Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the importance of volunteers in rural communities, particularly those in small communities like my own of Harvey. We have around 3,000 people in our town. You would understand it is a very small community, but it is very important. Our town is situated between two major highways in the south-west of the state. Whenever there is a major incident on either highway, firstly the police will leave to get there. Quite frequently it will then be the SES and then the St John Ambulance and the fire brigade, depending on the numbers that are needed at the time and what the situation is. The interesting thing about each one of these services—the St John Ambulance, the SES and the fire brigade—is that they are all staffed by local volunteers. So each one of those volunteers has to leave their place of business or be available, on call, for these types of emergencies. When you consider what this means to some small businesses, which may have only one or two employees, in small towns and communities like my own, these people make a significant contribution to our community. We all know, especially if we have ever been in a position of either having an accident or having a personal emergency, how important these people are and the level of compassion and genuine assistance they provide to people. Right across a range of communities in my electorate, I see the same thing.

I note that years ago in Brunswick, a very small town, there was no ambulance and there was a group of people who decided it needed one. One of those people was my own mother. Brunswick is very tiny, and there was a lot of work, a lot of fundraising and a lot of effort to buy Brunswick’s very first ambulance. Our home phone number was the number for the Brunswick St John Ambulance, right up until the time I left home. As children we had to learn how to answer that phone, how to get a driver and how to give very good directions as to where the ambulance was needed and the number of casualties to expect. What was not provided in those days for people like my mother, who was an attendant on that ambulance, was any form of counselling after a traumatic event. I can remember, as a child, her saying that she was able to cope with most things except when people she knew were either very badly injured or deceased. I remember the toughest thing she had to deal with was the very tragic death of a young boy in our town. I am here to pay tribute to all of those people in those small communities right across my electorate and right across this country who make communities work and provide invaluable services by way of emergency services.