The plan to hold the hearings of the Royal Commission into the Black Saturday bushfires behind closed doors smacks of a possible cover-up, to get the Government off the hook, Citizens Electoral Council leader Craig Isherwood said today.

“Royal Commissions have a track record of turning into Royal Cover-ups, by their terms of reference and the way they are conducted,” Mr Isherwood charged.

“Royal Commissions, by their nature only make recommendations, and it is usually only through public embarrassment that governments are forced to act on these commissions findings.

“More than 200 people perished on Black Saturday, and it would be the height of injustice if the Government used its usual PR tricks and bureaucratic processes to minimise public scrutiny of the raw and unadulterated accounts of the fires from affected victims, and the associated causes of the tragedy.”

Mr Isherwood alleged the Government has something to hide:

“It is an undeniable fact that this Government was repeatedly and tirelessly warned, by real bushfire experts, over many years, that a disaster was brewing, because of the political changes to vegetation management.

“It seems that the policy of the Government was to ignore those warnings, because of their ideological commitment to ‘green’ policies.

“Similarly, local government councils, which operate under State Government authority, enforced green policies on the population in the disaster area, which directly increased the risk exposure of the victims.

“Some residents who resisted the green regulations, and through their better judgement took measures to reduce their risk to bushfire, were heavily fined—a measure calculated to keep the rest of the population ‘in line’.

“This is not a scandal, this is a crime. There is no softening of the reality for the victims,” Mr Isherwood declared.

Mr Isherwood announced the CEC was calling for:

• A fully-public inquiry, open to all interested parties;
• The broadest terms of reference, which include changes to state government policies and practices related to fuel-reduction burns over the past two decades, and how changes to local government council regulations came about, and under whose influence;
• Total accountability from anybody, including public servants and elected officials whose decisions are identified as responsible for damage to property or loss of life;
• Long-overdue changes to vegetation management, to a safety-first policy, where the populations’ right to protect their persons and property is restored.

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