First in a series raising serious questions about Darwin’s readiness to face disasters and everyday events which place emergency services personnel , volunteers and the public at risk . It will cover ignored warnings , inadequate and claimed dangerous building industry practices and laisser-faire inspections,running emergency services on the cheap, senior officers failing to respond to extensive correspondence pointing out potentially deadly flaws in disaster planning .
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Outspoken veteran journalist, editor, publisher and political activist, Pete Steedman, firmly believes that Australia repeatedly fails to learn the lessons of how to prepare for and cope with the aftermath of natural disasters. Steedman was deeply involved in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy, producing a newspaper with another journalist, John Ball, for Darwin residents who had been evacuated or fled overland to all parts of the country. Ball, who had resided in Hong Kong, brought his experience of living in the typhoon prone British colony to the Darwin post –cyclone situation . Both of them witnessed at first hand ,with critical eyes , how Darwin responded .
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Outspoken veteran journalist, editor, publisher and political activist, Pete Steedman, firmly believes that Australia repeatedly fails to learn the lessons of how to prepare for and cope with the aftermath of natural disasters. Steedman was deeply involved in the aftermath of Cyclone Tracy, producing a newspaper with another journalist, John Ball, for Darwin residents who had been evacuated or fled overland to all parts of the country. Ball, who had resided in Hong Kong, brought his experience of living in the typhoon prone British colony to the Darwin post –cyclone situation . Both of them witnessed at first hand ,with critical eyes , how Darwin responded .
Steedman subsequently produced a report for the Federal Government on Cyclone Tracy and how to cope with and better deal with problems revealed by Cyclone Tracy . In compiling the report , Steedman carried out research into past disasters in Australia , including the 1967 Tasmanian Black Tuesday bushfires which claimed the lives of 62, injured 900 , made 7000 homeless and caused damage of more than $40million . He also looked at the 1939 Black Friday bushfires in Victoria which killed 72 people.
Steedman’s comprehensive report, originally running to about 1400 pages, contained wide ranging advice on how to cope with future disasters and the needs and demands of the populace , was hand- delivered to Canberra about October 1975. The Whitlam Government was sacked by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, in November and the report, which contained criticism of the way the disaster had been handled , seemingly vanished into thin air.
Later, Steedman became aware that an invaluable book, prompted by the 1967 Tasmanian bushfires -BUSHFIRE DISASTER:An Australian Community in Crisis, Angus & Robertson, 1975 – had been written by Ron L. Wettenhall . The book , Steedman says, should be read by everybody concerned in natural disaster planning as what it had to say is valid today .
Wettenhall was a reader in Political Science at the University of Tasmania at the time of the fires and became a volunteer during the emergency, his Hobart home threatened . Due to his interest in government and first hand experience of the bushfire tragedy, he began to examine and question how Australian social organisations responded to such stress. He prefaced his case study with a discussion of the nature of disaster planning and preparedness . [ Steedman commented that the book included an invaluable review of the disaster history of Australia, which would have saved him a lot of hard work and sweat in compiling the Cyclone Tracy report.]
Wettenhall made the point that there was a persistent tendency on the part of planners to see disaster as an engineering problem, rather than a sociological one .
He dealt at length with organisational involvement during the primary emergency(rescue) ,secondary emergency (remedy) and the longer term recovery. He suggested existing organisations were most effective during the rescue phase and during the longer term recovery , but their inability to handle the secondary emergency phase led to the development of emergent groups.
A review of Wettenhall’s book by Russell R.Dynes, Disaster Research, Ohio State University , praised the author and said the study could be cited as the initial step in systematic disaster research in Australia ,in the same way that Samuel Prince’s study of Halifax in 1920 was a starting point for research in North America .(This was a reference to the 1917 huge explosion in Halifax ,Nova Scotia ,when two ships collided and one loaded with 200 tons of TNT,10 tons of gun cotton ,35 tons of benzol and 230 tons of acid caught on fire. The subsequent enormous explosion killed 1900 ; churches, houses, schools, factories , docks and ships were destroyed. Hundreds of people were made blind by glass fragments , amputations ran into hundreds . It was described as the largest man-made explosion until the atomic age. Oppenheimer studied the effects at Halifax when calculating the impact of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
Reviewer Dynes made the point that the book was in the process of publication at the time Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, when the “ new ” National Disaster Organisation came into operation for the first time.
