Andrew Rule: Cop corruption fighter turns blowtorch on bushfire blunders

A small fire lit on a hot day in a national park quickly turned to disaster. Here a former AFP officer uncovers the laziness and blunders that led to catastrophe.

The Warrumbungle National Park disaster is an object lesson for Australians.

John Shobbrook used to catch crooks, some of them supposedly on his own side of the law. That was when he was a federal narcotics agent taking on the worst of Queensland’s notorious “rat pack”, a cabal of bent cops conspiring to import heroin.

It was a dangerous life as a “narc” in the moonlight state in the 1970s, a time and place where tolerance of organised crime was a fact of life from police headquarters to premier’s office.

It took Shobbrook half a lifetime to be allowed to tell the full story in his riveting book Operation Jungle. In it, he exposes the extent of cronyism and corruption in federal and state police forces and the Queensland judiciary and politics.

He underlined the sinister collusion between police and lawyers in what became a blatant cover-up: the Williams Royal Commission headed by a compromised judge running interference to protect the unholy trinity of Sir Terry Lewis, Tony Murphy and Glen Hallahan, bent police profiting from drug trafficking, prostitution, arson and murder.

John Shobbrook has hit the keyboard again, revealing bureaucratic corruption and cover-up of the criminal negligence behind a fire.

In Shobbrook’s corner are respected journalists like Matt Condon and Quentin Dempster, who both testify to his integrity and courage. But those qualities made him a risk to powerful people and, disgracefully, he was forced from his job for telling the truth about links between heavyweight trafficker John Milligan and the corrupt crew that ran Queensland after dark.

Disillusioned, Shobbrook quit law enforcement in the 1980s and later took up a job in astronomy at Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran in northern New South Wales. He and his wife Jan moved to their dream house on a property next to the Warrumbungle National Park and life was good.

Then, exactly ten years ago, it all turned bad. It happened on the hot summer day when those whose job it was to manage the park ignored a small fire that became a big one, killing huge numbers of wild animals and livestock and destroying 53 homes on properties near the park.

No humans died but that was due to extraordinary luck and their own efforts rather than anything the clueless and negligent park managers did.

The truth is, the park rangers and their bosses did almost nothing until it was too late. The ill-advised attempt at back burning, done against the advice of experienced firefighters, got out of hand and ended up doing most of the damage. Stupidity and procrastination turned potential disaster into catastrophe.

John Shobbrook was never your average cop.

Now Shobbrook has hit the keyboard again, revealing bureaucratic corruption and cover-up of the criminal negligence behind a fire that could and should have been put out within an hour of the first smoke being spotted.

It’s a big story that starts with a small blaze probably lit, albeit accidentally, by a family of sightseers who should not have been allowed in the park on a day of extreme fire danger. Had the careless visitors been sent packing by the one park ranger on duty, the fire may not have happened, but the ranger couldn’t be bothered enforcing the fire prevention rules.

It went downhill from there. Laziness and blatant rule-breaking led to a string of mistakes that inevitably became a catastrophe, given the lethal mix of heat, wind and fuel load.

Shobbrook’s unflinching account of incompetence and cover-up, titled Fire Proof, has been published online and in paperback this week in time to remind us that after two seasons of high grass and scrub growth, the eastern states need only a few days of hot, dry winds for even recently flooded districts to become fire traps.

Helicopters water bomb as a bushfire burns in the Warrumbungle National Park. Picture: AAP

The Warrumbungle disaster is an object lesson for Australians, from outer suburbs and towns surrounded by grassy paddocks and public land, to the bushland we usually associate with wildfire.

Shobbrook was never your average cop. He has an original and lively mind. He starts his account with a mock quiz that skewers the criminal carelessness of those who got away with letting fire run wild. It goes like this:

Q1. You are a very experienced National Parks and Wildlife Service Area senior ranger trained in firefighting techniques. You are in a national park and have at your disposal a fully-equipped Toyota four-wheel-drive fire fighting appliance with a 400-litre water tank,

pumps and hoses. You receive a report of smoke in the park so what should you do?

(a) Drive the fire fighting appliance to where the smoke is coming from and extinguish the small fire

OR

(b) ignore the firefighting appliance and load your girlfriend and her children, the youngest aged three, into her Hyundai Santa Fe SUV and get her to drive you to look for the fire.

Answer: the ranger chose (b): he ignored the fire truck and took the SUV with his girlfriend and her children to discover a fire which he consequently could do nothing to stop.

Q2. Given that an Extreme Fire Danger rating was in effect, and that rangers were instructed to “have all fire units fully loaded with water and available for initial attack,” would the Toyota firefighting unit referred to above be …

(a) full of water and ready to go?

OR

(b) left with no water in the tank?

Answer: (b) The tanker was left empty, despite standing orders that it be loaded with water.

Q3. When the duty roster rules specified that at least 12 rangers were to be on duty patrolling the park to guard against fire outbreaks in the fire danger period, how many rangers would you expect to find on patrol?

(a) At least 12, as specified by the roster rules

OR

(b) None.

Answer: (b) Only one ranger was on duty and she opted to spend most of the day in the office instead of patrolling the park, which covers almost 50,000ha (more than 117,000 acres).

Q4. When the fire, by then described as “absolutely ferocious”, escaped from the park, how many neighbouring property owners should rangers call to warn of the danger?

(a) All 42 property owners directly adjoining the park and whose names and telephone numbers were on a list kept for just such an emergency

OR

(b) Nobody.

Answer: The National Parks and Wildlife Service opted for (b).

Shobbrook’s pointed satire underlines deadly serious points which he backs up with a truckload of carefully-sifted evidence taken from official documents.

Truth is his defence but Shobbrook is wary of embarrassed officials trying to gag him with legal tactics, so he has changed the name of everyone involved in the Warrumbungle bungle. They know who they are but have every reason to stay quiet about the debacle.

As for Shobbrook, the honest lawman who never forgot the oath he swore, he and his wife are living in Brisbane far from the wreckage of their home and 52 others.

These days he reads widely and wisely. A quote from Buddha struck him while he was writing Fire Proof. “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”