OGTR website here, including question and answer sheets.

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Professor Mike Wilkinson is  Professor of Genetics in the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide

“The findings of this research first emerged in August last year following presentation of the results in a meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Pittsburg (for more details see http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100806/full/news.2010.393.html). This paper provides formal peer-reviewed publication of the same work.

In essence, it reports on the appearance of GM canola (oilseed rape) in roadside verges and field margins in much the same way that has been reported previously (since the 1990s) for GM and non-GM canola in other parts of the world. However, the authors then state that this appearance is unprecedented in scale and that it “raises questions of whether adequate oversight and monitoring protocols are in place in the U.S. to track the environmental impact of biotech products”. So, time for alarm?

Well, in all honesty, no. The presence of these plants was predicted more than a decade earlier and even the scale of their presence is not surprising given the scale of GM canola cultivation in North Dakota. The real issue facing the regulators and those charged with GM oversight everywhere, as the authors themselves acknowledge, is whether these plants are (or are likely to) lead to any real ecological harm? This issue is not addressed by this study in any way. Thus, whilst mildy interesting from an academic standpoint, from a regulatory stance, I very much doubt it will necessitate any changes to the current practice of focussing on the potential for harm rather than on the mere presence of the GM plants.”

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Professor Graham King is Professor of Plant Genomics & Epigenetics at Southern Cross University

“Crop plants have been domesticated and selected to provide nutrition and plant-based products that underpin human civilisation and modern economies

Rotations of crops such as wheat and canola maximise soil fertility and long-term health, but often suffer from ‘volunteers’ (e.g. canola plants growing within wheat and vice versa), as well as many weed species that drastically reduce yields and waste energy in food production. Crops tolerant to weed-killers (herbicides) enable farmers to reduce energy wastage in crop production. Herbicide tolerant crops have been generated using both non-GM and GM methods.

Feral populations of canola (a species of Brassica) occur regularly in regions where the crop is grown and alongside roads where the harvested seed is transported. Their presence is not at all surprising. Feral canola tends to be more noticeable and prominent (due to yellow flowers) than feral wheat populations.

The potential for cross-fertilisation (hybridisation) with other feral populations will always exist, as will cross-fertilisation with other species of Brassica- the latter has been documented in many studies. However, Brassica species do not occur in the native flora of Australia.

There are different classes of herbicide, and each herbicide-resistant cultivar is typically resistant to a single class. GM populations may therefore be controlled using other herbicides. However, the finding in the Schafer paper indicates that that hybridisation appeared to have occurred between different GM cultivars. Over time this may pose more complex issues for weed control.

Research into the impact of GM (or other forms of herbicide resistant plants) has been carried out in many countries.

There is some value in research to understand the wider environmental impacts and extent of any specific weed populations in un-natural roadside environments.

However, this has to be set against the continuing need to understand the regional impacts ofnotadopting GM to feed the world, and the beneficial consequences in terms of reduced pesticide and energy use. In particular, weed control needs to be set in the context ofglobal crop production, food security, and energy efficiency.”

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Professor Peter Langridge is CEO of the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) at the University of Adelaide

“There is no great surprise from this study. Canola is known to establish along roadsides in many parts of the world and the GM canola is no different from normal canola in this respect.

Generally crops are not invasive and rarely become weeds because they have been bred and selected to grow in highly managed farm environments. Many key traits needed for wild plants, and particularly weeds, have been largely removed from our crops – such as seed dormancy and shattering (seed dispersal). This limits the likelihood of crop species becoming weeds in natural ecosystems. However, roadsides provide a special environment where crop species often flourish due to the extra water from runoff from the roads and regular mowing. This is why we often see wheat, barley and canola growing alongside roads.

It was always expected that the GM canola would behave in the same way and, as the area sown to GM canola grew, the incidence of roadside populations would expand. This does not present an environmental or safety problem for the community. The GM canola has been rigorous evaluated and presents no health issues and the roadside populations are essentially the same as the non-GM roadside populations. However, councils that use herbicides to control weeds along roads, will need to ensure they use the appropriate herbicides to also control the GM canola.”

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Professor Rick Roush is Dean of the Melbourne School of Land and Environment at the University of Melbourne

“This paper is unremarkable and not at all surprising. The authors have presented no evidence that GM canola is any more weedy or problematic than non-GM canola, or that any harms whatsoever have resulted.

