Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with shock and disbelief that I rise to support this condolence motion on behalf of the more than 100,000 Australians represented in my electorate of Cook and, in partnership with the member for Hughes, on behalf of the more than 250,000 Australians who live in Sydney’s Sutherland Shire. Both of us stand here today to offer, on behalf of our communities, our condolences to the communities in Victoria who have been so dreadfully devastated.

This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions—unspeakable in its horror, unspeakable in its scale, unspeakable in its sheer human devastation. We are humbled and bewildered by the fury of this force that has scorched the lives of at least 181 Australians, some of whom left us in the blink of an eye from the face of our earth. This was the perfect firestorm. Let us pray that we and our children will never see the face of such horror again. But the terrible truth is that such a day will come again.

I am proud to say that a contingent of some 120 volunteers from our local brigades in the Sutherland Shire from both the Cook and Hughes electorates have taken and will take their place in the days ahead at the fire front in Victoria. The first team of 21 is being relieved today, another team will go down this weekend and another team will go next week, on Wednesday. I am sure, given the spirit of those in the shire, they will do whatever it takes. They will be there until the last fire is out and the last need is met. They have been based in Beechworth, in the electorate of Indi; they have already been on the ground in Dederang and Running Creek in northern Victoria and will continue to do their duty.

I think it is important to also acknowledge in this place the contribution of the husband of the member for Hughes, Bob Vale, who at his age is an extraordinary Australian. It is just so fabulous to see Bob so quickly answer that call for help, as he has done all of his life. Both he and member for Hughes are a credit to their nation.

I thank all of the volunteer teams for their service, and our thoughts are with them as they journey south and with their families, who will worry and who will be concerned in the days ahead. We pray for their safe return and their reunion with their families in the shire.

The shire is no stranger to bushfires. The circumstances of these deaths are horrific, and they will stay with the victims’ families forever. The tragic events in Victoria will call up memories for many across the country, including in my electorate and the neighbouring electorate of Hughes. For those in Victoria, these haunting memories have only just begun. In December 2001 Sydney experienced a black Christmas. Those fires, which had a particular impact on southern Sydney, burned for more than three weeks. It was the longest continuous bushfire emergency in New South Wales’s history.

The fire affected the southern part of the Cook electorate, mostly the natural areas within the Royal National Park. The National Parks and Wildlife Service evacuated more than 3,000 people from the park, including holiday-makers and campers, as fires flared up very close to the main picnic and recreation areas within the park boundaries. The fire encroached on residential areas surrounding and within the national park, including the villages of Bundeena and Maianbar, which are only accessible by road—one road in, one road out. Hearing the stories yesterday, particularly from the member for McMillan, about the many Victorian communities facing the same thing, my mind immediately turned to those communities in Maianbar and Bundeena. Fortunately, there is another way out of Maianbar or Bundeena, and that is by ferry or boat. During those fires, that was the way that many residents of the suburbs were evacuated.

More than 60 per cent of the vegetation within the Royal National Park was destroyed by fire. Thankfully, there was no loss of life. However, that has not always been the case in bushfires in the shire. On Friday, 7 January 1994, a fire began in Menai that by the close of the following day would have destroyed 88 houses, taken the life of Pauline O’Neill and seriously injured Kylie and Catherine Dicken of 39 Lincoln Crescent in Jannali, in the neighbouring electorate of Hughes.

On Saturday morning the fire was still on the other side of the Woronora River, yet by the afternoon it had leapt this narrow waterway and the threat had moved on to the suburbs of Bonnet Bay, Como and Jannali. Richard Dicken, his partner Pauline and his two daughters were sitting safely in their home at this time, but just after 2 pm the fire truck that was stationed in their street was directed by the command centre to go to Jefferson Crescent in Bonnet Bay, where the need was perceived to be much greater.

That truck was manned by my brother-in-law, firefighter Gary Warren, a professional firefighter. He was a member of the brigade and served with distinction over many years before falling victim to multiple sclerosis so that he had to retire from the service. But he was there on that day, and I spoke to him this week as we recalled the memories of the discussion we had those many years ago about that day. On arrival at Jefferson Crescent in Bonnet Bay, he found the area completely deserted. It was a very eerie, silent place but the danger was looming and progressing. Together with his colleagues that day he saved many homes in the area, yet back in Lincoln Crescent things had begun to turn from bad to worse. In just over an hour one big flame, not unlike some of the flames we have been hearing about in Victoria, came straight up the road at a point across from the church, which immediately caught fire. By soon after 4 pm Richard and Pauline’s home was alight. Together with Richard’s children, Catherine and Kylie, and their two dogs Pauline got into their vehicle in their garage, with a view to leaving. When the garage door opened they saw the front of the house on fire. The utility at the top of the drive was also on fire. The bush opposite was alight, with the wind driving the flames into the house.

