Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Three years ago this week, on Thursday, 17 October, hundreds of homes in the Blue Mountains were destroyed by two fires. Mine was among them, and this week has reinforced to me that anniversaries can be harder than you think. It was not just those who lost homes who suffered. But we are a resilient community, and I want to highlight two of the amazing things I have witnessed since the fires.

One is a remarkable couple, Mary-Lou and Jenny. Mary-Lou noticed that, within only a couple of days, the bush was fighting back—green shoots, the return of insects, and new life all around. They turned her photographs into a book called As the Smoke Clears. I recommend you go to the Facebook page. Tens of thousands of dollars raised has gone into projects like Mount Victoria Public School's garden and the local park in Emma Parade.

The other is that the students at Winmalee High School earlier this year put the personal stories from the fire into a play called Straw Hats, Thongs and Toothbrushes. Drama teacher Madeleine Sheehy had the idea to continue the healing process. The students interviewed friends and family, teachers, the mayor, RFS volunteers and others involved in the disaster and the recovery process. The play makes you laugh and cry. These students are now the proud recipients of a Resilient Australia Award, announced this week. I want to thank Principal Katrina Middlebrook for her ongoing efforts to make sure the trauma of 2013 leaves as little of a scar as possible on the youth who went through it.

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