Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I add my appreciation and acknowledgement of all those firefighters and others who have been putting themselves out there—and, often, in danger—to put out these dreadful fires—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:32 to 11:49

I rise to express my heartfelt condolences to all Australians across New South Wales, Queensland and the rest of the country who have recently had their loved ones, homes, animals, crops and livelihoods taken by devastating bushfires. The figures alone are a disturbing reminder of what Australians have had to contend with in recent weeks and months. As of Saturday, the New South Wales bushfires had claimed six lives, destroyed over 600 homes and scorched an area of land about the size of Sydney. In Queensland, 20 homes were lost and about 180,000 hectares burnt. In Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, dozens of other dangerous fires caused significant injuries and damaged properties. As of last week, the estimated total of the damages from the terrible fires across New South Wales and Queensland had reached $145 million. The long-term cost to the local, regional and national economies is still incalculable. The cost to the children, spouses, families and friends of those whom we lost to these fires is of course beyond words.

As a House, as parliamentarians and as leaders, we keep the victims of these fires and their loved ones in our hearts. As a community, let's ensure we show ongoing care and support to those who will bear the mental and emotional scars of these traumatic hours and days long after the victims' physical wounds have healed over. When the trees have regrown and the houses have been rebuilt around the sites of these tragedies, we must remember. We not only owe those most affected by these tragedies our thoughts and prayers; we owe them urgent national and bipartisan leadership to ensure that our professional and world-class emergency services have even greater resources at their disposal and a national strategic plan in support of their efforts next time such disasters strike, as, unfortunately, they are sure to. Unless

I want to acknowledge New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Acting Commissioner Mike Wassing and their counterparts from across the country. In the worst hours of their lives, Australians across our states and territories trusted in these leaders of real character, integrity and professionalism for literally life-saving help. We all can learn from the exemplary service they have shown. Thousands of Australians owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and many Australians obviously owe them their very lives. We, as elected representatives of these devastated regions and electorates, owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for their professionalism, integrity and loyal service in the face of immense danger to the personal safety and even the lives of their brave men and women.

I'd especially like to highlight the debt of gratitude we all owe the thousands of incredible fireys and emergency service volunteers from across the country who fought the flames and showed incredible determination and selflessness to save their fellow Australians' lives, properties and livestock. I'm immensely proud of volunteer Territorians who did just that, such as Rob, a local Rotary NT Firey of the Year, who came down to help the Queenslanders fight their fires. I pay tribute to Rob's family too. I pay tribute to all firefighters, whether they're volunteers or career firefighters. It's a very difficult job, and I know that well—my brother is a firefighter up in Darwin. Their job is very difficult indeed. I want to pay tribute to other interstate fire and emergency crews, including those from Tassie who helped in Queensland and New South Wales. I also want to acknowledge Team Rubicon Australia, 'the greyshirts', who are working in country towns in New South Wales as we speak.

The ADF, of course, are always there to assist, and they were able, around their operational requirements, to provide a lot of support to firefighting efforts—regular soldiers, sailors and airmen and reservists alike. The Air Force transported fireys from interstate. The Army engineers, with their dozers, did great jobs in clearing firebreaks. In aviation, the helicopters were up in the air spotting fires. There was also great work done by 7th Brigade in Brisbane, for example. Their Emergency Support Force was out searching for missing persons.

Tragedy can and does bring out the best as well as the worst in us humans, but in this case, with these fires, we've seen some of the best of what human solidarity, compassion and cooperation can achieve. This should give us hope and remind us that some policy areas are just too big and the consequences of potential mistakes too disastrous to just resort to digging into our partisan trenches. I think disaster management is one such policy area. It's in such a bipartisan spirit that Labor has approached these bushfires, recognising the primary task at hand is to ensure lives and properties are kept safe.

Labor stands ready to support this effort. In the Leader of the Opposition's letter to the PM, the member for Grayndler put forward Labor's constructive proposal that an urgent meeting of the Council of Australian Governments seek to firm up Australia's natural disaster preparedness by specifically addressing the following: steps towards a new national strategy for disaster preparedness, ensuring emergency services—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Proceedings suspended from 11:55 to 12:06

In continuation, what I've been keen to do today is to talk about the destruction the bushfires have brought to areas of our country and to thank all the respondents, from the police commissioners and the volunteer fireys to all of those who have supported them from around the country—and even New Zealand; we've had our brothers and sisters from across the Tasman helping out—including the Australian Defence Force and volunteer organisations like Team Rubicon Australia. I've also reinforced that disaster management and preparedness is a policy area that demands bipartisanship and that Labor stands ready to work constructively with the government on this.

There are some things that we need in our national strategy for disaster preparedness. We obviously need to make sure that our services are adequately funded, both at a state and a federal level. I think we need to expand the capacity of Australia's National Aerial Firefighting Centre and provide it with appropriate funding. Gone are the days when Elvis comes over for a season and, 'She'll be right.' We need to seriously increase our aerial firefighting ability. As I said earlier, it's been great that Army Aviation have been able to help out with their helicopters in doing that fire-spotting work. We need to continue to invest and probably increase our investment in research on national disaster response, recovery and mitigation. We need to look at measures required to attract, retain and appropriately reward volunteers, because we've seen with these fires how incredibly important they are, but we also need businesses to be enabled to support their staff who choose to volunteer, in very much the same way that businesses who have Army or ADF reservists working for them are supported.

We need to develop an action plan around climate adaptation—I don't think anyone who's serious about this issue would deny that—and bring forward disaster mitigation funding in recognition of the immediate dangers and impending disaster this season. We are not yet into December and we have had these horrific fires. I, with others, call on this House to work on a bipartisan basis to enhance our capacity to coordinate and respond to future disasters and urge that we keep in mind those who have suffered through this month's fires. Importantly, let's channel our collective pain into acting to ensure that this experience makes us even better prepared for the worst to come.

See this speech in context