They shut the door and returned to the house. They used wet towels whilst sheltering in the laundry and bathroom area of their home. Richard then went looking for a way out the back of the yard, as the front door and the window next to it were now on fire. The house was now on fire and Catherine saw a ball of fire come out of her bedroom. Richard by this time was in the pool. Everything was alight and he called his family to get to the pool, as he saw this as the way out. As the inferno reached its intensity Pauline, Catherine and Kylie jumped into the pool. The dogs never made it off the pergola. The girls survived, although they sustained burns, but Pauline had perished by the time she hit the water. When my brother-in-law Gary and his crew were finally able to get to Lincoln Crescent he saw a scene he described to me as total devastation.

The Como-Jannali fire was one of the most damaging fires that occurred in New South Wales in 1994. It was also one of the smallest fires in New South Wales, being largely confined to the riverside bushland reserves. The fire affected 476 hectares of bushland and destroyed 101 houses—ultimately more than half of all the houses lost in New South Wales during the January 1994 bushfire emergency were in that broader area—and it claimed the life of Pauline O’Neill.

I relay this story not because of its comparison to the suffering in Victoria—there is no comparison, I think, to the suffering we have seen in Victoria—but simply to make the point that the stories, identities and lives of all those who have been lost in this terrible tragedy must be remembered, just as we can remember Pauline O’Neill today in such detail. Every life lost is precious, whether there is one or there are 181. There is a human face to every one of these horrific stories, and although it is so difficult we must look at these faces. We must feel our loss, as we have been doing in this place this week, and we must honour the memory of those people. So, when the time comes and we are able, let us name these names—as today I remember Pauline—and let us mourn all these deaths. Let us tell their stories. In fact, let us have a national day of mourning, when we have counted the dead, so that we can celebrate their lives together.

The rebuilding and learning process must now be our focus. I welcome the measures announced yesterday by the Prime Minister and those announced the previous day by the Deputy Prime Minister. The coalition stand ready, as we have said, to do whatever it takes, as I am sure that is the resolve of every member in this place. There are some important issues that I believe we need to pay careful attention to, not just in the days ahead but in the weeks, months and even years ahead. They relate particularly to the issues of insurance coverage and dealing with the claims of those who will be in such distress. They will need support and advocates, people who can stand with them to work with the necessary bureaucracies. It will be difficult for them, as they do not have documents, as we heard yesterday. They need to substantiate their claims and work through all of these details. They will need people to hold their hands through that process. Let us be there to hold their hands.

I also want to join all colleagues in expressing my gratitude for the generosity of all Australians, including those in my electorate, who have reached out in this time of need. The over $30 million—and I am sure the figure is climbing—reminds us of the Australian response to the tsunami tragedy. Here on our own shores our generosity is no less.

I also wish to thank those who this day and every day are serving on the ground, including my colleagues from Victoria, providing the leadership in their communities that is so essential. In particular I wish to acknowledge the member for McEwen. I wish to thank all the members for their incredible tributes on behalf of their electorates. I do not think any of us will ever forget the contribution yesterday by the member for McMillan, who I had the great privilege to sit beside when I first came to this place. I got to understand a fair bit more about the member for McMillan. What we saw yesterday was 100 per cent pure member for McMillan.

I also want to thank all those involved in the gruesome task of forensic identification. We pay tribute to the firefighters, the volunteers and those working in charities, but I particularly want to draw our attention to those who are going through the most gruesome of tasks. This brings back a personal memory. My father was a fingerprint expert for the New South Wales Police for many years in his career. Like most policemen, ambulance officers and firefighters, he tended not to talk about his experiences. My brother serves in the ambulance service and many of my family have served with the police, and they do not talk about it. One thing my father really never talked about was the time in 1979 when he was one of the first on the scene to do identification for the poor boys who were killed in the Luna Park fire. Those boys were the same age as my brother and me. They came from the community we grew up in. It was my father’s grim task to identify those bodies.

Similarly, some performing that gruesome task in these communities will have lived in these communities and have known these individuals, and some will not. They will see the charred remains of children and they will force themselves not to think of their own children and their friends’ children. They will see things that I hope I will never see. They will be forced to do that task. I know they will do it professionally and with the great integrity and respect that that job deserves. Let us spare a thought for them as they work through this horrible business.

