Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Justice and Public Security) Share this | Hansard source

On Saturday, 7 February 2009, in the afternoon, I was driving along Burwood Highway. I stopped at the Dorset Road traffic lights. I think I was listening to an AM radio program, where they announced that the temperature was 46 degrees. It has never been 46 degrees in Melbourne before. As I looked up at the traffic lights, the gale force winds were actually shaking the traffic lights. I have only seen that occur in winter. I thought, ‘The last thing we want is to see any sort of fire today.’ At this stage, there were fires around but not in the Dandenong Ranges. As I drove further up, I could see ahead of me Upper Ferntree Gully, near the Shell service station. To my shock and horror I realised that there was smoke in the vicinity of Quarry Road, which is right beside the train line. At this stage I could not see any CFA units, but I suspect they may have been up at the train line. To give members some indication of how strong the winds were: the flames were going up the trees in a corkscrew effect. I could not believe what I was seeing. I had a flashback to 16 February 1983. That was the day of the Ash Wednesday bushfires. In an ironic twist, I had been at roughly the same location. I had just left the Ferntree Gully Technical School when I looked across and saw a plume of smoke coming from Belgrave South.

On Ash Wednesday my electorate of La Trobe was really badly hit by the fires in Belgrave Heights, Upper Beaconsfield and Cockatoo. Belgrave Heights and Upper Beaconsfield saw the loss of 21 lives and 283 buildings. The township of Cockatoo, as we heard the opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, mention yesterday, had over 300 houses lost and also six lives. Any loss of life is exceptionally sad but we saw on Ash Wednesday two fire crews, the Narre Warren crew and the Panton Hill crew, have the lives of all the members taken. And captain John Minett the day before had actually been named Victorian firefighter of the year. They went to Upper Beaconsfield and got trapped in a firestorm and all members were found dead. I recall that the member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, in his very passionate and emotional speech to the House, said that he was only 10 minutes off following those members up there when he was, I believe, captain of the Beaconsfield unit.

At the moment in my electorate of La Trobe we have concerns about Gembrook, which is right beside Cockatoo, with a big fire at the Bunyip State Forest. There has now been a change of wind, so my prayers are for the people in Gembrook, which is beside my electorate of La Trobe. To give people an idea of the Dandenong Ranges, if you go from Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook it is approximately 20 or 25 kilometres and in that radius of, say, 15 kilometres there are probably 20,000 or 30,000 people living there.

I could not believe what I was witnessing at Upper Ferntree Gully, a fire on the 46-degree day with this amazing heat. I honestly believe that if that fire took off across the Burwood Highway and moved through up to the forest, the hills would have gone up and we would have lost an amazing number of lives. My special thanks must go to the CFA crews at Upper Ferntree Gully, Boronia, Belgrave, Ferntree Gully, Upwey, The Basin and Montrose. I have no doubt from what I saw that they saved hundreds of lives in the Dandenong Ranges, in the hills. My office has been in contact with Captain Peter Smith of Upper Ferntree Gully, who has been a CFA member for 35 years, and he is actually quoted as saying this was the best save he has ever seen. I believe him. I could not believe what I was witnessing. They did an amazing job.

I did not hang around because my parents live up in the hills and they, like many of the residents, have lived through the Ash Wednesday fires, the 1997 fires and 2004 and they have a lot of experience. Since the 1997 fires they have had two 5,000-litre water tanks. My father has been a member of the Ferny Creek CFA and is what I would call a veteran. He was prepared to stay and fight any sort of fire. Reluctantly I went up there to give assistance. We were very lucky with this fire at Upper Ferntree Gully that the wind was not pushing strongly to the national park. I believe that if the fire was two hours later we probably would have lost the hills. I cannot thank those crews enough for what they did. Captain Smith and all the troops there did an amazing job. I have to make sure we get the message out there to the residents of the hills that they were saved.

When I drove up through the hills, going through some of the back streets, I did not feel that I was in danger, because the wind was going across the Burwood Highway, but I saw a few things that greatly concerned me. One was the fact that there were a lot of residents in the traditional shorts and shirt holding a garden hose. As I was going past, I thought to myself: if this fire takes off, they are gone. Even though there are people who put the best fire plans in place, if a fire went up the hills that day, they would be gone, especially the ones who stayed there dressed in their thongs and shirts et cetera. To me it was quite bizarre. The residents of the Dandenong Ranges are very used to having fires, so they are prepared, but I have raised the question before—but we have never had this situation where we have had 46-degree days with 100-plus kilometre winds—as to advice about staying or leaving early, and maybe they can look at this in the royal commission. From what I saw that day, if the fire went through the Dandenong Ranges, staying would have been catastrophic.

I will just go back to the Upper Ferntree Gully crew. That day there were 22 members and subsequently they went to help in Drouin, Harkaway, Wandong and Yarra Glen. In my electorate of La Trobe, I think I have over 30 CFAs. Nearly every suburb—whether it be Selby, Menzies Creek or Ferny Creek—has a CFA and they are very prepared for fires. These men and women do an amazing job. We have world-class CFA firefighters in my electorate of La Trobe and in Victoria—and of course in Australia—but I would also like to thank all the support staff for the amazing job they do in supporting the CFA crews. Again speaking locally, I thank the local police who had to stand at the roadblocks in temperatures of 46 degrees, stopping people going up to the hills. The simple reason they did that is that if we did have a fire up there, it would have been absolutely devastating.

