1 Submission to Council of Australian GOvernments INQUIRY ON BUSHFIRE MITIGATION & MANAGEMENT The Terra Nullius Fire Hypothesis

“In West Australia the forest-fires are not so excessively destructive as in the eastern colonies, nor do they as there leave in ghastly deadness vast numbers of standing trees, after the burning element has swept through the woods; on the other hand the woods of West Australia are charming at all times, no lifeless trees disfiguring the landscape, all fresh and ever verdant with Zamias, Xanthorrhoeas, and Kingias remaining unimpaired by the scorching flames. Nevertheless, the bushy vegetation and underwood, and all kinds of herbaceous plants, are at least periodically apt to be annihilated in the woody country, when the bush ignites…”. Baron Ferdinand Von Mueller, 1879 The difference between east and west Australia in 1879 was that in the east, Aboriginal frequent patch burning had largely been abolished, but in the west, although the Noongar people had greatly declined, it was still widespread. But suppose, when Europeans first settled in south-western Australia (1826 at Albany, 1829 at Swan River), there had been no other human inhabitants – truly a terra nullius. Knowing the undeniable inflammability of the vegetation (Moore 1884)