I hope our words in this place provide some salve to the open wounds of our nation at this time. I believe in something far more powerful than that: the hope and blessing of a benevolent God. Accordingly, I agree with the member for McMillan, who said: those who can pray, pray. In that vein I wish to offer a prayer from Isaiah. If I can be indulged, this is my prayer for them:

That the spirit of the Lord, whom the Lord has anointed, will bring good news to the afflicted; that He will bind up the broken hearted; that He will proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; that it will become the favourable year of the Lord; that He will comfort all who mourn; that He will grant those who mourn, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting, so they will be called oaks of righteousness; that they will rebuild the ancient ruins and they will raise up the former devastations.

May God’s blessing be on all those who suffer and mourn at this time and those who seek to comfort them.

Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with all members of this House in expressing my deepest sympathy to the families, friends and neighbours of the victims of the recent Victorian bushfires and the flooding throughout the state of Queensland. These tragedies remind us of the awesome power of the elements and the unforgiving nature of our environment.

As I watched the coverage of the Victorian bushfires, I could only think of the human tragedies, with the high loss of life and the destruction of property. These small rural communities have seen devastation on a scale that is hard to imagine. Each life lost was not a stranger but a family member, a neighbour or a friend. Their loss is felt by all Australians. At times of such tragedy we see our nation not as a collection of individuals but as a society. We are bound together in shared grief and compassion, and we are each reminded that our home is not the safe haven that we may have believed it to be. Human tragedy is not something that happens only in countries outside Australia. We can be just as vulnerable to natural disasters as people of poorer nations.

While we are familiar with the response of emergency services and the sacrifices made by so many of our wonderful volunteers, who give freely of their time and on occasions risk their lives, a disaster of this size calls on all of us to give a hand. In the face of such tragedy, all Australians come together as one community to help rebuild the lives, the homes and the towns that have been destroyed. That is the Australian way. That is mateship. Whether we live in cities, where such disasters are hard to understand, or come from places that face similar challenges, we have the compassion and belief in our shared destiny to offer our help.

In my own electorate on the urban fringe of Sydney, which includes a number of small rural communities, we share the dangers of fire and flood. These ever-present risks are only too familiar to many in my electorate. The memories of the Christmas Day fires of 2001 in the areas bordering the Warragamba Dam catchment are a constant reminder that another tragedy could occur at any time. This is of great concern to all residents in those areas.

I know that in response to these tragedies the people of Fowler will dig deep to help our fellow Australians when they are in such dire need. As I have seen in recent years, ordinary people in Fowler have given generously through ethnic communities, licensed clubs and other groups to appeals following the Canberra bushfires and the Asian tsunami. Given the scale of this tragedy, even in the midst of a financial crisis I know that the people of Fowler will exceed all other appeals in their generosity. That help should, however, be seen alongside the efforts that Australian governments can make, firstly, in rebuilding the lives, the homes, the businesses and the towns that have been destroyed. At this time, when we are considering projects as part of an economic stimulus, we should give priority to projects which can help us cope with natural disasters. While we should all realise that floods and fires are part of the Australian landscape, we must give priority to measures which can greatly reduce the risk of loss of human life and property.

In my own electorate, bordering the Warragamba catchment and the Blue Mountains National Park, there are constant calls from concerned residents for fuel reduction burning in those areas. By funding essential infrastructure and planning for the development of our towns, homes and farms, we may reduce some of the risks to property. But the most important need is for resources and facilities which can bring all Australians within reach of shelter at times of disaster. This is possibly the greatest challenge facing Australia today. Unless we are determined to meet the costs of protecting human life in the event of flood and fire, we will not have truly honoured those who have lost their lives in this tragedy.

These fears have been expressed by many of my constituents. In one email I received yesterday, a resident of Silverdale pleaded:

A coordinated plan has to be put in place at a local, state and national level to ensure that everything is done to prevent the terrible loss of life and property.

Please, please start putting these things into action so that this winter sees a major change and the recommencement of controlled burns throughout Australia.

Having listened to the heartfelt speeches of the members for McMillan, Gippsland, Casey and others in this debate, I am determined to ensure that this tragedy is not repeated in the electorate of Fowler.

On behalf of the electorate of Fowler, I extend our deepest sympathy to the relatives, friends and neighbours of those Australians who have lost their lives in this tragedy. I can promise the people of the affected areas the generous support of the people of Fowler and my own determination, along with that of the whole House, to see that in the future the risk to human life in these events is hopefully eliminated.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to add my voice to those who have spoken before me on the tragedy of the bushfires that have engulfed so many homes and lives across Victoria. On behalf of the people of Cowan, my fellow residents, I begin by thanking those who have fought and still fight the fires under those conditions—the people who are dedicated to the protection of life and property. A grateful nation salutes you for your efforts, your bravery and in some cases the great and personal sacrifices you have made. I also pay tribute to those ordinary citizens who gave their lives in defence of their families and the protection of those things that they valued. I acknowledge the bravery of those who risked injury to help others. In all cases, the CFA volunteers, the SES, the police, the health services, the volunteers in supporting capacities and the Australian people are united in support of the victims in terms of offering prayers, sympathy and financial support. The condolences of the people of Cowan and me go to the families who have suffered the loss of loved ones, and we hope for the best possible recovery of the injured.