Following the deadly Black Saturday Victorian bushfires of 2009 , Steedman, who once held the former seat of Casey for the ALP ,part of the area consumed by the blaze , toured the district in which 173 died and saw problems which had been evident after Cyclone Tracy.
Later, Steedman became aware that an invaluable book, prompted by the 1967 Tasmanian bushfires -BUSHFIRE DISASTER:An Australian Community in Crisis, Angus & Robertson, 1975 – had been written by Ron L. Wettenhall . The book , Steedman says, should be read by everybody concerned in natural disaster planning as what it had to say is valid today .
Wettenhall was a reader in Political Science at the University of Tasmania at the time of the fires and became a volunteer during the emergency, his Hobart home threatened . Due to his interest in government and first hand experience of the bushfire tragedy, he began to examine and question how Australian social organisations responded to such stress. He prefaced his case study with a discussion of the nature of disaster planning and preparedness . [ Steedman commented that the book included an invaluable review of the disaster history of Australia, which would have saved him a lot of hard work and sweat in compiling the Cyclone Tracy report.]
Wettenhall made the point that there was a persistent tendency on the part of planners to see disaster as an engineering problem, rather than a sociological one .
He dealt at length with organisational involvement during the primary emergency(rescue) ,secondary emergency (remedy) and the longer term recovery. He suggested existing organisations were most effective during the rescue phase and during the longer term recovery , but their inability to handle the secondary emergency phase led to the development of emergent groups.
A review of Wettenhall’s book by Russell R.Dynes, Disaster Research, Ohio State University , praised the author and said the study could be cited as the initial step in systematic disaster research in Australia ,in the same way that Samuel Prince’s study of Halifax in 1920 was a starting point for research in North America .(This was a reference to the 1917 huge explosion in Halifax ,Nova Scotia ,when two ships collided and one loaded with 200 tons of TNT,10 tons of gun cotton ,35 tons of benzol and 230 tons of acid caught on fire. The subsequent enormous explosion killed 1900 ; churches, houses, schools, factories , docks and ships were destroyed. Hundreds of people were made blind by glass fragments , amputations ran into hundreds . It was described as the largest man-made explosion until the atomic age. Oppenheimer studied the effects at Halifax when calculating the impact of atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.)
Reviewer Dynes made the point that the book was in the process of publication at the time Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin, when the “ new ” National Disaster Organisation came into operation for the first time.
Following the deadly Black Saturday Victorian bushfires of 2009 , Steedman, who once held the former seat of Casey for the ALP ,part of the area consumed by the blaze , toured the district in which 173 died and saw problems which had been evident after Cyclone Tracy.
It was obvious, he said, that modern pre-planning for major disasters had failed to understand the lessons of previous bushfires and the post -disaster situation was too bureaucratic and slow .
The recent floods in Queensland, he continued , had highlighted the same flaws . Premier Anna Bligh had done a wonderful job in the first instance, but now the stage had been reached where disgruntled victims, frustrated by insurance companies, paperwork and overloaded bureaucratic system ,not trained to cope with such situations , wanted to almost “ burn her at the stake”-Steedman renowned for strong and colourful expressions. The Queensland disaster measures and others across the nation continued not to come to grips with the reality and demands of such events, he added.
The recent floods in Queensland, he continued , had highlighted the same flaws . Premier Anna Bligh had done a wonderful job in the first instance, but now the stage had been reached where disgruntled victims, frustrated by insurance companies, paperwork and overloaded bureaucratic system ,not trained to cope with such situations , wanted to almost “ burn her at the stake”-Steedman renowned for strong and colourful expressions. The Queensland disaster measures and others across the nation continued not to come to grips with the reality and demands of such events, he added.
Steedman said he had no doubt the Northern Territory would be found wanting in the event of another major cyclone, despite all the lip service and statements made about the state of preparedness.
A man with a big picture outlook, Peter Steedman, did research work for several politicians and is shown here with Paul Keating , who had the same approach. At the time this photo was taken Steedman was executive director of AUSMUSIC , a national organisation , designed to get the fragmented Australian music industry, not achieving its potential, really humming. In particular , it gave young musos in schools, garages and on Aboriginal settlements , backing , education and skills to mix it in the tough cold world of the entertainment industry .