I did not witness this, but to the south of my electorate we had another fire at Narre Warren North, which sadly claimed three homes but, thankfully, no lives were lost. Again, from the feedback I have been given, if this fire was not stopped, we would have had a major tragedy down the south of my electorate. A big thanks goes to the sky crane Elvis crew. Residents have told me that they did an amazing job. I actually wrote to the Prime Minister last year suggesting that we have two sky cranes—one on standby in the Dandenong Ranges. I congratulate the Prime Minister because he made three available in Australia. From what the local residents are saying, they did an amazing job.

Last night in Upper Beaconsfield—where, as I mentioned before, a number of lives were lost on Ash Wednesday—there was a small fire on Lenne Street. Again, I congratulate the CFA crews. On behalf of the local community, I would also like to thank and congratulate all of the volunteers who attended the Narre Warren North fire—the crews from Narre Warren North, Berwick, Narre Warren, Belgrave and Upper Beaconsfield—and a special thanks goes to the crews not in the electorate, who have come from far and wide, from Hampton and Hallam and right down to Rosebud, Tooradin and Ballarat. One of the amazing things about CFA volunteers is that they actually move around the state. Tragically, we have heard that a number of those fighting the fires I will speak about shortly lost friends, relatives and homes whilst out there fighting the fires.

When I arrived at my parent’s place and we realised after a couple of hours that a cool change had come in—and it really came in; the temperature must have dropped 10 or 15 degrees—we were looking at Kinglake, which was some distance away, and I could see a glow there. At that stage, I do not believe a death toll had been announced or that it had been announced that anyone had perished. But, sadly and tragically, we have now lost over 173 Victorians.

It is disturbing to members of the House and the Australian public to see anyone die, but it is especially disturbing to see children die. It is the most awful thing to see. We have had the tragedy go through Kinglake, Strathewen and Marysville. The township of Marysville is normally regarded as being green and fairly open, not a high fire danger area. Obviously as you go through Blackspur it is. But the Dandenong Ranges are regarded as only second behind California in terms of being the highest fire danger zone in the world. Bendigo, Narbethong and Pheasant Creek have been devastated by fires. Our thoughts go to the families who have lost family members. We also remember the pets. I think we are coming up to nearly 1,000 homes lost and 5,000 Victorians who do not have accommodation at the moment.

There has been a lot of talk about early warnings. I know there is going to be a royal commission, but I do not know how many times I heard the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, say Saturday would be the darkest day in Victorian history, with the combination of high temperatures and winds. So the warnings were definitely out there. But people in Victoria have had many fires and they have survived. After the 1997 fires, a lot of people cleared a lot of the trees et cetera from around their places. But still there has to be more done on removing the undergrowth. People in Ferny Creek had the tragedy of fires in 1997, but this time the fire would have ripped through there if it had gone up to the Dandenong Ranges.

I was fairly proud that I was contacted by Sarah Brown, who is a friend of mine and also a volunteer in the Ferny Creek CFA. Sarah contacted me a couple of years ago about the Ferny Creek bushfire alert. This was established after 1997, when three people died in Ferny Creek. I know that Ann Marie and others lobbied very hard, and we gave them funding to improve the bushfire alert system, which basically notifies residents when a fire is coming. In all honesty, though, when they have the royal commission, we have to write to the commissioner about this. This is a great system but, if a fire takes 10 minutes to get from the basin up to Ferny Creek, it would not have given people enough time to get out. So maybe they need to look at getting an alert the day before.

Sadly there has been a great loss of wildlife. I believe we have lost in the vicinity of 20,000 animals. We spoke to Tina at the Shangri-La Wildlife Shelter in Macclesfield today. She has received from Healesville Sanctuary only two animals—a wallaby, with burnt feet, and a tawny frogmouth. This is an exceptionally low number. What that means is the fire was so ferocious that the wildlife has just been getting killed. Tina also told us that, sadly, all the animals that were being looked after at a number of sanctuaries in Kinglake and other areas have tragically died. That is another thing we need to look at down the track—the location of the shelters and the means of moving the animals. Hopefully, that will be a subject for the royal commission. Some people say wildlife is not a high priority, but I personally believe that it is. The way we look after our most vulnerable animals is a great test for society itself. I believe we need to look at that.

I want to thank the Australian Defence Force personnel, especially the volunteers who have gone in to help. I can never mention and thank enough the CFA members for everything they are doing. I congratulate the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their positions on this. I thank the Premier of Victoria, John Brumby, and the Victorian Opposition Leader, Ted Baillieu. They have all been doing the right thing. I am very proud to be a member of parliament at this time. I thank all those who are searching for bodies and doing victim identification. As a former police officer, I can tell you that is an awful job to do, especially when you are looking for and come across children.

Finally, I believe some of these fires have been reported as being deliberately lit. Basically we have had arsonists unleash hell on their neighbours, on their suburbs and on other Australians. They obviously do not care about their actions, they do not take responsibility and they get some sort of enjoyment or kick out of it. I could use much stronger words, but, at the very least, they should hang their heads in shame for what they have done to our society. They have put such a black mark on our country and on the emotions of people. God help them if they get discovered by local residents, because I am sure they will give them the punishment they deserve.

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