For those of us who will only see the images of this great tragedy through a television screen, we will nevertheless forever remember it. Just as with the carnage inflicted on towns during the Ash Wednesday fires, we will remember the destruction of the towns, houses and lives in Victoria. While the memory and the hurt will always be greatest for those who are there now, all Australians will carry the sadness of this tragedy with them for all their days. Most of us will never see the menacing view of smoke in the distance as it approaches. Most of us will never smell the choking smoke and see the glow of hundreds of dangerous embers flying towards us, landing on us or the roofs of our houses. We will never feel the searing heat of the flames as they burn the high eucalyptus trees across the backyard of our bush properties. Most of us will never know the feeling of certainty that our homes and all our possessions will be destroyed by bushfire. Most of us will never know the feeling of certainty that our lives will end in such conditions. Most of us will never know the uncertainty about whether our family members or friends have survived and then have to come to terms with the fact that they have not. Most of us will never know any of these feelings but, sadly, these are the feelings that were experienced by those involved in Victoria and are still being endured now.

I and most of my fellow residents in Cowan live in suburban streets. The concept of facing a bushfire at our front door is incomprehensible, yet bush does come up to the houses of Cowan. I think that the residents of suburbs like Gnangara, Banksia Grove, Carramar, Tapping, Sinagra, Ashby, Ballajura and Landsdale, who can see great expanses of bushland literally across the road, can in some way appreciate the potential threat of a bushfire. That is one reason we feel so supportive of and concerned for our Victorian family. In all cases the people of Cowan are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters and grandparents, and for that reason we can feel for families who have suffered such losses.

I said at the outset that I thank the CFA and everyone for their efforts so far and into the future until this emergency has passed. In Cowan we have two units of bushfire volunteers based at Wanneroo. Under the overall control of the chief bushfire control officer, Mike Teraci, there are more than 80 dedicated volunteers rostered for all times of day and night. These great citizens of our community fill the ranks of the Wanneroo Bush Fire Brigade and the Wanneroo Fire Support Brigade. These are two of the most active brigades in the north of Perth and, under the chief bushfire control officer, there are three deputy chief bushfire control officers, the captain fire control officer, four lieutenants, a brigade secretary, a treasurer, an equipment officer, a brigade training officer and the volunteer firefighters and the volunteer support members. Just like the Victorian volunteer firefighters, these men and women are ready to, have in the past and will in the future put their lives on the line for our communities. They have the respect of the people in Cowan and they have our thanks for their selfless dedication and commitment to preserving lives and property. I thank them and I also thank their families for their ongoing support.

The tragedy that has claimed so many lives in Victoria is not over. The risk that more people will die remains. The strength of this country in terms of the indomitable spirit of our people has been spoken about by other speakers, and it is a fact. I would like to add to that by saying that we have such a belief in the value of human life in this country that I am proud to say we will never find the loss of even a single life acceptable. The determination of this country to do better and take the steps necessary to reduce the chances of this ever happening again will be strong—and we must take the opportunity presented.

We stand together in support of those who fight this danger. We are a grateful nation—grateful to those who put their lives on the line in recent days, last night and early this morning and who will into the future. I hope that God watches over them and that providence will see them through these desperate days.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This has been a week quite like no other—a week of contrasts, a week of destruction. While we watch the people of North Queensland wading through the waist-high water, raging bushfires have ravaged the southern part of the continent in Victoria. Dorothea MacKellar indeed got it right in her iconic poem My Country when she described Australia as:

… A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains

The week has proven, better than any other in my lifetime, how mother nature can wreak the same havoc in such contradictory ways. Queenslanders have battled with one metre of rain in seven days; Victorians with prolonged drought and horrific firestorms. The colour of the horizon may vary between blue, grey and orange, but its capacity to indiscriminately destroy life and property remains the same. Three thousand homes have been affected by the northern floods. At last count, 750 homes and 181 lives had been lost to the southern firestorms. Only in wartime has the toll of dead and wounded been greater.