All of the results documented in the paper have been made elsewhere, and repeated now in the US state of North Dakota.

The survey was explicitly only for roadsides and neighbouring highly disturbed habitats.

These are not important to biodiversity, and no claims were made for adverse environmental impacts on roadsides or anywhere else.

Herbicide resistance in canola is of no consequence if the canola is not sprayed, and that’s not likely in habitats of environmental significance.

Canola has been known to persist along roadsides in Europe, North America and Australia for decades, including French and Canadian research from 2001 and 2003, as cited in the paper.

We can expect to find GM canola growing on roadsides in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, alongside non-GM canola, with no more consequence than brightening the roadsides with yellow during their flowering.

Hybridisation between canola lines of different GM and non-GM herbicide resistances was documented by Dr Linda Hall in Canada more than 10 years ago, and is still not a problem of any sort in Canada.

Many other feral crop plant species can be found on roadsides, including lucerne, without causing harm. The more important threats come from weeds such as wild radish and escaped garden plants, such as Pattersons Curse, and many more recent but not yet as well-known weeds.”

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*The Establishment of Genetically Engineered Canola Populations in the U.S., Schafer et al., PLoS ONE, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0025736.g001, 2011

ONLINE BACKGROUND BRIEFING – Monday September 27 at 10.30am AEST online

As food prices keep rising, food security sits at the top of national and international agendas. Experts predict food prices will continue to climb up to 45 per cent during the next decade compared with the previous one, making cheap processed food a more appealing option – especially for those on a limited budget.

The briefing coincides with a Public Health Association Australia conference in Adelaide which starts on Monday and a Global Change Institute Food Security Summit in Brisbane which starts on Tuesday with two public forums.

The briefing discussed the following issues:

• Rising food prices
• Food waste statistics
• Barriers to food and nutrition access
• The challenges we face in increasing food production and improving distribution

SPEAKERS:

• Professor Geoffrey Lawrence, Head of the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland and co-leader in the area of food security at UQ’s Global Change Institute. Professor Lawrence will discuss food security challenges on a global level and possible solutions. Listen (mp3)
• Professor Michael D’Occhio, Head of the School of Animal Studies at the University of Queensland and co-leader in the area of food security at the Global Change Institute. Professor D’Occhio will talk about the unequal distribution of food and food waste in Australia, as well as the main challenges in turning the statistics around. Listen (mp3)
• Listen to the Q and A session (mp3)

Follow an audio visual presentation of the full event by clicking here

BRIEFING DETAILS:

DATE:  Monday, September 27

START TIME: 10.30am AEST

DURATION: 50 min

VENUE:  Online

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 7120 8666 or email info@aussmc.org

ONLINE MEDIA BRIEFING – Monday 16 August at 3pm AEST online

The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers was put together by a Working Group and Oversight Committee made up of Academy Fellows and other expert Australian scientists. This represents the first time the Academy has produced a document of this kind.

The Australian Science Media Centre streamed the launch online for journalists.

Follow an audio visual presentation of  the full event by clicking here

BRIEFING DETAILS:
DATE: Monday 16 August 2010
START TIME: 3pm AEST
DURATION: 90 min

SPEAKERS:
• Professor Suzanne Cory AC FAA FRS, President of the Australian Academy of Science
• Professor Kurt Lambeck AO FAA FRS, Immediate Past President of the Australian Academy of Science
• Dr Mike Raupach is a climate scientist, fellow of the Academy of Science and was Co-Chair of the Working Group
• Dr Ian Allison is a climate scientist and was Co-Chair of the Working Group

Listen to the presentations (mp3)
Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

Listen to the Q and A session (mp3)
Part one
Part two
Part three

For further information, please contact the AusSMC on 08 7120 8666 or email us.

RAPID ROUNDUP – independent climate change experts comment on the launch of the statement

To complement today’s online briefing of the launch of the Australian Academy of Science’s statement on climate change, we have compiled comments from independent climate change experts. Feel free to use these quotes in your stories. If you would like to speak to an expert or to see the statement, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 7120 8666 or by email.

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Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the Climate Institute at The Australian National University, ACT

“This document, produced by the most authoritative scientific body in Australia, is a welcome and important contribution to the public discourse on climate change. The document acknowledges the significant uncertainties that surround our knowledge about how climate change will continue to unfold this century and beyond, but it makes absolutely clear that we know two critical aspects of climate change with a very high degree of certainty: (i) climate change is indeed real and is already happening, and (ii) human emissions of greenhouse gases are the primary cause. This knowledge is a compelling and incontrovertible basis on which to take policy action.”

