Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel fire killer Robert Paul Long belongs behind bars

OPINION: I remember when Childers was a just picturesque stop on the Bruce Highway, a place to stretch your legs after the three-hour drive north from Brisbane and have a pie.

It boasted one of those pretty Federation main streets, and right in the middle was the ornate, heritage-listed frontage of the Palace Hotel.

For a hundred years it had been a haven for people working seasonally on the area's farms.

In the year 2000 those people were young travellers from around the world, picking avocados or zucchinis by day, sharing a beer and a laugh in the evening, and then sleeping it off in shared rooms.

On the night of the fire, June 23, 2000, there were 88 people inside; 15 of them didn't make it out.

Most of them were my age, or younger.

I was a reporter for A Current Affair and spent many days looking at the burnt shell of the building, trying not to think of the horror of that night, and talking to locals and survivors.

Emergency service workers had the harrowing and haunting job of identifying the victims, while police hunted the suspect for five long days.

Two things stayed with me: the appalling loss of so many healthy, happy, and hardworking people who'd had their whole lives in front of them, and the warmth and care of the local community.

And both of those things came back to me powerfully this week on the anniversary of the fire.

I've had twenty years to fall in love, travel, and learn.

My parents watched me grow, marry, and have a family of my own.

But 15 people, including 22-year-old Australian twins Stacey and Kelly Slarke and their families never had that chance.

Robert Paul Long, a bitter drifter given to violence and arson, took everything from them.

If anything, the perspective of twenty years hasn't lessened the impact of the crime, it's intensified the depth of the loss.

The 69 people who made it out of the choking smoke and relentless flames had nothing but the clothes on their backs and were clearly in a state of shock.

Each of them was taken under the wing of a caring local.

They were there with sleeping bags, clothes, meals, and comfort, and they've never forgotten the people who came to town to work and were murdered in their sleep.

Many are still friends with survivors to this day.

Now, the man who lit the fires that night wants out of jail.

The man who waited downstairs to make sure the flames had taken, and then walked away, thinks he's done his time.

He's applied for parole and is portraying himself as a responsible inmate, who helps care for older prisoners.

Once again, the town and the survivors are rallying, petitioning, and presenting the parole board with the testimony of lives lost, or shattered, and of a community that lives in the shadow of a tragedy.

Robert Paul Long could care for geriatric inmates for the next twenty years and still be no closer to atoning for the crime he committed that night.

He was convicted of the killing of Stacey and Kelly Slarke, but not of the 13 other deaths, or the attempted murder of 69 innocent people.

He's one of our worst mass killers and he belongs behind bars.