Death and loss of property are obvious effects in these circumstances. However, rains carry a menace long after the clouds have passed, as do flames long after their burning embers have finally been extinguished. Once these rains and flames pass North Queensland and Victoria, we will be left with the vulnerability of communities—the fragility of those without homes, families, possessions or jobs. I cannot imagine the stress of living with an image of a burnt-out car containing a body—presumably of a friend, a loved one, a neighbour or a colleague. Nor can I imagine the stress to a community of returning home to confront ruins, retrieving what little remains and starting from scratch—like beautiful Marysville, a town I have stayed in, where so few buildings escaped the wrath of a raging fire. Every public building was destroyed there, from the police station, post office and telephone exchange to the lovely guest houses.

This example would make it difficult for many to comprehend why Australians have such love and affection for their sunburnt country or why Dorothea Mackellar would exclaim, all those years ago:

Her beauty and her terror

The wide brown land for me!

Only yesterday media descriptions of a sunburnt land included ‘scorched earth’, ‘hell’s fury’ and ‘hell on earth’. This apocalyptic and biblical imagery underscores how shocking an occasion this has been for our country. Yet it will do nothing to weaken our love of the land. Dorothea Mackellar echoed the sentiment of Australians then, as she does now, when she wrote:

Core of my heart, my country!

Land of the rainbow gold,

For flood and fire and famine

She pays us back threefold.

As with all things in our country, good will come out of bad. The ‘ordered woods and gardens’ and ‘green tangle of the brushes’ will rise from the ashes.

The mateship that embodies the Australian spirit is again proudly on display. Our firefighters, police and emergency services have fought valiantly and gone beyond the call of duty to contain the fires and attend to those who have survived. People are working together and volunteering together to protect others, sometimes at their own expense. Every act of stupidity by an arsonist attracts far greater numbers of courageous and heroic deeds.

Once again we have seen adversity bringing out the best in all Australians. The people of Sydney’s inner west, whom I represent in this place, are an extremely charitable people. I have no doubt they will be doing all they can to assist their fellow Australians, be it through donating blood, money, clothing or food. On behalf of the citizens I represent in my electorate of Lowe, I offer my heartfelt condolences to the families of those who have lost their loved ones and I also offer my deep sympathy to those whose lives have been devastated by the bushfires. Our thoughts and prayers go out to each and every one of them. They have lost so much—and in many cases everything. I commend the motion to the House.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to join this debate by extending the very heartfelt sympathies of the people of New England, and of course many other parts of Australia, in relation to the tragedy that has occurred in Victoria in recent days. Listening to the various speeches—and I do particularly compliment the member for McMillan on the picture that he painted yesterday given the real pain that he felt for his constituents and others who were affected by the fires—I think there has been a real coming together in parliament on this particular issue. I think the community will reflect on that and hopefully that will mean some degree of unity on some of the other critical issues that are out there.

At the risk of bringing politics into this debate, I note that obviously there are some very significant issues on which the nation does need some degree of unity: global climate change, the economic crisis and those things that are impacting on us. In a sense, we cannot do a lot about them just on our own but we can do a lot, as we have shown with the fires crisis, if we can find a common path that we can agree on. So hopefully out of tragedy there will be lessons learnt—particularly in relation to the fires—not only about what we should do in future but also about the way in which the political process carries on as to some of these issues where real leadership is being asked for by the broader community.

This is an opportunity to say some things that really do need to be said about how we come out of this particularly tragedy. Obviously, there will be an enormous effort put in by governments of all persuasions and by the community right across Australia to make sure that the people who are impacted are looked after. That will, hopefully, assist those people. But there are some policy initiatives that really do need to be looked at for the future, and I will now take the opportunity to raise a few of the issues which relate to what has happened in recent days. Various reports and documents have been written over many decades about the consequences of wildfire and what it means, potentially, to various communities. The electorate of New England is probably one of the most diverse electorates in this parliament. It extends from the Liverpool Plains—which were originally vast expanses of very high plains grass not all that dissimilar to the prairie grass that dominated parts of the United States, so massive fires would take place there from time to time—to the hilly areas and into the gorge country towards the coast, where there have been many wildfires in the past. In my view there will be many more in the future, and they will probably be far worse than those that have occurred in the past, because management practices have changed, particularly in the last decade.

I note that in the north of Australia, in the carbon debate that is currently taking place, there are debates about the practices of the Aboriginal population and their chequerboard burning policies. Some of these things really do need to be looked at. Aborigines are not—and were not—doing that just because they think it is nice to light a fire. There are a number of issues there that we really have to have a very close look at. I think there are some lessons to be learnt from the past about where people live and how we conduct ourselves in protecting people in those areas.

