Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for McEwen for his important motion on Black Saturday. I spoke last week on the anniversary and commemorated the 173 lives lost, and today I want to share my story of Black Saturday—my memories of that day as well as the importance it plays in my role in this House and the importance that we as leaders support and continue to support Australians who are impacted by emergencies.

On that day I went to my mother's house in Yarra Glen to help her evacuate and, in looking back, I know I naively made every mistake in the book. So one thing I urge all Australians, as we come out of this bushfire season and enter another one next year, is to not be complacent. So, we went to visit to evacuate my mother. We left when we could see flames, which is rule No. 1 to never do. As we left Yarra Glen—and the member for Jagajaga talked about the wind change, and it definitely saved a lot of Melbourne and a lot of lives—for us, that wind change put us into the fire front, and in about two seconds the flames went from about a kilometre away to engulfing the car that I was driving and that my then fiancee, now wife, was in with me. At that moment we thought our lives were over. I could not see anything outside of the windscreen other than smoke and flames. In a millisecond I calculated that the road we were on was about 200 metres to the bend and that if we hit that bend it wouldn't really matter, because we wouldn't be here. So, with foot to the floor, we were going in excess of 130 or 140 kilometres, as my wife repeated, in tears, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.' In that moment we truly believed that our lives would be over.

We got through those flames, escaped to the other side. My mum and her husband were in the car behind us and as we got through that, what felt like forever—it was maybe 10 to 15 seconds; I don't know—we did not know where they were. They did not have the luxury of speeding up, because they knew we were in front of them, and they couldn't see either. As a mother does, she wasn't prepared to risk running into us, so she continued at a slower speed and showed courage that defies logic. I share that story because it's foundational to who I am and why I'm here today, which is to make sure that we take our lived experiences as community members and bring that into this House. That's why I'll always support and advocate for emergency funding.

I also wanted to share that story because we were fortunate: we didn't lose property. I lost friends—friends passed away—but my family survived. The scars of that day stay with me to this day, and I know that last week, 14 years on, there were many who felt that it's still raw. I can picture those memories like I'm watching a movie. It doesn't leave you.

I want to pay tribute to all those survivors who are still battling scars. In many ways, it's the smallest things; a very hot day or the smell of smoke brings those memories back at the most unexpected times. I know that there are many Black Saturday survivors out there who continue to struggle, and, while we pay tribute to them, it also makes it difficult for them.

I want to pay tribute to not just those who survived but also the emergency services. What a lot of people don't know is that they didn't just volunteer on the day or on the day after. I've got good friends in the CFA who were cleaning up and fighting those fires for months afterwards—three to four months after. The emotional and psychological toll that it took on them and that it continues to take on them is significant.

So I urge that we continue to make sure we support mental health and provide PTSD support for emergency services, because they are the volunteers of our community who not only put their physical bodies on the line for us. They put their mental health on the line every day, and Black Saturday was just one of the many examples of the impact that emergencies have not just in my community but across the country.

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