Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the condolence motion moved by the Deputy Prime Minister. I am so sorry for all the families who have lost loved ones in these fires. I know the thoughts of all my constituents in Lyons are with the victims. They would want me to pass on their condolences and their sympathy to their fellow Australians in Victoria.

To the survivors I say: do not feel guilty. I saw television footage this morning of a counsellor talking of people coming down from the fire affected areas feeling guilty because they had survived. They should not think that way. There is always a reason for survival, and really their job now is to rebuild and renew in the memory of those who have perished. I know they will always have challenging moments. Most of them have lost houses and will have difficult memories, but we know that time heals. Soon, after the last fire in Victoria is put out, the big job of rebuilding Victoria will begin.

Bushfires are a fact of life in Australia. They have always been with us, but I certainly do not think anybody was ready for the speed and ferocity that drove those fires that caught so many people unprepared. It is unimaginable what those people went through. I do not think we will ever really know the feelings of the survivors who somehow managed, phoenix like, to rise from those ashes and the devastation of their world. It is not something that one would ever forget; the effects will certainly haunt those survivors for many years. We need to remember that and ensure that there is assistance for them into the future. This terrible event will leave the survivors, the emergency service workers and every affected person emotionally, if not physically—certainly many suffered physically, as we know—affected. The recovery process must start, and they will need our help in that.

Because of the scale of this disaster, there need to be changes to the way we look at and live in fire prone areas. I am sure that we will be forced to reassess how best to face this sort of challenge in the future. I see some of those questions starting to emerge in the media this morning. It was interesting last night listening to the member for Lingiari speak of his experience of arriving in Darwin just after the cyclone, where all the new houses were built with cyclone shelters. Whether we look at fire shelters and community shelters is something for us to consider in the future. I sat on the Canberra bushfire inquiry and, apart from the possible use of shelters, one thing that stood out was looking at the way, and where, houses should be built.

I remember seeing the fires along the east coast of Tasmania in 2006. As I drove through a day later I saw many signs, such as ‘do not defend’, warning fire crews of an impossible driveway to get a tanker in and out of and of the subsequent danger. Warnings not to defend some of those areas were given by the higher authorities. These are decisions that many people do not think about until we have these sorts of events.

The issue of preburning fuel or reduction burning—I think ‘prescriptive burning’ is another term that is used—is also an issue on which we need to have public debate. Firefighters have said that, if there have been reduction burns and you set up a mosaic type pattern across your forest areas and you keep a record of that, it is even better for fire management. When a very fast-moving fire hits where there has been a reduction of fuel two years before, that fire will slow down, and that gives firefighters an opportunity to build their lines and back-burn to meet the fire as it comes towards them. These are things that need to be a part of the science of building into the future, and we need to consider them more than we have done, possibly, in the past.

These Victorian fires are a harsh and grim reminder of the 1967 bushfires in Tasmania, which claimed about 61 lives. Coincidentally, they started on the same day, 7 February, and I understand the situation was similar, with many fires racing and joining together. The wind, temperature and dryness were right for limiting the chances of survival. Temperatures may have reached up to 3,000 degrees, as has been shown by the melting of metal on some cars. That is an incredible temperature, one which we just cannot imagine coming from a bushfire.

In the 1967 bushfires, a former Hobart couple were burnt out and lost their home in Fern Tree, which is one of the suburbs at the foot of the mountain at the back of Hobart. Exactly 42 years later they were in Kinglake and they were lucky to survive—but, with terrible fortune, they lost their home. They decided to leave 10 or 15 minutes before their house was completely destroyed and they managed to shelter at the fire station until the worst had past. This couple are, I think, now in their 80s, and 42 years ago they went through a similar experience.

I have had a report from the timber communities in Tasmania of the terribly sad news from the Tasmanian Forest Festival Committee that Errol and Harley Morgan’s lives have been lost in the fires in Victoria. Errol and Harley were regular travellers from Victoria to Tasmania to support the festival’s chainsaw carving events down in the forest areas of southern Tasmania. There must be thousands of such stories across Australia this week, and people will mourn for their friends and relatives for a long time to come.

We had terrible fires on the east coast of Tasmania in 2006—in Scamander, in the areas of St Helens and St Mary’s and in the Fingal Valley where many houses were destroyed but, fortunately, there was no loss of life thanks to the effort of so many volunteer firefighters, including my then staff member, Ian Gabites and one of my best mates, Fred Hannam. However, in the clean-up, a young forestry worker was killed. He died when a large tree that had been burnt out at the bottom fell onto his ute. He was one of about three or four in a family from the Fingal Valley. So the aftermath can be as deadly as some of the fires. One needs to be vigilant when doing these clean-ups because there are probably many trees still standing which are not standing by very much.

Last week’s disaster must be the worst in the history of Australia and it is difficult to come to terms with it. To open the Australian newspaper this morning and see the photographs of those young people was a very sad thing for me.