There is going to be a lot of soul-searching after this event, and I think we should take advantage of some of the knowledge that is already out there. I will refer to a document that was put to the Victorian parliament about five years ago, after the Gippsland fires occurred, by the Independent state member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram. Craig presented a document entitled East Gippsland: burned at the political stake, which I would like to table. It is not a political document; it is in fact a document in which Craig looks at many of the things that happened during those very bad fires in Gippsland, some of the reasons for those fires and, more importantly, some of the constructive ways that communities can recognise the problem and put in place some policies for the future. I raise it because, with a royal commission being touted in Victoria, documents such as the one that Craig put forward really do need to be looked at very seriously. Craig refers to the 1939 fires in Victoria, after which a royal commission was carried out. Some of the recommendations of that royal commission have only been put in place in the last 10 to 15 years. Some of those recommendations, which apply as much today as they did in 1939, have not been put in place—particularly those in relation to some land management practices and to the responsibility of neighbours to look after land that is adjacent to other people. With the continued trend of people wanting to live in the urban-bush interface and with our great love of trees and nature, we really have to revisit some of these issues.

I am not suggesting people should not live there, but maybe in that interface area there should be a policy of prescribed burning. Some states—New South Wales, for instance—have almost retreated from that. It is seen as polluting the atmosphere if you protect land in that way in New South Wales. I was on a bushfire inquiry committee when I was in the New South Wales state parliament about 10 or 12 years ago. A lot of these issues were raised then and really very little has occurred. We have gone through the Canberra fires. There were a whole range of issues raised there, and many of them have been brushed aside. That is not to suggest that this is the fault of government. I would be the last to say that, but I think the community really has to recognise that a wildfire will occur if you do nothing to stop it. And when it does occur on an occasion like that vicious day when the Canberra fires occurred—and there were similar conditions in Victoria the other day—those sorts of conditions will make it far worse, so that you cannot stop it. I think we have got to design policy that takes the basic premise that you will not stop it unless you have put in preventative practices sometime before.

The Victorians have done a little bit of homework on prescribed burning practices in recent years. The government there has, I am told, moved towards more prescribed burning than, perhaps, the previous government had. But it is still not enough. The rolling targets that were apparently to be put in place under the arrangements in Victoria have not been picked up for future years. By ‘rolling targets’ I mean that, if the target is 100,000 hectares of prescribed burning in a year to protect an area—a chequerboard burn, in imitation of what the Aborigine did—and if the 100,000 hectares is not reached in a particular year because the conditions might not be there during the winter months to carry out the burn effectively, that should roll into the next year and the funding should roll as well. To my knowledge, that is not happening in a lot of the places where these massive wildfires occur.

I am sure Craig Ingram will put in a document to the royal commission. He does not blame anybody, but he makes the plea, I think, that communities really have to learn that, if you do nothing, these tragedies will occur again and again. As I said, I remember 10 or 15 years ago when I was in the state parliament and we carried out an inquiry into bushfires. There are others in this building who would remember that quite well. The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, for instance, have highly destructive fuel loads sitting there, and nothing is really being done to prevent a similar circumstance. It will happen. It has to happen, because that is the natural way. If you do not have a chequerboard-burning landscape control policy and you allow these very large fuel loads to build up, it is just a mathematical calculation—tonnes per hectare times temperature times humidity times a few other things plus some wind and the correct circumstances, and then you get what we saw in Canberra, what we saw on Ash Wednesday, what we saw in Tasmania some years back and what we have seen again recently. Those tragic circumstances will repeat themselves. In terms of the urban-bush interface, we really have to start not to learn—because most of the documentation has been put in place before—but actually apply some of the solutions that have been identified, some as far back as 1939.

There are some other issues that I will briefly raise. I think most people recognise the speed of the fires. I have fought fires. I live on the land and I know what fires are like, but I do not know what a fire is like in that circumstance, where the trees are absolutely exploding in front of you—the intensity of that heat. The fires I have been involved in have essentially been grassfires with some trees. I would not be able to comprehend the fear that people would have faced in terms of the enormity of that particular event.

One of the things that seems to be coming through about applied policy that might make a difference in the survival of people where all else has failed is bunkers. A wombat survives in a wildfire because he goes down a hole. Many other animals do as well. In fact, I noticed on television the other day that a woman and some others crowded into a wombat hole and protected themselves with blankets and the fire went over the top of them. Part of the 1939 Victorian royal commission recommendations was that there be community bunkers. We did it in wartime. Most of that has disappeared as some of these communities have grown and people have become more blase. They say: ‘Oh no, we’ve got fire trucks. They’ll turn up and save the day.’ Personally, I think there has been far too much preoccupation with putting vehicles in streets, building sheds to house them and taking photographs with politicians in front of them rather than actually concentrating on some of these issues. A fire truck is absolutely useless in a fire of that magnitude. I am not decrying the efforts of the firefighters; they are needed. But in those circumstances, we need to do something about that urban-bush interface. The towns that are in those communities—and they are right throughout Australia—really need to have a close look at what could have been done to save these people. In the main, those who had bunkers were saved. They are very inexpensive, even if people went to the extent of stocking emergency oxygen bottles in the cavity in case there are low amounts of oxygen inside. So I suggest we learn a little bit from the past and look at the concept of bunkers. They are inexpensive. A backhoe can do them. People can put them in of their own volition. They could be the very thing that saves lives.

