FED: Bushfire report won't 'gather dust', Gillard says

AAP General News (Australia)
02-17-2009
FED: Bushfire report won't 'gather dust', Gillard says

CANBERRA, Feb 17 AAP - The royal commission's report into the Victorian bushfires won't
just be a book on a shelf gathering dust, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard says.

Ms Gillard was responding to concerns about whether the government would act on recommendations
that come from the inquiry into the firestorm which has claimed at least 189 lives.

"People will look to the royal commission to work its way through all of that and obviously
as soon as that is available, government will respond - federal government, state government,"

she told the Nine Network.

People were looking for assurances that governments would make changes to try to avoid
similar disasters in the future.

"Everybody who has lived through this experience in Victoria and around the nation
has asked the question, 'why, what can we do better?'."

No one wanted to see the report "as a book on a shelf gathering dust", she said.

"They're going to want to have it on the desk and actioning the recommendations."

Ms Gillard said the Rudd government had considered recommendations stemming from a
federal inquiry into the 2003 Canberra bushfires headed by former Liberal MP Gary Nairn.

"When we came to government for example, the idea about an early warning system had
first been raised in 2003, not much had been done," Ms Gillard said.

The government had consequently raised the issue via the Council of Australian Governments,
she said.

AAP srj/kms/srp

KEYWORD: BUSHFIRES VIC GILLARD

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