PUBLIC affairs activist, Graham Jolly of Cape Woolamai, is calling for a government inquiry into the catastrophic spate of drownings at Bass Coast beaches, between Friday, January 12 and Wednesday, January 24, when six people tragically lost their lives over a 13-day period.
In the first instance he’s going to present what he knows to police in the hope it can be included in their report for the Coroner.
But it’s not the first time he’s brought this same information to the attention of the Coroner.
He did the same back in December 2020 following the death of a 24-year-old Melton woman, who drowned at Smiths Beach on November 28 that year.
Mr Jolly wants to know why the recommendations of the ‘Bass Coast Shire Coastal Risk Assessment’, conducted by Life Saving Victoria in 2018-19, for key local agencies including the Bass Coast Shire Council, Phillip Island Nature Parks, Parks Victoria and the San Remo Foreshore Committee of Management, have not been implemented.
And why the exhaustive efforts he has made, since 2019, to get a full copy of the final report released, have been blocked by those public agencies.
The initiative was funded by the Australian Government in 2018 under the ‘Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) Beach Drowning Black Spot Reduction Program’, details of which were announced on January 1, 2018 by the then Minister for Health and Aged Care, the former Member for Flinders (including Phillip Island), Greg Hunt, when the Turnbull Government added an additional $3 million to a $15 million, five-year plan, to tackle the “the incidence of drowning in identified high risk areas”.
The report names Forrest Caves, Surf Beach and beaches near Kilcunda, the sites of the six drownings, as having high hazard scores and needing to be included in a new ‘back spot’ strategy.
One of the key recommendations in what is believed to be a 100-plus page document, relating to warning signs at the high-risk beaches, was released by Life Saving Victoria and the Bass Coast Shire Council on Monday, December 9, 2019 in an Executive Summary (Project Stage 2).
Specifically, it says: “this report strongly recommends a Shire-wide uniform signage strategy”.
“One key risk treatment strategy proposed for all sites is signage and this report strongly recommends a Shire-wide uniform signage strategy. Used on public land specific to aquatic recreation drowning and injury event minimisation; it should be implemented in a coordinated and consistent manner.”
The recommendation says one way to ensure consistency is to implement signage using the AS/NZS 2416 standard for water safety signs and flags however this standard was withdrawn in 2021.
The report recommends that “the basis for all sign design, sizing and placement decisions should be based on a clear and concise communication objective” and urges all BCS land managers to “commit to a systematic monitoring and review process”.
Mr Jolly doesn’t believe this has occurred and he wants answers.
In fact, after sending a stream of emails to the relevant authorities, from mid-2019 onwards, copies of which he plans to supply to police and the coroner, Mr Jolly put a question to the Bass Coast Shire Council’s September 18, 2019 council meeting, which was diverted away from the meeting as “general correspondence” and to which he never received a reply.
He asked if council had received the report, what the recommendations were and what action had been taken. He also asked if the report had been provided to the elected councillors and when it would be made public.
Little more than a month later, council released its executive summary and joint statement by council and Life Saving Victoria, which among other things noted that “Bass Coast Shire ranks the second highest Local Government Area in Victoria for fatal drowning events”.
It also acknowledged the need standardise beach safety signage across the shire to meet the AS/NZS 2416 standard.
Mr Jolly said he had spoken to a number of councillors who claimed they had never seen the report, nor were they aware of any implementation measures.
This was confirmed over the weekend by the Mayor Cr Clare Le Serve and the Deputy Mayor Cr Rochelle Halstead.
Cr Le Serve said the council was working with Phillip Island Nature Parks, which has management responsibility for Forrest Caves, and with Parks Victoria and other agencies on ways to improve safety.
“Anything we can do to improve safety at our beaches is absolutely important,” she said, promising to make it the first order of business for the new shire CEO, Greg Box, when he started his new role this Monday.
“Our community is deeply saddened and affected by the drownings in our region. Whilst we live in a beautiful region surrounded by beaches; this is sadly a tragic reminder of how dangerous the ocean can be,” Cr Le Serve said in an official statement at the weekend.
However, the shire’s own beach messaging is not consistent. While there’s a “Swimming not advised, unpatrolled location” and “Strong Currents” advise at Kilcunda East, the site of a drowning on January 12, the shire’s “Beach Safety” page on its website has the clear and concise message “No Flags = No Swim”.
A spokesperson for Phillip Island Nature Parks told The Age that the authority would review warning signs at the beach, which already had a no-swimming symbol and met Australian standards.
“There are currently two large warning signs on the two entries to the Forrest Caves beach area,” the spokesperson said.
“Nature Parks will work closely with Life Saving Victoria to review and refresh all signage and act if there is further advice to improve the safety of this beach.”
General Manager of Life Saving Victoria, Liam Krige, joined Acting Assistant Commissioner Karen Nyholm at a media briefing at Forrest Caves beach last Thursday, the day after the mass drowning, and ahead of the long weekend.
While he praised the efforts of two off-duty lifeguards, who were among the first to respond, and the efforts of other surf lifesavers who joined what was a multi-agency effort, he indicated that more could be done to improve the signage.
“The majority of the signs meet Australian safety standards, but we could always do more,” he said, while urging people to do their own research, including consulting the Surf Life Saving Australia Beachsafe website and app, and knowing their limits.
Unfortunately, according to Mr Jolly, the warning signs at the entrance to many of the “high hazard” beaches in Bass Coast are either inadequate or in a poor state of repair.
“Together with the impact on these poor families, this incident has had a profound impact on the emergency services people who responded and on the broader community of Phillip Island and Bass Coast,” Mr Jolly said.
“The community is tremendously saddened by what has occurred and they want action.
“What have the authorities done about implementing the recommendations in this report, and why hasn’t the full report been released, five years on?”