There are a couple of other issues that I would like to raise. I am told by Victorians that certain recommendations—I think it was two or three years ago now; I might be a little bit out on the timing—were made and unanimously agreed to in the Victorian parliament, including that a 300 per cent prescribed burn-off would take place. I do not think that has occurred yet. Maybe it has not had time to occur. But I think there was recognition from left, right and indifferent, Green and right-wing, that there was a common pathway for prescribed burns and not enough was being done.

I reiterate the point: the community has to recognise that you cannot expect to be protected from a wildfire in certain circumstances under the normal arrangements. This has occurred on the doorstep of Melbourne—although it should have had some impact on the doorstep of Canberra as well—and, because it is occurring near a major metropolitan area, maybe more of the community will recognise now that there is a community responsibility. Time and time again, we have seen it in Sydney—and I think all members of parliament have seen this—that when the authorities go in to do a controlled burn on the outskirts of Sydney or wherever, all hell breaks loose about smoke in the sky and people say, ‘This is tragic,’ and, ‘We saw a kangaroo in trouble,’ and, ‘It is all very unfortunate,’ and, ‘Why do you have to do that? We came here to live in the bush.’

There are many people who came to live in that bush who are not living anymore. I think there is a community responsibility to make sure that people who, because of their histories, probably do not understand are protected in some way. Obviously the prescribed burns around communities will have an impact. They will not stop fires, but they will decrease the magnitude of a massive wildfire, because it all works on fuel load. I encourage the Commonwealth, Victorian and, in particular—before a massive tragedy occurs in that area west of Sydney—the New South Wales governments to look at some of the implications of what is happening.

I would also like to commend the member for Mallee, John Forrest. John made some important points yesterday about practical issues, such as the removal of wooden crossbars from power poles. A lot of fires start with electricity shorting out. There is no doubt that that happens. How many start that way and whether such changes would have made a difference here no-one will ever know. But, if we are looking for real solutions, that is definitely one of the things that we should start to look at. Obviously the bunker arrangement is something else that we need to look at, along with prescribed burns, as I mentioned earlier. I commend the member for Mallee for his particular suggestion. I am sure there will be many more.

Many years ago—and I am told that similar things applied in Gippsland—there used to be a clearway on the edge of roads. I agree with this for other reasons, as well as for burn-off access. Most roads through timbered areas now have timber right up to the road. I have argued that many accidents occur because a car only needs to get 10 yards off the road before it runs into a tree. In a fire, as we saw time and time again on the television screens, all there was was a track through trees. Obviously, when the first tree falls over, there is no more track. In parts of Gippsland, other parts of Victoria and parts of New England, once one tree falls over there is no access—no way in and no way out. Surely we have to examine some of those issues. I know they are very difficult issues for the community—if the community is against it, the political process goes slowly; it puts dust on top of the royal commission report—but we have to take advantage of what has happened, in a sense, and say to the community, ‘You cannot expect to exist in these sorts of environments unless certain things happen to make sure that your living area is as safe as possible.’ Otherwise, all of these deaths will have been for nothing.

The other issue I would like to raise—and I realise that I am going on a bit—is that what we will see, in my view, is what we have seen in the past. This is a natural disaster. We have seen a range of disasters occurring: the Wollongong mudslides, the cyclone in Darwin, Cyclone Larry in Queensland and the Newcastle earthquake. We see a range of political responses to those disasters. You can see a difference between the response mechanisms for the Queensland floods and the Victorian fires even in these early days. We also see issues from time to time in how the insurance companies deal with these issues—whether the water came up as a flood or came down as rain—and the debate that takes place. They are both tragedies, but the legalities of insurance documents can treat them somewhat differently. If the political response moves in or it is not too interested, different results will occur. I have suggested for probably 10 or 15 years now that what we need in this country is a national natural disaster fund, where money is set aside annually for tragedies—irrespective of whether it be a Sydney hailstorm or a Wollongong mudslide.

