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| Wivenhoe Dam is close to capacity after the previous rainy season. |
The Courier-Mail Editorial:
THE waters of the January 2011 flood have long-retreated but the painstaking, and, for many, still painful business of sifting through the aftermath continues.
The State Government, on Monday, handed down the third and latest substantial investigation into the handling of the Wivenhoe Dam in the crucial days before and during the flooding.
This report, compiled in part by the US Department of the Interior and the US Army Corps of Engineers, found the four engineers who were controlling the dam at the time did a good job.
In doing so it supported the findings of an earlier examination by the Crime and Misconduct Commission that there was insufficient reason to launch a full investigation into allegations of wrong-doing against the engineers.
The CMC, for its part, had been asked to investigate the engineers' performance by the $15 million flood inquiry headed by Justice Catherine Holmes and established by then-Premier Anna Bligh immediately after the flood.
Now, after more than 18 months of inquiries, investigations and assessments, the prospects of further examination of the circumstances surrounding the worst flooding in southeast Queensland's recent history remain high, this time in the form of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.
Although the engineers have been exonerated, all three inquiries found flaws in the dam management manual.
Lawyers, arming themselves with their own expert reports, are continuing to pursue a class action against the state which could potentially involve up to 5000 complainants.
These continuing efforts by the flood-affected to assign blame in their fight for compensation creates a big political and financial problem for the Newman Government. Although Ms Bligh had indicated the government and dam operator Seqwater could potentially negotiate some compensation, Mr Newman has, to date, made no such conciliatory comments.
He has maintained that those who wanted to pursue compensation had their rights and could make their own judgments - a fiscally responsible position to adopt perhaps, in terms of protecting the state from potentially massive negotiated settlements. But against that, Mr Newman must balance the prospect of a drawn-out, expensive, emotionally draining and uncertain process through the courts.
Finding the balance between prudent financial management and compassionate treatment of those who through no fault of their own had their lives and livelihoods so cruelly disrupted in those few days in January 2011 will be a true test of the Premier's leadership skills.
Whatever the resolution, the cruel fact remains that someone must pay for the damage done by the floods, either the individuals personally affected, or all of us as a community if the Government decided to pay compensation through negotiation or by order of the courts. In the meantime, of course we are all starting to pay higher insurance premiums as insurers set about recouping their billion-dollar flood payouts.
It appears unlikely that southeast Queensland faces floods this year the Government is confident enough about moderate summer rain forecasts that it has decided not to reduce Wivenhoe dam to 75 per cent capacity. The great remaining uncertainty though, even after this latest investigation, is who will finally pick up the bill for our worst flooding in decades.
26.9.12
