AUSTRALIA’S leaders yesterday agreed to expand an inquiry into the devastating Warrnambool regional telephone exchange fire to look at possible eligibility for national disaster relief.
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Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu raised the outage issue twice in Canberra yesterday, before and during the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.
COAG agreed to his request to widen the terms of reference to include social and economic impact, emergency management processes and disaster relief arrangements.
Mr Baillieu, who was briefed by south-west mayors in Mortlake on Wednesday, followed through on his promise to put the issue on the national stage.
During a doorstop media conference before the COAG meeting he outlined how the November 22 fire knocked out 100,000 services, including phones, EFTPOS and internet across the region.
“This may well have been the first time we’ve had a communications failure of this size, substance and impact,” he said.
“We need to ensure that emergency management systems at the federal and state level and disaster relief arrangements take account of communications failure as a social and economic disaster.
“Today we’ll be asking the Commonwealth to expand the inquiry that has been announced to include social and economic impact and also to look at emergency management and disaster relief responses.”
The existing agreement between states and the Commonwealth enables disaster relief and recovery assistance for natural disasters including floods, bushfires storms, cyclones, landslides, tsunami and even meteorite strikes
It provides urgent financial assistance to communities.
However, there are no provisions for communications disasters.
The first of the inquiry forums will be in Warrnambool on Monday, December 17 at the Lighthouse Theatre starting at 10am to be followed by others early next year in the region.
It will be facilitated by Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Com-mittee chairman Rosemary Sinclair.
Wannon MP Dan Tehan, who lobbied Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to launch the inquiry, yesterday welcomed the discussion at COAG.
“This issue has now been given the attention it deserves and has been put on the national agenda,” he said yesterday.
“It means we’ll now get a fair dinkum review and response so lessons will be learnt.
“The Premier has put it to Prime Minister Gillard in Canberra.’’
Warrnambool’s mayor Cr Michael Neoh has previously expressed concern there was no template for responses by emergency services to communications disasters, unlike the situation for floods and fires.
