Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

My community, like many around the nation, unfortunately, has been very badly impacted by the fires that have been burning, in some cases for many months. To give you a quick snapshot: in my community alone we have lost two lives and we've had 254 houses destroyed, a further 100 houses damaged, close to 1,000 outbuildings destroyed or damaged, and up to 100 other community facilities, like halls and things, destroyed or damaged. That's obviously just the physical impact, never mind the emotional and psychological impact this has had.

I start with the very sad loss of two lives, of Gwen Hyde and Bob Lindsey, both very well-known and very loved people in our community. Bob used to run one of the petrol stations in Casino for many, many years and was well known and well loved, as was Gwen, who was very active in the community. The loss of their lives was very significant and a sad day for our community.

I'm going to go through four different fires across my electorate. Fires often merged together, and they formed four major but different fires. The first one I want to talk about is the Border Trail fire. This was on the Border Trail between Queensland and New South Wales and it was burning from north to south and threatening the community of Woodenbong. I actually went to Woodenbong around 8 and 9 November. Residents of Woodenbong were advised to leave unless they were defending their homes or the Woodenbong assets. They were asked to leave and, if they were going to leave, they had to leave then. On 11 November the main route into Woodenbong, Summerland Way, was shut off, and I went around the long way to go to the community to see how they were faring.

I've got to say it was one of the most inspiring examples that I've seen of a community coming together. They had been under siege at that stage for about a week, and under serious siege for three or four days. What do I mean by 'serious siege'? They had a fire that had all but surrounded them. They were getting aerial support and they had RFS groups, but Woodenbong was in the way, and that's where the fire was naturally going to go. It's a town of 500 or 600 people, a great, resilient, tight community. I don't think anyone left. They were all there. Every single person in that community was doing something in the defence of their town against this fire. They had what they called the 'pod brigade'. Anyone who had a ute had a water tank in the back and had a hose with them. Any time an ember flew into the town or threatened a building or threatened anything in their village, they put it out, and they did that for weeks. There were a great team at the golf club making food. Again, every single person in that town was mobilised about this fire. And, to their credit, they won, and the fire in the end went south around them.

For this very reason, I went to Woodenbong on Australia Day, just to acknowledge what they'd done and to celebrate Australia Day with them. There was obviously a lot of acknowledgement of the RFS volunteers and the 'pod team'. There were people like Michael Smith, who has a huge earthmoving business, and every piece of equipment that he had was being used in the defence of that town, for clearing containment lines. It was really very inspiring to be with them and see them unite as a community. One night in town they counted 53 utes. This is in a town of 400 to 500 people. There were 53 utes filling up with water with their hoses to defend their town.

That's the first fire. Why I went there, why this on its own was a major event was because of the size of this fire and what it was doing. It was one of four burning across the wider region. In the media it was just an add-on because there was so much more going on. The second fire was the biggest fire in the sense of how much it burnt out. In my community, give or take a bit, let's say a million hectares was burnt out. The next fire, the Myall Creek fire, which merged with other fires, was certainly the biggest of those. It burnt down houses. It burnt down a mate of mine's house. Actually that was a related fire that was just next to this one. But at Bora Ridge it burnt down a mate of mine's house. Doug Wood was defending his parents' house, because that was where the fire was coming from. He jumped over to his parents' house, and it burnt down his house. This is the type of thing that was happening. That fire went down the Pacific Highway and was threatening communities like Woombah and Iluka and Ashby Heights, moving into the Clarence Valley. Again, the RFS did a magnificent job. The community of Woombah—if you haven't been there I encourage you to come; it's a beautiful part of the world near Iluka and the Clarence River—is surrounded by bush. These people are living in a beautiful residential area with a lot of bushland around them. With the area support they got, they didn't lose a house. They lost a few outbuildings. It was a phenomenal effort by them. I will come back to that fire later.

Also there was the Mount Nardi fire. This was within the Mount Nardi rainforest. At one stage there was a day that was particularly threatening to our community. It was a Tuesday. There was a westerly to north-westerly forecast. It was a hot day with strong winds. The worst-case scenario for the fires on that day was significant. We were looking at potentially losing our communications tower on the top of Mount Nardi, which meant the emergency services themselves would not have been able to communicate with each other. It was bearing towards and around Rocky Creek Dam, which provides the water for our wider region. If it had taken out the water filtration plant, which was potentially going to happen, we would not only have lost our communications tower; we wouldn't have been able to use the water facility. There would have been major towns without water supply. Again, the RFS, with aerial support and retardant, bombarded those facilities before the day and on the day and protected them and saved them.

Another fire was the Liberation Trail fire. This was the one burning further south in the community of the Clarence Valley. It went into the Coffs Coast local government area as well. This is the fire that took out Nymboida. This is where most of the homes were lost in my community. It's a very rural community in the hills, a beautiful part of the world. This fire came through and took out many, many homes. There was lot of gratitude on this one. I went to Nymboida the weekend after, about three or four days after the fire had been through. A lot of people hadn't gone back. People were just starting to go back. The road was cut off to the public, but you could go back in if you were a member of the community. I was allowed back in to talk to the community on the Saturday. I went to the RFS shed. One of the humbling things about that was that there wasn't a local there. The RFS shed was full of RFS volunteers from Sydney. They had been there for days. It was very humbling to know we were getting support not only internationally but from all around the country.

