Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Deputy Chairman , Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen says he met him on Sunday. I wanted to mention him. As I said, it is difficult to single out people, but I do want to mention Peter Montgomery from Yarra Glen as an example of some of the great work that was done. He instigated the Adopt a Container Project, which within a year saw 170 shipping containers provided to affected families to store their belongings and give a sense of belonging as they rebuilt. He was rightly chosen as the Shire of Yarra Ranges Citizen of the Year last year. That project is still going and still expanding.

Of course, I want to mention the previous member for McEwen—and I know the current member will support this—Fran Bailey, who worked so tirelessly in those tragic days, weeks and months after the fires. The minister rightly mentioned Fran in her speech in the House. I also want to make mention of the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, Kevin Rudd. At that time of tragedy, he performed in an exemplary way. He was in constant contact with Fran Bailey, and his efforts and his dedication to every aspect where he could possibly make a difference were well known to those closely involved. I want to pay tribute to the former Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, who similarly spent every waking minute making sure that whatever needed to be done was done.

I said it is a time to remember and a time to reflect. I also said it is a time to look forward. In doing so, it is a time also for some candour because, two years on, we can make a lot more sense of the tragedy. We know we will never stop bushfires, but in our hearts we want to know that we can always do better. Two years on, the words of the former member for McEwen, in her final speech to this House, bear repeating. She called for a program of sustained fuel reduction, a state-of-the-art early-warning system, safe shelters and better use of early fire detection technology. I want to see the new state government of Victoria working as hard as they can to make a real difference and, where we can, to leapfrog forward in those areas, particularly on early fire protection technology.

Another former member of this place, the former Labor member and Hawke government minister Barry Cohen, has written passionately about the possibilities of some of the new early fire detection technologies. He has written in the Australian about the FireWatch technology, which can precisely detect the existence of smoke and its location before a bushfire has taken hold, enabling emergency services to deploy the resources to extinguish the fires. This technology consists of a camera unit with a sensor that can scan an area of 400 square kilometres and rotate automatically through 360 degrees every six minutes 24/7. It can detect the difference between smoke, cloud and mist. With recently added night vision, it can provide precise details of fires around the clock. This technology is being used in Germany. It was developed by the German aerospace industry and NASA as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission.

There were some trials of this technology with funding from the federal government, but that appears to be somewhat caught in bureaucracy. But today is not the day to go through that in detail. Today is the day for me to say on behalf of those in the Yarra Valley that we want to see that technology thoroughly trialled and we want to see the best possible technology in use. The next time this sort of fire tragedy happens—and it might be the difference of time between Ash Wednesday and Black Saturday, but it could be next year—we want to know that when our emergency services confront it they will have better technology and better preparation and that we have done more because we have learnt more, so that we can make a difference on the ground for those communities affected.

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