Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Over this summer, the 'black summer', we've faced bushfires on a scale never seen before. On the South Coast, it's been known as the 'forever fire'. It's estimated that more than 17 million hectares have burnt across the nation. More than 33 people, tragically, have died. In New South Wales, over 2,400 houses have been destroyed. It's estimated that one billion animals have perished, with many more species expected to be now endangered after habitat loss. The fact is: it's not yet over. We welcome the rains; the rains have put out a lot of the fires in my area. But it's not yet over—the fires are still burning down the far South Coast.

Locally, Deputy Captain Geoff Keaton, 32, and firefighter Andrew O'Dwyer, 36, died when their truck rolled after a tree fell onto the cabin of the truck that they were driving, near Buxton. They'd fought the Green Wattle Creek blaze. It took two months to contain. These two men were not alone, sadly. They were joined by seven other firefighters on other firegrounds who made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting people's lives and people's homes. I pay my respects and offer my condolences to their families and colleagues, some of whom I've met, and to all of those men and women who lost their lives over this fire season.

To our firefighters of both Fire and Rescue New South Wales and our volunteer brigade, the Rural Fire Service, together with all of those emergency responders from the ambulance, the police, the SES, the Australian Defence Force, local hospital staff and more—all the volunteer organisations, the Red Cross and St Vincent de Paul: you're a real credit to our nation and our community. To you I say: you can be very proud of what you've done. You can be very proud of what you continue to do. And you have the deepest thanks from our entire community.

I do want to champion and give special thanks to our local RFS volunteers—firstly, to the Southern Highlands district crew. They've been on fire operations since August 2019. They've been deployed across New South Wales, to towns such as Glen Innes, Tenterfield, Drake, Grafton, Coffs Harbour and Casino. They've been here in Canberra, and over in Wauchope, Hawkesbury and Braidwood. They've also been deployed to the Gold Coast hinterland. Since the end of October, crews have worked in the Green Wattle Creek fire, protecting the local towns of Warragamba, Silverdale, Oakdale, The Oaks, Orangeville, Werombi, Lakesland, Thirlmere, Coridjah, Buxton, Balmoral, Hill Top, Tahmoor, Bargo, Yanderra, Yerrinbool, Mount Jellore, High Range, Wombeyan and Taralga. We rattle the names off, but each and every one of those was an incident where the fires crews' lives were at stake and they were fighting to save local communities and to try to halt the rapid spread of these terrible fires.

Since the first week of January, when the Currowan fires breached the Shoalhaven River just south of us, they have been working on the Morton fire, protecting Meryla, Bundanoon, Penrose, Wingello and Tallong. In some places they couldn't prevent the loss of property and wildlife. In other places, they have been successful. This particular district has over 1,000 volunteer members. I've met with many of them. I can say: at this end of the fire season, they're well and truly buggered.

Down on the coast where I live, in the Illawarra district, the RFS has been in the field since September. Crews from the Illawarra have deployed over 145 strike teams, which are fire trucks with four to five firefighters each. The district has around 3,000 volunteers in total. They started the fire season off in Queensland and in Northern New South Wales, before moving to the Gospers Mountain blaze and the Hawkesbury, then the Green Wattle Creek and the Morton blazes in the highlands, then the Currowan fire down the coast, before moving on to where they were last week, in Queanbeyan and in Canberra and on the far South Coast.

The sacrifice made and the risks that these men and women and their families have faced are profound, and the toll on our communities if they had not been fighting for us is unimaginable. Towns would have been lost. Literally thousands of homes and many tens of thousands of lives have been saved because of their efforts to contain, control and extinguish these fires. Our community thanks you because you are the rarest of things—unassuming heroes.

During the recent blazes, the Dunmore RFS made headlines when a fire truck was overrun by wildfire in just three minutes in Tomerong in early January—a flashover. I spoke to two of the crew who were involved in that after the incident. They were still visibly shaken by what they'd experienced. They activated their cabin sprays and took defensive measures. Luckily, they all survived and within 10 minutes—remarkably—they were out there defending the property that they'd gone down that track to defend. This is the sort of heroism that we're all in awe of.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:41 to 17 : 52

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