Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

People would be aware that I spoke in this place previously about the Tasmanian bushfires on behalf of my colleagues, and I want to thank the member for Lyons and the member for Braddon for speaking on this motion today, and particularly the member for Lyons for drafting this motion. It is very difficult to convey in just a few minutes our thanks and gratitude, not just to the firefighters and the local communities, to all of the residents who've been supporting each other, but also to the nation, for the spotlight on, and the assistance that firefighters across the country have provided to, our home state of Tasmania.

I had the privilege of joining the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, and our state leader, Rebecca White, down in Huonville a few weeks ago, along with Senator Catryna Bilyk, to talk to local residents about these fires and what the impact has been on them, particularly in the Huon Valley. It was an honour to thank in person some of our volunteer fire brigade and some of our full-time firies in Tasmania, and also the other first responders—the SES, the police and the local councils, who were doing a lot of the heavy lifting and organisation on the ground in terms of the evacuation centres—and the workers from local non-government organisations. The Salvos, who were down at the Huon Valley evacuation centre, were making three meals a day for three weeks for the evacuees. At one stage, there were up to 600 evacuees at the Huon Valley PCYC; that has dropped back to about 150 in the last few days.

But people should be under no illusions: the fires in Tasmania do still continue. They're no threat to properties at this point in time, which is only due to the wonderful efforts of our firies in Tasmania, both career and volunteers, and of those who came over to Tasmania to assist. On the day I was there, I met firies from Queensland, firies from New South Wales and firies from Victoria. It was wonderful to see people from all over the country coming to help our island state, as we have done in the past when other states have been in similar situations.

I also want to put on record my great thanks to the local mayor. I mentioned previously that Mayor Bec Enders, the Huon Valley mayor, was only elected in October. She and her husband were evacuated from their property at Franklin, and she was at the evacuation centre with the other evacuees day in, day out, during that really difficult time. We sat with residents and talked to them about what was happening for them. We met one lady who had been evacuated three times. She was evacuated from the West Coast, the Zeehan fire, then went to Miena and got evacuated from there, and was then down in the Huon Valley in that evacuation centre. It was quite remarkable to talk to some of these people. They were very generous in sharing their stories about their experiences.

As I said previously, the really hard thing is to hear people say: 'I didn't know what every morning would bring. I didn't know what had happened to my property.' In the Huon Valley, in my area, we did lose four properties and also had some damage to some timber mills. Two in particular were Ta Ann, in Southwood, and Neville Smith's timber mill. Many of the workers at those facilities were casual labour hire, and have already been stood down in some of those areas. This has impacted the Huon Valley quite a lot.

As the member for Lyons indicated, the Tahune AirWalk has also been closed. They were able to save the visitor centre. On the walk structure in the tall timber forest: we're not sure yet whether that structure is still sound. Of course, a lot of the forest itself has burned; that will take a long time to regrow. That attraction took 80,000 to 100,000 visitors a year down into the Huon Valley, to the area of Geeveston. Without that drawcard, there are a lot of local businesses, particularly tourism operators and small businesses, who will be really concerned about what that means for their futures in the coming weeks and months until we get some clarity on when the Tahune AirWalk will be able to be reopened. We've got a lot of people on the ground trying to tell us that as soon as possible. With the timber mill and the Tahune, it is impacting a lot of locals' jobs and a lot of small businesses, and people are really starting to feel that. I know the federal government has offered some assistance. I don't think the assistance for businesses has actually started to flow yet. We're hopeful that that will happen in the coming days and weeks.

I want to say to the rest of the country, as I said the other day: Tasmania still needs you. We need you to come and visit our state. We need you to come and visit some of the fire-affected areas still. We need you to spend some money in our state and keep some of these terrific businesses going until we can rehabilitate some of these areas. A World Heritage area, as the member for Lyons mentioned, has also been burnt, but we still have a lot of national parks open. Tasmania still has a lot of forest for people to come and see. We still have a lot of attractions, and people should come on down.

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