Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to associate myself with the comments made already and to remind the House that, although there were many Australians who suffered in rural and regional Victoria, there were so many generous Australians from right around the country. They were generous not just in donating money but in donating their time and their services—firefighters, emergency workers and the like—and I would like to thank them as well.

What we saw was something that we often see in Australia in a time of need and that is that those Australians with the least to give give the most. All you had to do was look at the cars parked outside the CFA sheds to see that people gave of their time. They dropped their jobs and left their families to assist.

My only plea on behalf of people in my part of Victoria, north-east Victoria, is that governments at all levels, when they are looking at fire mitigation and the management of crown land—not only in the reconstruction stages—actually listen to the people who live in those areas, who live amongst those national parks, who know how to manage those areas and who know how to fight fires. Do not ignore local country people. They know what they are doing and, in future bushfire disasters and the like, we need to take that local knowledge into account.

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