James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Could I start by thanking all the members who have made a contribution so far. So many people have spoken so eloquently about their own personal experiences in their electorates. Some specifically had fires raging in the areas that they represent. Of course we've all had in our communities people who've stood up and made us all so proud to be Australians by responding to such a devastating set of natural disasters across our country in recent months. I just wanted to say that, in my contribution, I want to talk about my home state and my electorate, and I don't want that in any way to be seen as diminishing the fact and the relevance that so many other parts of the country outside of the state of South Australia have suffered and have had such tragedy fall upon them. Of course I would like to use my time to talk about my own community and my own state, but I put on the record that I of course acknowledge the impact right across the country, beyond South Australia.

I was born in March 1983, just a few weeks after Ash Wednesday, and in my electorate of Sturt during that awful tragedy we had significant fires through the Mount Lofty Ranges that came down into the suburbs of Adelaide. I'm of course very grateful that my electorate specifically was lucky enough to not have any fires of significance rage up over the period of the holiday break. But in the neighbouring electorate of Mayo, of course, they had a terrible tragedy through the Adelaide Hills and on Kangaroo Island. To my state colleagues—particularly John Gardner, Dan Cregan and Leon Bignell; the state members who were most significantly affected—to Rebekha Sharkie, the federal member for Mayo; and to Premier Steven Marshall, I acknowledge at times like this we put politics aside. It's about us all being leaders in our communities. I think that they all distinguish themselves by the way in which they were there for people who needed them—to make sure that they were comforting them and that they were getting all the services that government can provide to them at those very difficult times, both urgently and in the longer term.

I also thank the Prime Minister, who visited South Australia on multiple occasions in the immediate aftermath and subsequent to that, and the Australian Defence Force for their involvement, particularly in the fire on Kangaroo Island. Whenever you have a natural disaster of that magnitude on an island that, clearly, is not contiguously connected to mainland Australia, the logistical challenges, both in fighting the fire and in assisting the recovery, are very significant. The contribution of the Australian Defence Forces throughout South Australia, but in particular on Kangaroo Island, was so very significant, because without the personnel and the assets that the Australian Defence Force have we wouldn't have been able to make the progress that we've made so far in the clean-up and in the other, sometimes quite horrendous and horrific, components of dealing with the period after a bushfire, particularly the tragic destruction of livestock and wildlife and so on and so forth. Thank you to all of them.

Although my electorate didn't have fires specifically, in representing an area that takes in the Hills Face Zone, there is always that risk. We have SES and CFS brigades stationed throughout my electorate, all of whom were involved, such as in Burnside, Campbelltown, Athelstone and Norwood SES and just outside of my electorate at Tea Tree Gully, Norton Summit and Mt Lofty. They were all so heavily involved, not just in the Adelaide Hills' response but also at Kangaroo Island. Some were deployed interstate at different periods over the holiday break. The contribution they make as volunteers includes having to put their own lives to one side—many of them leave their workplaces, are away from their families and do very long shifts, as they always do. Frankly, this is, of course, nothing new. We see Australians called upon to serve their communities and to help in times of tragedy. They always step up and, of course, that was on great display throughout the months of the challenges that we have faced. I particularly place on the record my thanks and pride in the volunteers from my own electorate for the contribution they have made.

More broadly, our communities all stood up and made an enormous contribution in any way that they could. Radio Italiana is a good example. In Adelaide they were able to raise $50,000 in a two-week period to contribute to bushfire relief. This is an organisation that has to raise money for their own ongoing operating costs, so the fact that, on top of their own fundraising initiatives from their listener base and from their supporters, they raised $50,000 in a matter of weeks is just one of the many examples of the way in which community groups, not just in my electorate but across the country, stood up and did everything they could to contribute.

We all felt the emotion and pain of people that were directly affected. It was in our nature and our spirit to want to look for any way that we could possibly help our fellow Australians in need. There's a long way to go from the immediacy of the aftermath of fires, and we are still in the fire season.

It's obviously been great to see some rain through areas that were affected by bushfires, but I know that we are by no means past the fire season this year. In this country we will have the challenge of a bushfire risk every year. The Prime Minister has informed the House in his contribution to this motion of the process now for engaging the other levels of government, the states and territories and local government, to create a mechanism to undertake a full and deep review into every element of the tragedy and disaster that befell our country over this current fire season. Clearly there will be a whole range of lessons to be learnt from what happened in previous months to ensure that we do what we can to make sure that we learn all and any lessons, which hopefully will mean that we can limit and mitigate the sort of destruction and disaster that has befallen us.

Once again I thank all members for the contributions that they've made to this debate and the sense of bipartisanship around the need to have our political debates into the future about a whole range of elements to do with the bushfire disasters that struck our country, but making this about commemorating the people that have been lost, particularly the lives that have been lost, the wildlife impact, the destruction of people's businesses and property, the risk to their livelihood, and honouring the contribution that so many members—in fact, I would say the entire Australian community—made towards coming together, sticking together and showing that great Australian spirit in such a difficult time for our nation.

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