John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

In speaking in support of this motion, I am very, very saddened in lots of ways but I am heartened by the deep sense of subduedness amongst the 150 of us here. I say to each and every one of you: we must use the energy that has been generated amongst us these last two days to finally do something constructive about preventing disasters like the one which confronts Victoria. Although with nowhere near the same death toll, this has happened before.

The electorate of Mallee is not unfamiliar with bushfire. The two distinct regions of the electorate are the north, which is the regional area of Mallee itself, and the south, which is the Wimmera. Much of the electorate is bush and national park. Bushfire watch starts usually around late October, mid-November in those national parks, with fire spotters in the air. Fires are started mostly by lightning but occasionally by arson. In the Wimmera are the Little Desert and Big Desert regions, which are often threatened, but never before have we had the threat in the suburbs.

There was a fire in Horsham but my electorate has not had the fatalities that my colleagues have had and spoken of right across Victoria—although one member of the public was badly burned while attempting to help his neighbour release stock locked into a paddock—so in a way we can say we have been spared. But eight families have lost their dwellings, a commercial trucking company has lost its entire industrial building—although thankfully it managed to save its fleet of trucks—and the prestigious Horsham Golf Club is in ruins. Horsham Golf Club involved massive investment and was mostly community funded. It was a building that the community was proud of and that hosted international events, but it now looks like an atomic blast has gone through it. Other members have spoken about the terror that people have endured across Victoria. I was impressed with the explanation of the member for Bendigo yesterday, relayed in terms of what his constituents have been reporting to him as the sheer terror of the Australian bushfire.

There is a part of this debate that is bothering me, being trained as an engineer. I remember from engineering school at university that there is no engineering solution to confronting a eucalyptus-fuelled Australian bushfire. Seemingly nature has created this wonderful environment, which other members have spoken of, that is designed to burn occasionally. It is an enigma, isn’t it? Eucalyptus oil is a volatile oil. It does not just start to burn when the intensity of the fire reaches 600 degrees but rather ignites and explodes like a bomb. People who have had the frightening experience of being near an Australian bushfire explain that it comes like a speeding train. It comes at temperatures that are unbearable to the human body. The body of the fire itself can reach temperatures in excess of 900 to 1,000 degrees—temperatures that melt the aluminium alloys in the gearboxes of motor cars. Others have said there must be an engineering solution to building buildings that can withstand such a terror but, other than a concrete nuclear bunker, there is not.

As tough as it is for the families in my constituency who have lost their homes, they are ringing my office wanting to help somewhere else in Victoria, which is a credit to their incredible Australianness. Receiving calls like that makes us feel good about being Aussies, with that wonderful spirit of common humanity. The Prime Minister rang me on Sunday morning, and I really valued that call and made the Mayor of the Horsham Rural City Council, Councillor Bernard Gross, aware of it. It provided a great deal of reassurance and, through the Speaker, I thank you, Prime Minister, for it. When people have called me they have asked for suggestions about what could be done to assist. I think I was still in some level of shock when responding, but I said that there is the immediate term and then there is the long-term reconstruction and that, in the immediate term, we need to get social support in there as quickly as we can. Another thing that I said was that we must find a way to express our appreciation to the Australian volunteers who put their own lives at risk and stick their necks out for their fellow Australians. My own baby brother has just joined a Sunraysia CFA task force. They were in Kinglake last night and over the next few days may well front the maelstrom that the member for McMillan described to us.

Another thing that this crisis has made me realise is how small a community we are as Australians. There might be only 20-odd million of us, but everybody knows somebody affected by what has happened in the last three or four days—a friend of a friend, a relative—and people have tried to support those who still do not know where their loved ones are, and there is a long list of those people.

Getting back to the engineering, I need to correct the record in regard to the Horsham fire. The member for Wannon generously embraced my constituents in his remarks yesterday. Both he and I had been advised that the Horsham fire was a result of arson. The fire forensics have subsequently identified that, while that was suspected, that was not the case. The Horsham fire commenced at a faulty power pole. For decades this has been an issue. I can remember that as a young child there were helicopters that flew over power lines and that occasionally would spray the dust off an insulator before moving on to the next pole as they conducted inspections. There are things that stick in your mind and stay with you forever. My late father had an Irish friend who said, ‘What a terrible waste of good alcohol.’ He made that assumption because alcohol is used to defrost insulators in alpine areas. But it is a silicon solution that is used to dedust transmission lines in dusty regions. In a faulty insulator an arc can form and, when it has a wooden cross arm, it feeds a fire. The sparks fall to the ground. Time and time again this has been identified as a source of these terrible fires. Colleagues and friends, we must find a way to energise ourselves and use the strong sense of humanity that we have been feeling in this place in the last two days to do something about it. We have to provide assistance to power authorities to replace those timber cross arms with steel. It is a readily available engineering solution. Sure, there is a cost involved, but we need to find the resources to achieve that.

My other anxiety is about what those families who have survived must be going through, especially those who still have not been able to locate loved ones. What must they be going through? Many members have stood and offered their prayers and thoughts. We do this as human beings; we offer our prayerful support. For some of us, that thought and sentiment comes out of our common humanity. Sometimes it comes out of a strong position of faith. My prayer since Saturday has been that somehow those persons concerned can find the strength to address the deep cavity that they feel in their hearts having lost a precious loved one and their property. My prayer is that somehow they will find the courage to build again. My other prayer is that they will be inspired to do that by the overwhelming support that is coming from their Australian friends right across the nation.

I was pleased, Prime Minister, that you have announced some level of coordination of the voluntary aid effort. My office has now moved on to receiving calls from people who want to offer a truck to cart some blankets down. All they are asking is for perhaps the fuel to be picked up. Others are offering hay. I am not really sure what the demand is for stock and fodder in the east of Victoria, but I would like an opportunity to be able to direct those people to a central point. I ask you to take that on board.

I will just finished by reinforcing the remarks made yesterday and today, especially for those who do not know where their loved ones have ended up. The brutal reality is that, with the temperature of these fires, they may never know.

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