Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the people of Kingsford Smith, I pay tribute to and honour those Australians who lost their lives as firefighters and as victims of Australia's devastating bushfires. We offer sincere commiserations to those families who have lost loved ones as a result of this unprecedented 'black summer'. I offer wholehearted support to those communities throughout the country that are being affected by the devastation, and a special tribute to those whose lives were taken as they battled the fires—the volunteers who unfortunately paid the ultimate price for volunteering their time to save the property and lives of others. These are heroes. They represent the greatest of humanity. Many of the families of those who unfortunately lost their lives as firefighters were in the gallery yesterday in the main chamber and it struck me that many of them were young families—children who will never know their father but will forever know that their dad was a hero. To them we pay such respect and tribute today.

I also want to thank those who volunteered to help others. It was great to see Shane Fitzsimmons, the head of the Rural Fire Service, in the audience yesterday. I want to thank each and every volunteer firefighter, the professional firefighters, the surf lifesavers, the welfare groups, the churches, the multicultural groups and, indeed, everyday Australians who volunteered their time to help others during this catastrophe. I wish to thank you. You represent the best of our country and the great Australian notion of having a go. Your efforts made us all proud as Australians.

Our thoughts are with all of those Australian businesses, particularly the small businesses, that are affected by the fires. We urge the government to act quickly to provide support to ensure that businesses can get back on their feet as quickly as possible. Indeed, I join with my colleagues in encouraging other Australians to holiday in, and visit, the affected areas and, importantly, to buy local in order to support the affected communities.

I wish to thank all Australians who donated to the many bushfire appeals throughout the country. Your generosity is inspiring. In our community, Kingsford Smith, a number of bushfire appeals were put on by organisations. The Matraville RSL Club held one a few weeks ago. The community of Maroubra came together two weeks ago at the Maroubra Bowling Club to support a bushfire appeal. I congratulate all of the organisers and those who performed at that particular benefit concert. I will be attending another benefit night at the Hillsdale Bowling Club this Saturday evening. Particularly, special thanks and mention go to Brooke McHatton and her husband, Brenton, or BJ. Early in January, Brooke brought our community together at the Coogee Beach Club and, over a weekend, encouraged locals to turn up to donate food, water, goods and funds. The response was simply overwhelming. The community came together to donate truckloads of material. I thank those who drove that material down to the South Coast to support those communities. So, I pay special tribute to Brooke and BJ and to Andrew Stewart, Leigh Webster, Derek Milton Paul, Robyn Crawford, Ben Lawson, Turgay Yusuf, Sam Rutherford, Luke Rutherford and David Brownhill, who were all instrumental in that benefit being successful and those truckloads of goods being donated and transported to the South Coast.

Unfortunately, this is an unprecedented catastrophe, and an ecological catastrophe: 33 people have been killed and 11 million hectares of bushland has been burnt out. It is estimated that over a billion animals have been killed as a result of the fires. Six thousand buildings, including 2,800 homes, have been destroyed, and we've all experienced the smoke haze in numerous cities throughout Australia over the course of this particular inferno.

Climate scientists have been warning for over a decade that this would happen. They've been saying, for over 10 years now, that the effect of climate change is going to be that we will get extended droughts that will fuel increases in loads for bushfires, we will get a longer bushfire season and we will get more severe bushfires. In fact, the Garnaut report, that was issued almost a decade ago, exactly pinpointed these symptoms and said that they would begin to occur in extreme situations from 2020 onwards. And that's exactly what's happened. But the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have ignored these climate scientists' pleas for stronger action to reduce carbon emissions and tackle climate change. They've ignored the pleas for a national approach to climate change management and to the bushfires and cyclones that are going to become ever more frequent in Australia in coming years.

The time has come. Australians now understand the severity of the impacts of climate change. The time has come for this government to accept the science, to accept the advice of those experts and to accept that this government is not doing enough to tackle climate change and to reduce carbon emissions. I encourage the government to work cooperatively with the opposition and other parties in the parliament to reflect the views of the Australian community, who want stronger action on climate change. The time has come for the government to stop using climate change action and policy as an issue that is campaigned on and used for political advantage against the opposition and against other parties. The Australian people are sick and tired of it. They want our political leaders to unite around this issue, to bring Australians together and to develop policies that reflect stronger action on climate change, so that Australia is doing its bit. At the moment, we're not doing our bit, internationally, to reduce emissions. They want us to unite around this common purpose for stronger action on climate change, because we are all in this together.

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