By Mara Pattison-Sowden
WARBURTON and Warburton East residents were keen to get their messages across at last week’s 2009 Bushfire Royal Commission community consultative meeting.
More than 50 residents gathered at the Warburton East Community Hall where they divided into groups to discuss the final six recommendations that Premier John Brumby wanted community consultation on.
The government had in its interim report given in-principle support for 59 of the 67 recommendations.
Attorney-General Rob Hulls attended the meeting, engaging with each table, and asking them the hard questions on powerlines, evacuations, refuges, land acquisitions, fuel reduction and local government obligations.
“Would you mind if electricity costs were increased to subsidise underground lines? Would a refuge help or hinder? Should it house 30 or 100 people, for a day or a week?”
Mr Hulls said afterwards the residents’ discussion was constructive “and you can tell that people love living here,” he said.
“I expect the Premier to personally read a great deal of these suggestions.”
The views from one group of residents were strong and united in opinion, although they were quick to acknowledge it was their choice to live in the bush in high-risk areas.
They said they weren’t sure that powerlines could be buried in Warburton, seeing as the underground natural gas extension still hadn’t reached them.
The group’s main concern with evacuations was not only the single road in and out of Warburton East, but the people who would be made to go into the town and do the evacuating.
“Imagine the pressure on those people? You’d want to believe in the system that they need you to evacuate,” one resident said.
“Evacuation is difficult to pull off well – local government and local brigades need to work together more and support each other.”
Another resident said “we don’t want enforced evacuation – we want informed evacuation”.
The suggestion was a graduated time scale to know what the options were.
“People need to know at what point of time how to get things done.”
Residents suggested that local government should be giving incentives for people to clean up their properties, including that roadside firewood should be left for residents, and discount ‘tip tickets’ used to help offset the cost of taking a load of rubbish down to the tip.
A big problem in Warburton and Warburton East is the space required for a refuge, but residents believe it should be a multi-purpose space to use all year round such as upgrading and fire-proofing a school building.
The compulsory acquisition policy – resettling existing developments in areas of high bushfire risk – was dismissed almost straight away with residents unwilling to relocate to a higher value area.
“If you sold here you couldn’t afford to buy at Woori Yallock – you’d have to rent. I’d fight if someone tried to take my house.”