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Professor Neville Nicholls is an ARC Professorial Fellow in the School of Geography and Environmental Science at Monash University, Victoria. He is also President of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

“2010 is becoming known as the year of the heat wave, with 17 countries having set new record hot temperatures, while only a single country has set a new cold record, according to a report in The Guardian newspaper last week. And this year, 2010, has already broken the record for the number of countries setting new record hot temperatures – the previous record of 14 countries was set only three years ago, in 2007. While ‘one swallow does not a summer make, nor one fine day’ a ratio of 17 new hot records to only a single new cold record is pretty convincing evidence that the world is warming. So this accessible summary of climate science, prepared by Australia’s peak scientific body, is timely and welcome.”

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The report is accessible online at www.royalcommission.vic.gov.au and at www.vic.gov.au (and also in hard copy form at Information Victoria, 505 Little Collins Street, Melbourne).

There is also a media release online.

Please let us know if you have trouble accessing the report and we will email it to you.

The State Government plans to provide its response to the final report within a few weeks of its release.

Here we have compiled reactions to the report from experts in the areas of bushfire and arson.

If you would like to speak to an expert, please don’t hesitate to contact us on (08) 8207 7415 or by email.

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David Packham is an adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the School of Geography and Environmental Science at Monash University, Victoria

“The Royal Commission has been a very useful exercise because it has collected in one place a whole spectrum of opinions and information that will serve scholars for years ahead.

The people of Victoria spent about $100,000,000 on this process. We will wait and see whether we have got value for our efforts.

There are two really interesting recommendations.

One is the recommendation on fuel reduction burning where it refers to five per cent of the total state land area, and that is the minimum that can achieve any effect. But the government, in their response to the council assisting of the Royal Commission, have already rejected that recommendation. However, they may change their response after today’s cabinet meeting. I would anticipate that if they did achieve the five per cent we would see effectively a decrease of about 25 to 50 per cent of the deaths we see in this sort of disaster, but it won’t be until we see about a 10 to 12 per cent fuel reduction per year that we will reduce the problem to bearable proportions and make the forests healthy and safe.

The other really interesting recommendation is the last one, where the Royal Commission reflects on itself, which implies that the Commission has had trouble being a Royal Commission.

The last recommendation says the state consider the development of legislation for the conduct of inquiries in Victoria – in part, the conduct of Royal Commissions.

Most of the other recommendations are useful, but will make little difference to the overall threat of bushfires in Victoria.”

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Professor David Bowman works in Forest Ecology at The University of Tasmania’s School of Plant Sciences

“The Bushfire Royal Commission report makes a series of very sensible recommendations that can form the basis for social adaptation to the threat of increasingly serious bushfires in Australia. The threat of more severe bushfires is driven by increased settlement into fire prone bushland areas and climate change causing more dangerous fire weather.

I was pleased to see the report highlight the need for evidence-based evaluations of bushfire management and policies, and investment into independent research across a broad spectrum of disciplines. The real test of the impact of the Bushfire Royal Commission, however, will be how the raft of recommendations are translated into action. There are numerous barriers to their implementation, but the most obvious is political will, institutional inertia, and adequate resourcing, particularly in the longer-term. Without sustained investment the opportunity to refine approaches for people to co-exist with highly-flammable landscapes may be lost. We need to critically evaluate what works and why and this will require trialing the recommendations, and accepting that they are not the last word on sustainable bushfire management – we must be open to changing our perspectives of living with bushfires in the light of new evidence.

It would be sad to see this report join the queue of past reports and inquiries into bushfire disasters that have only had limited impact of our adaptation to living in a land of bushfires. There is little doubt that the way Australian communities live with bushfires will be increasing tested in the near term – this report provides important framework for Australians to step up to this challenge. The next steps are implementation, commitment for the long haul and willingness to accept a culture of change.”

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Professor John Handmer is Director of the Centre for Risk and Community Safety at RMIT University, Melbourne

“After exhaustive examination, the Royal Commission has not dumped the ‘stay or go’ approach as many had predicted, concluding ‘that the central tenets … remain sound’. Instead it advocates emphasis on a wide range of safety related strategies, including the development of evacuation plans and community refuges or shelters, and acknowledges that staying and defending may be a sound option in some circumstances.

