The Royal Smoke Screen

The Royal Commission into the 2009 Victorian bushfires, which is due in July, believes, as a matter of principle, "the safest option" when confronted with a bushfire "is always to leave early rather than to stay and fight".

I wonder what the ANZACs would have thought of the Commission's nothing statement?

It's akin to proposing a 40 kph restriction on all motor vehicles as a way of reducing road fatalities. There is a hypothetical truth to such claims, yet their profound weakness somehow renders them miserable failures if and when we attempt to convert the theory into reality.

The impracticalities arise because the outlook denies the glories of human possibility. What if the diggers had stayed in the trenches convinced it was their safest bet?

While much of modern society, particularly at times of acute distress, clamour for personal security, and politicians are content to promise them such, there is more to life than life itself. If not, existence would be intolerable, at least for those of us aware of our own mortality.

The truth is: our most vital concern is how we live it. The spirit of ANZAC.

The difficulty, the one the Commission is struggling with, is that this is a transcendental experience, beyond the grasp of the mind. What it means to be human must be lived, which is why we participate in ceremonies and lose money playing two-up on April 25..

Of course this is not to suggest that what we can understand is worthless. Science has reduced uncertainty. We are better able to deal with bushfires today than at any other time in history. We live longer and know more about the physical universe.

While all this is fabulous, and I'm personally glad to not live in medieval or pre-historic times, the fact is our cleverness has not - and will not - put an end to uncertainty, or our mortality.

This is not something our rationalism, spurred on by its material successes, finds easy to accept. We've put a man on the moon, cured numerous diseases and invented the internet. Surely, upon surely, there must be a science capable of putting an end to bushfire tragedy.

The laconic, owed-nothing quality that built this nation is slowly but surely giving way to an over-civilised belief that we are entitled to safeguard ourselves against all injury and calamity, including, ironically, that caused by the natural environment that sustains us. And anyone who disagrees is a heartless bastard or an idiot. 

The Royal Commission is shaping as a missed opportunity to address this growing cultural malaise. Instead of re-affirming it, the Commission is equivocating over a bushfire policy that recognises that spirit is more important than mere existence.

The Stay or Go concept, which was in place on 7 February 2009, maintains that government and its fire agencies, while crucial providers of advice, must not make the final decision on whether an individual should stay or leave a fire-threatened property. 

Though often argued as a civil liberty, the policy is also thoroughly pragmatic. Fire agencies cannot properly second-guess everyone's circumstances. Apart from having to predict the speed, direction and intensity of a bushfire, and calculate the time needed to relocate, they would have to appreciate the preparedness of each individual, including their apparently irrational willingness to dig in and fight.

The Commission notes in its interim report that emergency work "is a dialogue, not a command". This is because the science of bushfire management, however good, is never sufficient. The decision to stay or go must be lived in real time, having regard for factors known only to the individual.

It is true, of course, that even adequately informed people will make bad choices. As the Country Fire Authority told the Commission: "it is unrealistic to expect people to respond to disasters in a uniform manner, or in a rational manner according to what the emergency service might try to prescribe". Others may choose to ignore the advice and go their own way, resulting in tragic consequences.

While not always easy to accept, the Stay or Go regime confirms we face two mutually-exclusive ideologies for approaching life.

If there is a formula for eliminating risk, and thus government resources are capable of being employed to achieve full transparency and a clear-cut answer for what should be done, then bushfire policy should be based on a system of command. End of story.

If there is no formula or guarantee, and the spirit manifest in personal judgement will always be required, then improved science, while certainly helpful, can never substitute for the metaphysical aspects of life and the choices it requires of us.

On the one hand, the Commission recognises the fact the inherent limits to science by stating that "complexity and diversity" means only "very general advice" can be provided on bushfires.

At the same time, however, it panders to growing community expectations that government can and should make the final – and correct – decision on our behalf. It has called for "more specific triggers" on whether it is appropriate to leave a fire-threatened property and criticised fire agencies for a Stay or Go policy that is "characterised by the drive for philosophical purity and theoretical consistency".

The ANZACs didn’t ask for guarantees when they left home for a war on the other side of the world. Perhaps they were too innocent. Regardless, the principle we celebrate endures: life is uncertain and governments can’t fix this.

The Royal Commission should stop give up harassing Christine Nixon, the former Victorian Police chief, and tackle the real issues.