I participated in the parliament’s inquiry into the Canberra bushfires. I believe there are some connections between those fires and the Victorian fires and, like the previous reports and royal commissions that have been undertaken over the years in Australia, I think there is a lot of information there that could also be useful.

I have been very proud to be a member of the parliament this week. I think the parliament has acquitted itself in a magnificent way. It is a credit to every member and a credit to the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the House and the Manager of Opposition Business in the House for negotiating things that allowed members to deal with their electorates and which allowed every member to express their concerns. I think we as the parliament have done ourselves very proud this week, and I am very honoured to be a part of it.

I think Phil Cheney has read the situation correctly. With these current unstable weather conditions and the build-up of fuel over many years in heavily wooded areas, there is bound to be a point when disaster will hit. The ferocity of the fires appears to be due to very high temperatures and strong winds. The other, very sad part of all this is the fact that some of these fires were deliberately lit. No wonder so many people died and so much property has been destroyed. Of course, it is always easy in hindsight to put together reasons for disaster, but we now need to ensure that it never happens again on the scale that we have just seen. But the immediate danger has not yet passed. Madam Deputy Speaker Burke, we know that in your state there are still fires burning to a great extent. I saw some reports this morning of concern that two fires might join together and create even more havoc.

I should mention the emergency services. The Tasmania Fire Service and their equipment are in Victoria. The defence forces and other communities are fighting those fires, and they need to be commended for all the work that they have done. I certainly hope that there is counselling and good support for these people who have experienced some difficult work.

It is after the fires have gone, the funds have been distributed, the houses have been rebuilt and some semblance of order returns, that the whole trauma of the experience may hit again and again. We have seen this, of course, in Defence Force personnel and we saw it in Tasmania, and I saw it in my electorate, after the Port Arthur massacre. We still see it on the east coast of Tasmania after the fires there. The horror of those memories can sometimes creep back. Then, more than at any other time, we need the funds and the assistance for those trauma victims. There was a very good project post the 2006 fires in Tasmania. A book was put together called Regenerate, for the regeneration of the communities and the forests, involving many people, including the University of Tasmania through the Launceston campus. There was a lot of very good work done on the social need of rebuilding communities as well as the physical rebuilding. I commend that work. A professor involved in the project went to a conference in Scotland, with which I was able to assist slightly, and was able to investigate on an international level some of the issues that communities need to face after such dramatic events.

I think there is a new role for volunteers to play. Maybe some of the survivors might be able to develop survival plans; those who have managed to survive these fires may have some very good information that they can pass on—some very critical lessons may be learnt. No two fires are ever the same, but there are many things to learn from each fire and from its survivors.

The support we have seen from many Australians and from many people all over the world has been amazing. The Tasmanian state member for Lyons, Heather Butler, who grew up around Marysville and went on her honeymoon there and loved its beauty and tranquillity, was so distressed by what she saw the other day that she got together with all the other politicians in Tasmania and organised a clothes collection. Within minutes the news went out and supplies started to come in. My staff tell me that yesterday two rooms at my offices were totally packed with contributions and more was still coming in. Most of this clothing was brand new, sorted and packed according to age and gender. The people of Lyons know what fire is like. They know what community is all about and how to work in times of adversity. They give and they give, and I am told that it is the same right around the state of Tasmania.

In times like this, politics and rivalries are forgotten and people show their care and concern for those who have lost so much. I had forest contractors ringing me the day before yesterday to offer their rigs and bulldozers and so on to help start the clean-up in Victoria and make areas safe. They were willing to volunteer their work and their gear, and I think the state government was looking at whether they could ferry them across Bass Strait to assist. I am sure many other Australians are doing exactly the same.

I also want to pay tribute to ABC Radio. I believe they are the key to keeping information flowing in the fire areas. When television, mobile phones and power failures halt information flow just about altogether, most people have a hand-held battery radio. I have listened to some of the early fire reports as they were being received; information from the SES and fire authorities was coming through. About two weeks ago I was in the southern part of Tasmania and we had a horrific storm. The place where I was staying lost its power and I had no power source but a battery-operated radio and the local ABC. The main highway between Hobart and Launceston was cut because of a major fire, and about 25 power poles came down, bringing down all the wiring. My wife was driving south and I was trying to get information, which was difficult, but of course that was supplied by the ABC. I also remember the great role that Tim Cox and his crew played at St Marys during the fires in Tasmania in 2006. So I send a special thank you to the ABC for the work they have done in these fires as well.

Australia was built on adversity and Australians, whether from Indigenous or European stock, can survive most awful situations—whether it is a natural disaster, a personal one or a financial one. Once again I see us rising to help the country get back on its feet, and I am sure that all the goodwill that we are feeling in this parliament and that we are feeling coming from right around Australia will help those people in Victoria, will help us cope, and will help Victoria to rebuild and help the people to put their lives somewhat back together.

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