However, recommendations for refuges or shelters, and those concerning ‘vulnerable’ people, may prove challenging for government as they reverse the trend to shift most of the responsibility onto the people at risk. Until fairly recently, there were designated refuges and places understood locally to offer relative safety. These had disappeared well before Black Saturday, and in some areas local government has indicated that it will close down completely on Code Red days, effectively abandoning the community. This recommendation places responsibility back onto government and is probably well aligned with community expectations. The Commission also recommends that fire agencies take more responsibility for those who are especially vulnerable.

Some recommendations are likely to be more than challenging such as that to remove development from ‘unacceptable high bushfire risk’ areas. This makes good sense for risk management, but development tends to win out and fire and emergency services are expected to deal with the risks.

The Commission’s report covers most aspects of the bushfire risk, and has thankfully avoided the option of emphasising a single strategy, such as massive fuel reduction or agency amalgamation, as the solution.”

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Mae Proudley is a bushfire researcher in the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability (Glass) Research Unit at Monash University, Victoria

“The recommendation to revise Victoria’s bushfire safety policy acknowledges the failure of the ‘stay or go’ policy which assumed homogeneity across all locations irrespective of the geographic landscape and the capacities and needs of particular communities. Policy applied generally has limited impact; the CFA’s own research (back in 1999) was critical of the prescriptive and authoritarian approach to community education. For bushfire community education programs to be successful there must be an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of families and how they react under the pressure of a disaster. The heavy emphasis on preparing, staying and defending undermined the option of leaving early.

The lack of transparency surrounding the levels of funding allocated to community education programs needs to be addressed. Comprehensive and tailored community engagement and education in high bushfire risk areas is a priority. It will be interesting to see how the Government supports and resources this challenging task.

It is good that more research, particularly social research, has been recommended. The little contemporary social science research conducted prior to Black Saturday in this country was often partly or fully funded by fire agencies and/or related organisations. Can there be a guarantee of independence and objectivity for future fire research in Australia?”

(If you need to use a title for Mae, please use Ms)

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Professor James Ogloff is Director of the Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science at Monash University and Director of Psychological Services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health

“It was heartening to see that the Royal Commission recognised the importance of deliberately lit bushfires – an often overlooked component of bushfire prevention. In Volume II, Chapter 5, the Commissioners provided a helpful overview of the main issues in understanding deliberately lit fires and note the importance of ongoing work in the area.

Recommendation 25 notes the need for a coordinated state-wide approach to arson prevention by Victoria Police which should include ‘a research program aimed at refining arson prevention and detection strategies.’ This reflects the ongoing need to increase our understanding of arsonists to help prevent and detect deliberately lit bushfires. It would have been beneficial for the recommendation to have gone beyond the efforts of Victoria Police since many agencies are relevant to arson prevention (e.g; corrections, forensic and public mental health services).

Recommendation 36 also noted the importance of collecting data and ‘evaluating current and proposed programs in order to identify and share best-practice approaches’ to reduce bushfire arson in Australia. Similarly, Recommendation 65 highlights the importance of ongoing research and evaluation.

It is now critical that the State Government assist with funding appropriate research initiatives and practices to address the very important area of bushfire arson.”

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David Peterson is Principal Bushfire Consultant with Eco Logical Australia’s Central Coast Office in New South Wales. He is a specialist in bushfire protection planning and design and is a nationally certified practitioner

“I have been following the inquiry on and off especially as it pertains to changes required in the Victorian system for building and development, the development of risk planning for communities, and broad area fuel management. As an industry consultant based in NSW and predominantly working within the NSW system, it has been interesting to relate the Commission recommendations to the legislative requirements and the process of duty of care in our state.

Much of the recommendations relating to the three areas mentioned above will bring the state of Victoria in line with the approach taken in assessing bushfire attack to building and development in NSW. The recommendations rely on the word bushfire ‘risk’ often which implies a more involved assessment of bushfire impact and development of mitigation measures for new buildings. NSW assumes a worst case fire scenario which some may say is conservative however ‘risk’ elements of lower bushfire threat and extreme bushfire threat can be overlooked. The application of ‘risk’ is a positive for the state of Victoria although I believe that the recommendations provide too much reliance on the bushfire prone land mapping to identify the risk. This can only really be done at a site specific level.

