Shannon Deery: Lives will be lost if Fire Rescue Victoria control lines are blurred
Someone must take charge in the midst of a crisis. But scrambling to find who that is, or failing to recognise that a single line of command is needed, risks deadly results, writes Shannon Deery.
Opinion
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In times of trouble, someone must take charge.
In the midst of a crisis, either scrambling to find who that is, or failing to recognise that a single line of command is needed, risks deadly results.
So we learned in the wake of Black Saturday, the country’s single most fatal bushfire event.
In its final report, the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission identified serious deficiencies in top-level emergency management leadership.
Instead of a single line of control, there were disjointed reporting lines with no clear accountability between agencies and incident control management teams.
Some 173 people died in the bushfires.
Fast forward a decade and it appears the same mistakes are being made.
In her interim report published on Friday, COVID-19 Hotel Quarantine Inquiry chair Jennifer Coate identified similar failings in the state government’s pandemic response management.
Her report made it clear that again, in the midst of a crisis there was no clear control and accountability structure in place.
Instead, shared responsibility among too many agencies and departments with the failed program almost certainly leading to Victoria’s second wave.
More than 800 people lost their lives.
Now whistleblowers inside Victoria’s new fire service, Fire Rescue Victoria, is warning that history is repeating itself. Victoria doesn’t seem to be learning from its mistakes.
And on the eve of our next bushfire season, insiders say if nothing is done, lives will again be lost.
Concerns have even been raised with fire chief Ken Block, who will this week meet with rank-and-file members to hear them out.
The list of issues extends across all levels and departments of the service.
Leaked minutes from a recent CFA meeting reveal more than 20 areas of concern raised by members across five districts.
They include safety, vehicle maintenance, systems and processes and line management.
A major concern across all districts was a lack of staff support for volunteer firefighters and confusion around job descriptions.
The bushfire season will be the first big test for FRV, which started on July 1 from a merger of the old Metropolitan Fire Brigade and much of the volunteer-run CFA.
Now paid crews work under one commissioner with their own doctrine and standing procedures, and volunteers work under a different chief using different procedures.
What’s more, under a bizarre secondment model that sees FRV staff seconded back to the CFA, a senior officer could be working under and reporting to the FRV commissioner one day, and the CFA chief officer the next in a completely different role.
At best it will cause uncertainty in both giving and receiving of command for all parties.
There’s now a dangerous clash of cultures between the two old guards.
Firefighters say blurred reporting lines and confusion among top-level management leadership could have a disastrous impact.
The government and FRV brass say nothing has changed in the state’s fire response.
Equipment, responders and capabilities are the same as were in place last year.
That may be true.
But insiders say operational differences at play between this season and last are unworkable and dysfunctional.
Confidence among some for an accessible and stable chain of command is at an all-time low.
The aftermath of the Black Saturday fires still smoulders among the communities affected.
The aftermath of the hotel quarantine program will haunt grieving families for years to come.
If the deadly failings seen in the aftermath of each of those deadly emergencies doesn’t highlight the danger of having unclear lines of control and accountability, what will?
AND ANOTHER THING
AS countries around the world ride the crest of a second wave and return to lockdown, Victoria has emerged from months of hell.
Daniel Andrews’ new roadmap to COVID-normal is a picture of hope for Victorians that have sacrificed so much to drive numbers down to nine consecutive days of zero with just four active cases across the state.
It’s a stunning turnaround from where we found ourselves a month ago.
The easing of restrictions that come into effect today will bring welcome relief for so many with the freedom to travel across the state returned to every Victorian. Regional Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne are once again united.
The battle ahead for the state government will be keeping numbers low to ensure families can be reunited for Christmas.
Health officials say our contact tracing is now the envy of the country.
If that’s so, keeping numbers low shouldn’t be a problem.
The government has long maintained Christmas is the goal, to allow families the freedom to get together and enjoy festivities in a COVID-safe way.
It will mean trusting Victorians to do the right thing in the privacy of their homes, something the Premier has been reluctant to do until now.
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