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| Justice Cate Holmes |
FLOOD Commissioner Cate Holmes defended her inquiry as she wound up public hearings for the last time, saying the Wivenhoe Dam saga was only a part of her wide-ranging brief.
Justice Holmes also hit back at suggestions that the inquiry should have uncovered troubling evidence that led to accusations four Wivenhoe Dam engineers had mismanaged the dam during the January floods then concocted a report released in March to cover their tracks.
Justice Holmes said the inquiry could not be expected to examine every piece of the millions of pages of material before it, searching for inconsistencies. It was also not its role to find culprits, but to examine more efficient ways of handling floods.
"This is not the Fitzgerald inquiry," she said.
Justice Holmes said that was not to say she was not "grateful" to (reporter) Hedley Thomas of The Australian who uncovered inconsistencies in record-keeping that led to the 10 days of emergency hearings that ended yesterday.
All four engineers returned in the last hours of the hearings to again defend their actions and deny they had improperly applied W1-W4 flood release strategies.
Assisting Counsel Peter Callaghan suggested to engineer Terry Malone that he did not have a full appreciation of the dam strategy W2.
"That may well be true," Mr Malone replied, later elaborating:
"It has always been somewhat confusing, W2, as it is written in the manual."
While engineer Rob Ayre disagreed that he did not fully "appreciate" W2, he agreed the strategy was confusing and "abstract."
The engineers said W2 need not be used as they moved from W1 to W3, but could simply be a transition strategy.
Earlier in the day, a senior Seqwater executive also defended the manner in which the critical March report was prepared. Seqwater general manager of water delivery Jim Pruss told the inquiry he had played a supportive role in the creation of the report and acted in "a governance role".
Mr Callaghan said there were concerns the report was compiled with reference to data without any attempt to capture any personal recollections from the dam engineers.
He asked whether Mr Pruss agreed there had been the danger of a "displacement" effect in the retrospective manner in which the report was prepared.
"The record ... might displace unrecorded memories of the engineers," Mr Pruss said. "I agree that is possible."
The inquiry will take more submissions on Tuesday and Wednesday.
12.12.02