I commend the recommendations on the development of risk plans for existing communities. This is an exercise that brings a systematic and prioritised approach to risk treatments in a larger area. Similarly, the recommendations relating to fuel management by the way of prescribed burning are also pragmatic and refer to research of those ecological communities where more understanding is required. I don’t believe providing an area based target for prescribed burning will achieve the intended goal.

I also commend the recommendations on changes to AS 3959-2009 and the BCA. Hopefully review of these documents can happen sooner rather than later.”

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Len Foster is Chairman of the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre

“The Royal Commission final report indicates how much more Australians need to learn about living in one of the three most fire prone regions in the world.

Recommendation 65 calls for a permanent national centre for bushfire research with reasonable surety of long-term funding. Importantly it says the centre should be a collaboration of all Australian jurisdictions to support pure, applied and long-term research in the physical, biological and social sciences relevant to bushfires. Australia’s fire services have agreed that, consistent with this recommendation, the Bushfire CRC will transition into the Australasian Fire Research Institute. With support from the Australian Government and from partner contributions, the Institute will provide Australia and New Zealand with a much needed long-term, sustainable centre for bushfire research.

The transition to this Australasian Institute recognises the need to work together to protect communities all over Australia from the threat of bushfires. While Victoria’s involvement is critical to this research program, the only sensible approach is on a national basis, with strong international links. We all realise that all the answers to future community safety cannot be found in Victoria alone. An Australasian Fire Research Institute will give us the new knowledge required for community safety.”

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Professor Ross Bradstock is Director of the Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, and a Member of the Expert Panel on Land and Fuel Management, 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission

“The recommendations, in particular no. 56, are both unsurprising and challenging. The recommendation for establishment of 5% annual burning target for public land reiterates the principal recommendation of the ENRIC Inquiry in 2008. This was to be anticipated and will bolster the impetus to undertake more fuel reduction activity. Nonetheless the Commission, as with other inquiries does not deal explicitly with the issue of cost and feasibility of implementation of such a target. Such costings have proved to be elusive, yet they are vital. At present there are few coherent data that establish the financial and resource implications of such a target. This gives scope to the Government to consider but alter the level of treatment it decides to adopt in response. Ultimately a lift in fuel reduction burning is generally deemed to needed, but the promulgation of targets without thorough analysis of costs and benefits will do little to quell ongoing debate. While there is some work now available to indicate benefit (i.e. risk may be reduced appreciably but substantial residual risk will remain) costings are elusive and may make such a target prohibitive in the long-term. Greater transparency in this regard is urgently needed to help the community to make judgements about claims and counter-claims on burning targets. The commission has been useful in airing the issues but ultimately only the community can decide how much risk it can afford to mitigate, through reduction and the other broad range of measures.”

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Ross Brogan is a Lecturer and Course Co-ordinator of Fire Investigation subjects at Charles Sturt University, New South Wales

“In regard to the recommendations overall, the Terms of Reference for the Commission included the fact that ‘prevention’ be taken into consideration with most matters investigated by the Commission. Within the recommendations (67 in all), there are no recommendations regarding the use or provision of professional, trained and qualified fire investigators able to identify and determine (accurately) the origin of the fire and the cause of that fire. By accurately determining the origin and cause, prevention measures can be established, audited or verified as accurate, or efficient (as in prevention programmes Rec. #35 & #36).

Without accurate, professionally trained investigators, the origin and cause cannot be guaranteed and any prevention programmes or legal action taken against persons charged (or accused) with either negligence or deliberate fire lighting (arson) will be suspect and cannot be guaranteed to successfully prevent any similar incidents occurring in the future. Fire investigators must be provided with training that is up-to-date, comprehensive and professionally recognised by Australian and/or world-renowned authorities so that a uniform approach is adopted and established for investigators from fire and police services to work together as a team and a determination is reached that satisfies all interests.

Recommendations 35 and 36 on arson prevention programmes and training indicate that there should be prevention programmes established and implemented for the purposes of Arson Prevention and that these programmes are evaluated and any current or proposed programmes are audited to provide best practice for use in bushfire incidents. There is no mention of evaluation of these programmes from data indicating cause of the fire/s – without verification of cause of a fire there can be no accurate determination as to whether that programme has worked, is successful or valid for the area or situation that it has been established within. Data has to be gathered to indicate cause of the fire and whether the programme has been successful according to that cause data, without cause data then the programme viability cannot be guaranteed.”

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