Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, that is right. It flew down. There were two or three houses that survived. In most of the street, how bad it would have been for those people. That would be terrible. And it is the same in Marysville, where I think there are four houses out of all the houses in that town. How you would go back is very difficult. I do not think we have any ability to understand this just yet. Looking at people around this place, I see a look of shock and disbelief in everyone’s eyes. That is the best way to describe it.

I am very proud to be part of this parliament and the response that we have made this week. I commend the Leader of the House on today’s announcement. I know he spoke to our Manager of Opposition Business this morning. I had dinner with the Manager of Opposition Business last night. As many know, I live with the Manager of Opposition Business, which brings all sorts of challenges for me personally! I said to Joe last night—and I know my colleague the member for Mitchell did as well—that it is just not possible to have question time this week. There is no question you can ask of the government this week which seems reasonable in this circumstance. I am very pleased that the manager of government business and the government have agreed with that.

I thought the speech of the member for McMillan yesterday was something else. It was just dripping with emotion. It really indicated how difficult it is down there. I put out my heartfelt thoughts to the member for McEwen, whom I have known for some time. In my role previous to this role in parliament, in the Prime Minister’s office, she was one of my ministers. We had a close relationship. The member for McEwen is a very tough lady. I sat on a plane with her last week, and we were talking about all sorts of things. Her community came up, and the love she has for where she lives and the people of her electorate—as many of us do, of course—is second to none. She is really feeling it. She spoke to our Opposition Whip this morning, and she is doing it tough. She has had to abandon her house and her office. I think we should all acknowledge and think about what she and her community are going through and will continue to go through for some time. It is an ongoing crisis.

On that, there is one last point I want to make. I am not sure whether members saw it, but yesterday in the Australian there was an article by Gary Hughes, who was there. He lives there. He is a journalist with the Australian. I think it is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read. The ability of a journalist to describe things, of course, is their job, but to live through it and be able to do both is another matter—I think it is an extraordinary piece. I pay tribute to him for it.

That brings me to my electorate, the electorate of Mayo, in South Australia, and our connection to these issues. If there were a major fire in South Australia, it would be in the Adelaide Hills. We have not had a major fire in South Australia around suburban Adelaide—although we have on the Eyre Peninsula—since prior to the first member for Mayo being elected. That was Ash Wednesday, in 1983, where I think 28 died in the hills, six on Greenhill Road. For anyone who does not know Adelaide, that is a major metropolitan thoroughfare. They were caught with falling trees and so forth.

I can tell the House that last Saturday I was scared. It was a scary day. The wind was unbelievable. The heat was unbelievable. I had a mobile electorate office at 10 am on Saturday, and the car told me it was 42. It was just insane. I pay tribute to the 12 people who rolled up to that, because I probably would not have! It was a very scary day, and I had the radio on all day, listening. We were very lucky, and I thank those above us who prevented anything from occurring. The CFS do a wonderful job.

But I am very concerned, as I said in my local paper today, about going forward. I think we do need to look at how people are warned. You cannot fight these firestorms, and we do need to consider in the future whether there should be a better early-warning system on days that are 41, 43 or 44 degrees with high winds. I do not think we should be encouraging people to stay with their properties. We give cyclones categories; maybe we need to look at categorising days in the summer if you live in a higher risk bushfire zone. I am pleased the Victorian government is having a royal commission. There should be a range of inquiries into this. We need to learn the lessons. But we are only halfway through this fire season. We have got another hot weekend ahead in Adelaide, we are in a massive drought—water is a huge issue in my electorate—and of course there is no groundwater because of that and the trees are very dry.

In our country we forget that our bushland is meant to burn; it has traditionally burnt. We are fighting against nature in a lot of ways. I have heard other members in their contributions talk about the fact that people live in areas that they previously did not live in. But, in the Adelaide Hills, that is not really true; people have lived in the Adelaide Hills since Adelaide was born. The Hahndorf area and so forth was settled in the 1830s by German Lutherans, so people have been living in and around the hills for a long time. My electorate does not have many national parks where burn-off is a big issue but it does have a lot of private property where it probably is, and so we do need to look at the undergrowth debate at the appropriate time.

I also strongly believe that in bushfire zones we may need to go down the track of implementing a system of fire shelters—fire bunkers or cellars; whatever you like. In Northern Queensland—and this happened in Darwin, of course, after Cyclone Tracy—you build houses that will withstand a cyclone. I understand the access road argument, but in some parts of the Adelaide Hills you are not going to be able to build more roads to get out. It is the nature of living there.

So we do need to consider the lessons here. I am very concerned about the rest of this fire season. I just hope and pray we get through it. But I do think we need to very quickly look at the lessons from this fire tragedy—and look at worst-case scenarios, because there are a lot of circumstances where you can stay and fight and prevent the fire; however, if it is a firestorm such as it was on the weekend, with those high winds, it is just not possible. We do need to ask these questions at the appropriate time. We need to look at the policy responses here and at the state and local levels. But today is not an occasion to do that; this week is not the occasion to do that. This debate today and over the following days is a time to send our support to those who are suffering in the ongoing crisis and those who have lost so much already. As the member for Canberra rightly acknowledged, there will be stages of grieving, and we need to be there for those people.

I end on this note: my thoughts and prayers this week are with Fran Bailey and her people, and all those others who are affected by the fires—but in particular with Fran because I know how deeply she cares for her community and for her people, and I know she will be very sad at this time. I hope that everything works out for her for the rest of the week.

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