Vic: We will rebuild, Premier pledges - but how?

AAP General News (Australia)
02-13-2009
Vic: We will rebuild, Premier pledges - but how?

By Jamie Duncan

MELBOURNE, Feb 13 AAP - Like many parts of fire-ravaged Victoria this week, the city
of Darwin almost ceased to exist when Cyclone Tracy brutally beat the city flat early
on Christmas Day.

It took many years, and many millions of dollars for Australia's northernmost capital
to rise again from the bleak, twisted and treeless wreckage Tracy left in her wake.

Row upon row, mile upon mile of houses - many tacked together with fibro cement, asbestos
sheeting roofs and little else and pounded by Tracy's tight vortex - were replaced cyclone-resistant
designs approved by the Darwin Reconstruction Commission.

Now Victoria Police's outgoing Chief Commissioner - a woman already known for making
tough decisions - will help shape how devastated towns like Kinglake and Marysville rise
from the ashes, stronger and safer than before.

Australia's first female police chief, who took on Melbourne's bloody gangland war
and entrenched corruption in the nation's second largest police force, will head the Victorian
Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority from March 2.

Victorian Premier John Brumby, whose emotional response to the scale of the state's
bushfire disaster made headlines around the country, has made his views clear already
and is waiting for a Royal Commission into the disaster to back him up.

While touring the Beechworth fire zone this week, Mr Brumby noted the Darwin experience
and mooted flame-resistant building standards, more fire breaks in forest and even concrete
fire bunkers for homes rebuilt in devastated communities.

"If you think back to Cyclone Tracy in 1974 when the whole city of Darwin was just
razed to the ground, it was rebuilt with houses which were cyclone-proof - they were built
to new specifications," he said.

"So it may well be that all the homes there have to built to higher specifications.

"I'm sure people will look at things like bunkers as well, (like) where they have in
the United States for twisters and things like that to provide fire protection."

Mr Brumby warned tighter controls were inevitable as the inquiry would consider planning,
design and fire protection issues that may have contributed to the disaster, ruling out
abandoning towns.

"I think we've got to put 100 per cent of our emphasis on protecting and saving lives
in the future," he said.

"I think it is likely you will see a range of recommendations from the Royal Commission
about tighter building standards, higher level of standards - recognising the fact that,
in what is now clearly a climate change environment, we are going to see more extreme
weather events.

Tougher building standards might prevent the scores of deaths on Saturday, where people
could not find the right hiding place as their homes burned or died in a panicked race
along narrow forest roads in blinding smoke and searing heat.

Master Builders Association (MBA) executive director Brian Welch said most builders
would help out for free to get people back on their feet but warned that home owners already
faced higher costs if they choose to rebuild.

Under current planning laws, a simple bush shack would have to be replaced with a five-star
energy-efficient home, he said.

He urged a fast recovery for fire-ravaged towns.

"To streamline it, we have to adopt a mindset that it's like building a new suburb
- clearly there has been so much devastation it's like a new suburb," he said.

"We should start as soon as possible because people want to be back in their own homes
in their preferred locations."

Early reports have suggested stricter standards would add $20,000 to the cost of a
fire-resistant house, but some banks have already said they would ease mortgage conditions.

Federal Liberal MP Fran Bailey, whose McEwen electorate copped the brunt of the fires,
says the charming bush character of devastated towns must also considered in the rebuild.

"(Rebuilding) is going to be the most enormous challenge ... because places like Kinglake
and Marysville ... there is no power, there is no water, there is no communications,"

she told ABC Television.

"This is a mammoth task, but counterbalancing that is the spirit of the people of these
communities."

The towns should be rebuilt, despite being in heavily wooded areas, Ms Bailey said.

"For 99.9 per cent of the time it's perfectly safe and it is a beautiful environment."

And while some locals are doubtful they will return, others are determined the communities
won't die.

"We can rebuild this place in a flash. You see it and hear it in people's attitudes,
people sharing generators and stuff, it's the spirit of the people here. Kinglake will
come back," businessman Roy Ellis said.

AAP jrd/pmu/mo

KEYWORD: BUSHFIRES VIC RECONSTRUCT (AAP NEWSFEATURE)

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