Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to add my voice to those of my colleagues from both sides of the House, recognising the effect of natural disasters over the summer and, in particular, fires that occurred within my own electorate. We still, obviously, have fires blazing in Tasmania, and they will take quite some time to put out, I understand, given the territory that they are in. We have had terrible fires, as we have just heard, in Western Australia and we have had floods in South Australia and in the Northern Territory. As always with summer, I cannot remember a first session that we have had in this place where we have not been talking about the effects over summer of fires or terrible floods. So I join my voice with colleagues today.

In my own electorate we had a fire the week before Christmas in the community of Scotsburn—one of the largest in our district for quite some time. The headline figure from the fire was that 12 homes were destroyed, but, of course, as terrible as the loss of those 12 homes is, it barely touches on the real toll of this blaze. When a home is destroyed, it is not just the building or the place that houses people that is lost; it is a lifetime of memories, care and achievements. One property that I know of lost six fully-restored vintage cars, where someone had poured their heart and soul into doing that. Where once stood a proud history, now stands blackened chimneys amid fields of devastation.

Even when the home is saved, the toll is still terrible. We have had livestock lost and fences, feed and crops destroyed, and families have been left to pick up the pieces and deal with the trauma that is left behind. It is not normal in your daily lives to experience that level of fear, where you think you are going to die. That is what many people in my communities faced. The fire came through so quickly that they just did not have time to respond. Many of them did incredibly well with great fire plans. Many still did not have fire plans in place or those fire plans were not adequate. We were very, very lucky on the day that we did not lose lives and that we did not lose the lives of fire crews. Fire crews were in the field within 10 minutes of the fire breaking out. They were fighting absolutely tooth and nail within 10 minutes of getting onto the fire ground in very, very difficult circumstances.

There were at least 23 sheds lost and farming buildings destroyed, with more than 4,000 hectares burnt. Narmbool, a fantastic property that was gifted to the people of our area and which is managed by Sovereign Hill, our historic museum in Ballarat—it is a beautiful property—really did bear the brunt of it, with a large loss of livestock and certainly some outbuildings. Again, we were very lucky not to lose the historic homestead or lives in that particular area.

Families across the region literally fled their homes. There are stark images on the internet. There was a wedding taking place at the time, just about to happen, and 100 wedding guests had to flee very, very quickly as the fire came across the paddocks at the back. There are very stark images of a beautiful wedding ceremony. I do wish the couple who got married all the best. I know the day was not what you expected, but it will be a day that you talk about, I guess, very much for the rest of your lives. We are so grateful that the pub in Buninyong was able to accommodate you and all of your guests. Some have told me that when fires have happened in the past they have had to deal with memories of those. There are many people who were actively involved as firefighters in Black Saturday and who were also involved on the day. For good reason obviously, that sticks in their memories as well.

We were very lucky. The drought has been very severe in our region. When we look at it, we had 300 firefighters on the ground beating back that fire. The firefighters are extraordinary. When I stopped at the Buninyong fire shed the day after, all they wanted to talk about were the homes they had lost. They are incredible people and they have done an extraordinary job, but their focus, always, is on what they did not do. I very clearly said to them, 'You should be very proud of your efforts. This could have been so, so much worse in our community.' The brigades of district 15 and beyond, who came to people's aid on the day, were fantastic. I know there are a multitude of stories that the community is still sharing as they repair and grieve the loss of what happened in their region.

I also made a visit to the fantastic Erickson sky crane crew who are based every year at the Ballarat Airport. They come for months at a time, away from their families in Canada, Ireland and across the world to live in our community with the sky crane crew. I do want to echo very strongly the words of my colleague in that. There has to be a national focus on our air capacity. The Commonwealth has done very well by purchasing sky crane capacity and leasing sky cranes, but if you look across the country to where that regional capacity is, to where regional airport can house and now mobilise the new LATs very quickly, we are behind the eight ball. There is a need for a national air program. I happen to know a little bit about this from a good friend of mine. This is something that the Commonwealth and the Attorney-General must look at. I would certainly be very happy in our own community to share our experiences of that. Again, the fact that no lives were lost was due to the heroic efforts of the crew, both on the ground and in the air on the day, and also the preparedness of people in our communities.

I particularly want to thank the staff and volunteers who are still today supporting affected communities and individuals. There have been countless support staff from the Shire of Moorabool in the city of Ballarat, in particular. You have done an amazing job. I do not think I have seen a relief centre set up so quickly and operate so well in any of the fires I have been involved with , as a former CFA volunteer who has had some experience of these things.

I want to thank the community for their warmth, even in the smallest of things, from putting out the call when we were in the relief centre to get bottled water quickly to people on the day when we were trying to find out what was happening with the fire and the supermarket had run out bottled water through to people from across the communities delivering feed and volunteering for BlazeAid, coming for weeks on end—retired couples from across the country. I met people from Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia who had come to my community with their campervans for a couple of weeks just to build fences. BlazeAid are a terrific organisation and I do want to thank them very much for their efforts and local community people who spontaneously put on fundraisers and volunteered their time and hours of effort and donations—just the care people have shown to people in the community.

We know fires are tragic events, but it is often the aftermath where people can get lost and can find themselves very traumatised, as I said, by what is not a normal experience for people to have . It is an incredibly traumatic thing not only to be in a fire but also then to have a loss of house. Even when you have not lost your house, there is the survivor guilt of 'why has my house been spared and my neighbours has not?' Being able to talk about these things is critical. I particularly do want to thank people in the community for their ongoing care.

I live in an amazing place. Recently I was speaking to one of the people who had lost livestock in the fire. She and her family had moved up from Melbourne some three years ago. They did not have any particular traditional connections with the local community, they were not a farming family, and they had not really got to know their neighbours overwhelmingly well; they knew them in passing. She said she had never experienced such an overwhelming outpouring of community support. Scotsburn is a lovely place to live, and I want to thank people just for bringing their real care—not only the huge firefighting efforts by the volunteers and paid professionals who have been working there but everyday people who are just constantly checking that their neighbours are okay. The equestrian community in particular have been fantastic. So I want to thank them, and I know that this community will be all the stronger for the care that they have taken of each other throughout this natural disaster.

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