Another front of this fire was threatening communities like Glenreagh and Nana Glen. I went to many community meetings in advance of the fire threatening them about what to do and how to do it. The RFS group in Glenreagh and Nana Glen did a great job informing the community about how to protect your home, what to do when the fire came and very important information.

There is another one I want to mention because it is around what happens with this stuff. The first community that was threatened by fire in my area was in September. There was a fire burning towards the communities of Angourie and Woolooweyah, which are very close to Yamba. There were people evacuating from Yamba. At one stage, there were RFS trucks all along the road to Angourie. The team at Angourie did a great job protecting homes on, I think, the Monday night. And you share the goodwill and spirit of people. Mike and Cheryl, who own the Harwood Hotel, were giving free meals to the RFS volunteers during that week, and a lot of other businesses were helping out and volunteering. The cafe at Angourie was also giving free coffee and food to people who were fighting the fires. Two months later, Mike and Cheryl's own home was threatened by a different fire, and those same RFS firefighters who they were giving free feeds to in September were there helping them save their house. That's just one story—and I could tell many—of the wonderful community spirit that was happening throughout this terrible, terrible tragedy.

The fire went through Rappville in November. I've never been so close to a fire as these people have been, so I can only imagine, but try and picture this. You are in your community, and, again, it's a community of 400 or 500 people. You have a great pub, a school and a hall. There's a lovely community spirit there. There's a fire coming, and, before they know it, they're cut off, so they can't leave. At the speed this fire came, they almost weren't given a warning to get out. Suddenly the fire was on the road either side of them, and they couldn't get out. The fire is raging through the town, so they all go to the school. Over 200 people were at the school. Gary—I know Gary's family very well—sat in a tree. Sitting in a tree when a raging fire is coming through your town isn't a safe place to be. He sat in a tree with a hose, and every time an ember landed on the school roof he would put it out. There was a young man named Mitch who knew that there were two old people who hadn't come to the hall. They were sitting in their garage. They thought that would be safe because of the way the garage was structured and built. Mitch went and got them out of the garage and brought them to the hall. The garage burnt down. These are the types of stories of people's heroics throughout this time and of what people did to help save their communities.

I could go on for a long time, but I will give just one example of the support work that has happened post the fires. Rappville lost 300 telegraph poles in that fire. They were all up and working within three days, so the work done by Essential Energy was just phenomenal. As well, we have had groups that have come through to help people, such as BlazeAid, Team Rubicon, Samaritan's Purse and others. They have come down and helped people put back fences and rebuild communities very quickly after the fires. There are many other organisations I could mention.

I do want to mention the incident management team, because the recovery in our area was happening very quickly while in other areas the fires were still raging. The incident management teams at both Casino and Ulmarra, like some of the community actions I've seen, were inspiring, and I want to mention some of those personnel now. The incident controller and the head of the RFS in our region, Michael Brett, did a phenomenal job. This guy hardly slept for six months. Boyd Townsend, David Cook and Daniel Ainsworth had a team that I got briefings from regularly. Superintendent Toby Lindsay from NSW Police did amazing work, as did Mark Somers and his team from the SES, Greg Lewis from Fire and Rescue NSW and Michael Edwards from NSW Ambulance. Maryanne Sewell from the health district was there, as were Liz Bolin, Ben Buckland, Bruce Corish, Dan Bligh and Angela Jones from the Richmond Valley Council. Every time I went there, Angela was there; I don't know when she went home. Scott Turner from Lismore council, Tony Lickiss from Kyogle Council and Andrew Logan from Rous County Council were also there. The education department were there because of all of the things that were going on with the schools. National Parks and Marine Rescue were there. In the Clarence Valley, Stuart Watts did an amazing job at the Ulmarra centre with Bryan Daly and Andrew Lugg. There were personnel from council, Peter Davidson from NSW Police and personnel from all of the different departments, including Dan Madden from NSW Health. The recovery effort has been phenomenal.

In closing, these fires have been traumatic. They have caused great distress. We as a government, through many different programs for recovery relief, including the emergency payments and individual grants we are giving to fire-damaged businesses and fire-damaged primary producers, are doing what we can. We will recover. My area, thank God, has had rain more recently, so the grass is starting to grow again, the fires are all out and even the drought has been hit on the head a bit. As was said in this place yesterday and as will be said today, these have been very traumatic times. They have caused great distress, including loss of life and the loss of people's homes. People need a lot of help and assistance, not only physically but emotionally and psychologically.

Through these stories, like the one I told about Woodenbong, we have seen the very best of who we are. I spoke to a mate of mine who really didn't get on with his neighbour. But they do now. This has been a reality call on what's important in life, and what's important in life is your relationships, the people around you and the community around you. While we don't necessarily need to get it this way, it has been wonderful to see the best of our community spirit—the Australian spirit—of helping each other. In a bizarre way, it has been a community-bonding exercise, but, God, I wish we didn't have to have it like this.

I want to thank everyone involved—all the volunteers and everyone who is helping to rebuild our community. As I said, we are out there and we will do everything we can to rebuild from what has been a very traumatic experience and a very traumatic summer.

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