Sunday, December 31, 2006

When death becomes an accident...

Can one be just a little annoyed with Parks Victoria ?
No,that would be like saying one is just a little bit pregnant.
Let's have a look at the latest effort at re-writing history.
A chap fighting a deliberately lit bushfire falls from the trailer he is riding in(in poor light and thick smoke) and is fatally run over by a following vehicle.
Don Dosser would not have been there but for the fact he was helping to fight bushfires.
It has been announced by Parks Victoria that "there have been NO FATALITIES during these current fires". It appears Mr. Dosser is now classed as a tragic traffic accident.
There will be NO coronial inquiry.
If they ever do arrest the arsonist,it will likely be argued that Mr. Dosser's death was a traffic accident and not as a consequence of the arson.
Where does this slippery slope lead to?
Will Parks Vic reclassify past and future fire deaths as "poor vehicle structural integrity" or "poor judgement / human error" or "non-authoritive supervised work area" or "lack of fuel reduction surrounding residences" or "poor firefighting management skills"...and simply hand ball the investigations to police,Work Safety,CFA management,local councils,etc ?
One must ask if the great $ is behind this latest decision.
Perhaps Parks Vic have an eye on their Public Liability Insurance premiums ?
Or maybe,just maybe, Parks Vic have heard the growing rumblings of the public demanding a Royal Commission into the lack of fuel reduction in the severely over-loaded forests,the locked and over-grown access trails,the refusal to use machinary,in some areas,to clear containment lines and maybe,just maybe they're practicing the age-old defensive maneuver of covering their arse.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home