Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm not going to stand in this parliament and read from Year 10 text books about the climate change nonsense that is so-called apparently threatening our way of life. I want this parliament to come together to work as one, as a government and as a nation, and put priorities in place for those disasters that are befalling our nation, whether it be the bushfires in Tasmania or the floods in North Queensland, and that those communities know that this parliament is working as one, firstly, to put their lives back together. The extreme trauma—I have spoken to some of the SES volunteers, around 175 of them, who came from interstate, from New Zealand, to help the Tasmanian communities, where we saw people from across Australia fly into Townsville to help those people, whether it be the SES, state government officials, the Townsville City Council led by Mayor Jenny Hill. Today I want to thank them for their swift and decisive actions to help those who have felt the impacts of these natural disasters, and our hearts go out to all of those families whose lives have been destroyed. There has been the tragic loss of three lives in north Queensland. Time and time again we are seeing the ravages of our natural environment destroying people's lives.

As a parliament, we saw the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister come together to pledge the full resources of this government—that's what this parliament should be doing. There is the wonderful contribution from the business community from right across Australia of millions and millions of dollars. In my own community the weekend before last, the magnificent Vietnamese community were at Inala Plaza collecting money for those people affected by the flood disaster.

Today, I say thank you to the member for Berowra for tabling this motion in the Chamber. Every single member of this parliament should be rising to their feet to congratulate and thank those wonderful volunteers and supporters that are still working today, as we speak. I congratulate and salute them all.

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