Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you for your forbearance, Deputy Speaker. And I see my friend the member for Canning is here as well, which is good, particularly for what I'm about to say. I do so basically speaking to my constituency, who have been pretty profoundly affected by the bushfires—not directly, in the sense of 'by the bushfires themselves', but by the smoke haze. Also a number of people who were in my constituency provided the essential firefighting relief and firefighting services and emergency services that helped to keep people out of harm's way and to literally save lives. I will take this opportunity to speak on this condolence motion that was moved by the Prime Minister in the other place and to make a few remarks with respect to that. Again I thank you, Deputy Speaker, for your forbearance in allowing me, at this late hour, to speak to this motion.

I think it was summarised best on Australia Day. We celebrated that in Hampton Park with the Hampton Park Day of Nations, where we have people from every walk of life, from every country, basically, on earth, come together to celebrate what's best about Australia on Australia Day. On that day, we honoured a number of people who provided services to people affected by the bushfires. I'll touch on that later, but what I said then and I'll say now to those people is that our country's had a shock. Our country's had a profound shock. We've seen vast tracts of our land burnt and singed beyond recognition—millions and millions of hectares. We've had the tragic loss of life, including the loss of life of those who were fighting to keep us safe from these fires, these awful infernos.

Importantly, too, for Australians, we've seen our places of holidays, of happy times, of fond memories, obliterated. We've lost so many of our national symbols, which are recognised around the globe: our koalas and kangaroos and other marsupials—so much of our distinctive wildlife, and our beautiful habitat.

Then, as I've said, our cities have been choked for days by the resulting bushfire haze, which has affected millions of Australians. I listened with interest to Deputy Leader Richard Marles yesterday, and he gave voice to the sheer number of days where people—particularly those here in Canberra, and I was thinking very much of the staff who look after us so well in Parliament House—were affected by the bushfire haze in Canberra. Richard was making note of the number of days of bushfire haze—an often choking haze—in our capital cities. Melbourne, he said, has had nine days, Brisbane's had 20 and Sydney's had 28 days of bushfire haze. Canberra has had 49. If you add today, that is 50 days. When I came up in early January, shortly after the really acrid, choking smoke—and I was there before the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum—people were quite knocked around. Subsequent to that there were the hailstones literally the size of grapefruit, smashing through everything. Many people in my constituency—and, I think, up here—were basically looking over their shoulders for the next event.

But I want to talk about the Australian response. The quintessentially Australian response to these calamities was best summarised by a very good friend of mine—a local senior sergeant policeman who has worked in counterterrorism and who, unfortunately, I can't name, for obvious reasons. He is a very close mate of mine, and he said something really significant to me. That very good friend of mine was at Bairnsdale and was being choppered from township to township by the Army—who did great work—to evacuate people. The work that he did, as it always does, literally saved lots of lives. He said something to me that I absolutely agree with. He said: 'Mate, we've been smashed to our knees, but we're rising up. We're rising up together.' I was kayaking with him on Sunday. Mate, you couldn't have said it any better. You symbolise what is best about Australia. Again, I thank you for the work you did to keep our country safe and our community safe. I wish I could name you. One day down the track, when we don't have the threat of terrorism hanging over us, perhaps I will.

The tragedy of the inferno, the bushfire haze and the smog brought us together. It didn't matter where you came from. I related this at the function at the Hampton Park Day of Nations. We weren't people who came from India, Afghanistan, Vietnam or Malaysia. We all felt the same horror, as Australians; we grieved together, as Australians; and we rose together, as Australians—Indian Australians, Afghan Australians, Vietnamese Australians and Malaysian Australians. We rose together, as Australians, to confront this. Again, that says a lot about our national character and our sense of inclusion. We do this. We have done this in the past, we always do and we always will. I like to think about that, and I use the term 'mateship'.

The member for Canning, who served our country with great distinction, literally on the battlefield, would know about that. I talk about it in a broader sense as well. For me, mateship is not gender specific. I would say, in this place, that the member for Canning is a mate, but the term can also be used in a broader sense. To me, it's a term of community, collective responsibility, egalitarianism and equality. It doesn't matter where you came from, who you are and what religion you follow. I would say that we're all equal in the eyes of God, but we're also all equal under the norms and the laws of this land and our country. Our mateship has no religion, it has no race and it has no creed. What we've seen, I think, is people coming together in that spirit of mateship, doing great deeds and putting their lives on the line to save others and to provide support—people like the Sikh volunteers; Fiona and Colin Crane; the St John of God hospital, and Kim Warlond, a midwife who works there, who decided to put together a water bottle drive and, in the space of 24 to 48 hours, collected something like 600 pallets of bottled water—15,000 bottles. She is a midwife who wanted to do something because she was delivering kids in smoke-filled rooms at hospitals. She wanted to do something and she did it, and that's the Australian way. That's what we do. I wanted to mention her specifically.

I want to say again that what I think we can do best in this place is to respectfully disagree—and we will, as time goes on, about how we might deal with the bushfires. But the key thing, and what I commit to—as I do in my work on the Intelligence and Security Committee with the member for Canning in a bipartisan way in difficult circumstances—is: the Australian people crave bipartisanship in our response to these bushfires. We're going to have to be very careful. Everyone in this place is going to have to be very careful in the future about how we address this issue, because I'm not hearing about this thing or that thing, or how it was caused or whatever. What I'm hearing is: 'We need help. We need support. We need you to be a government and to be an opposition. We need you to face this problem together.'

So my call to all of us here—and I know this will be mirrored by the member for Canning—is that we address this issue in a spirit of bipartisanship, otherwise we will lose the faith and the confidence of the Australian people and we can't afford to do that. They've been knocked around too much. We owe it to them collectively to respond in a way they want, which is to focus on them and get them the support, the encouragement, the leadership, the maturity and bipartisanship that they need. I will finish by acknowledging that in two ways. Andrew Colvin is an excellent appointment as the head of bushfire recovery. He is a good man. He is a man that feels passionately about this and I know he will do a good job.

There's one more person I want to mention, who doesn't get mentioned often, and that's my good friend Andrew Shearer, the cabinet secretary who works for Prime Minister Morrison. It's a great thing in this country that I can pick up a phone and speak with or meet with a cabinet secretary and mention something about a problem in Bermagui and something is done within 24 hours. It says a lot about this country. Andrew and I have worked together—and the other Andrew—we've worked together closely in national security, but it should give people confidence that I was able to do that. It says a lot about cabinet secretary. Andrew Shearer, I wanted to say a specific thanks to you for the support, the updates and the briefings I've received.

This has gone way over time and everyone knows we could keep on talking, but thank you to the Australian people. Your resilient spirit that runs through the heart and the soul of this nation will overcome the very worst of what we have seen. It's here where we need to give you that ongoing encouragement and support; it's here that we need to think about you every day. I will. I know the member for Canning will and everyone else here will. We will work for you, we will make sure that you get the services you need. We will rebuild and we will become a stronger, better nation. As I said, we have faced challenges and adversity in the past. It's what we do. It's who we are. It's in our DNA. We will prevail. Thank you.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:52

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