Trying to determine those insurance payouts went on for years. It did not matter who caused the disasters; they were not caused by the people who lived in the houses. In Coffs Harbour there was a similar situation. We see it time and time again, with different responses depending on the political cycle, the marginality of the seat, the generosity of the government, the balance sheet of the bank or whatever. Surely it is time to tackle this. One of the great things we have done in the last few days is take the politics out of the issue. Surely it is time to continue that and put in place a fund that can be drawn upon when these sorts of circumstances occur. There is no doubt in my mind that, whether Victorians are insured or not, they will have their houses replaced. That is going to send messages in different directions to different people. Maybe, to deal with these tragedies that occur, we should have a fund set up where all of those people affected, irrespective of their economic background, are looked after.

Some people would say, ‘Oh, that’s socialism,’ or whatever else, but in the last week or two I have been told in this building that neoliberalism is dead. Maybe we have to look at how the community can come together, raise a massive amount of money and have it in place for when tragedy occurs. I will give you an idea of how simple that is. One dollar a week from every Australian raises a billion dollars in a year. When I did some work on this some years back, there had been, I think, only one tragedy in Australia that had cost over a billion dollars. Normally natural disasters are in the range of $200 million to $300 million a year. You get the odd one. I do not know the numbers on Cyclone Larry—these numbers were done with the assistance of the Insurance Council of Australia a few years back. Twenty to 30 cents a week protects any of us from an unfortunate event which could happen to any of us—a hailstorm, an earthquake or any other tragic disaster. I ask the government, when this royal commission appears, to at least have a look at the way in which a fund could be put in place so that we depoliticise the process and treat everybody impacted by a tragedy in the same way.

The last issue I would like to raise is the climate change debate. No doubt everybody will have their views about climate change, but in this nation at this time there is more water in Queensland, which climate scientists tell us was going to be a consequence of global warming, and drier times in southern Australia, which climate scientists tell us is going to be a feature of the future. I think we will all be dead and gone when we know who was right and who was wrong, but at some stage, if we are looking at protecting the southern part of Australia—the Murray-Darling system et cetera—we must look at transferring some of the water that is going to be created in the north of Australia through human-induced climate change, using it to replace the depleted amount in the Murray-Darling system.

We are told that, because of climate change, there will be a 30 per cent reduction in runoff into the Murray-Darling system. That is human induced. It is not overallocation of licences or all the other stuff that is mentioned. At some stage, maybe we have to equalise the chequebook with those two areas. We see 60 per cent of Queensland under water now. Whether it is climate change induced or not I do not know, but there is a lot of wasted water there. We see the tragedy that is occurring in the Murray-Darling system, which could be ameliorated with an inflow of water from Northern Queensland or other parts of Australia. I thank the House and extend the sympathy of all New Englanders to those people in Victoria who have been affected.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member sought to table a document. Does the member still seek leave to table that document?

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, please.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could you indicate the full title and authorship for consideration.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The document that I would like to table is a presentation by Craig Ingram MP, state member for Gippsland East, and it is titled East Gippsland: burned at the political stake.

Honourable Member:

Honourable member interjecting—

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it is not a confidential document.

Leave granted.

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is difficult to say that you are pleased to rise on an occasion like this to talk to a motion like this, because we all would wish that we were not actually facing the circumstances that Victorians and other Australians are facing, but we are and, as the member for Canberra, on behalf of my community I want to record our deepest sympathy and empathy with all of those affected throughout Victoria and particularly those within the fire-ravaged areas and the areas touched by fires.

I asked my staff this morning to give me a list, to try and make me correct, of the federal electorates that are, to any degree, affected by this fire experience. And—at the risk of being a little bit wrong, and I hope I am not—the electorates remotely, closely or deeply affected cover almost the whole of Victoria. They include: Murray; Gippsland; Indi; McEwen, in particular; Mallee; Bendigo; Casey; Ballarat; McMillan; Calwell and Wannon—and, obviously, areas surrounding all of those electorates as well.

So when we, as a community, offer our sympathy and our empathy to all of those people, it is to the people within those electorates but it is also to those within the state of Victoria and, sadly, I have to say, it is to people throughout Australia who are now beginning to feel the effects as well. An instance of that is a family in my electorate—who I found out about yesterday, who have lost their whole family in Kinglake. So it is very evident that, when there are constituents of mine, who I personally know, who have lost a daughter, a son-in-law and three small children, we are beginning to see the tentacles of this fire spreading, in that human and personal way, throughout all the different parts of our community in Australia. We are, sadly, still at the height of it, and we really do not have any idea, I think, of when exactly this is going to end.

Unfortunately, from our point of view, in Canberra we can empathise. About three weeks ago we had the sixth anniversary of 18 January 2003, when Canberra suffered a very similar type of fire—but with a different outcome in terms of enormity. Whilst we lost 500-plus houses and, sadly, four lives, the extent of the Victorian fire in its coverage and its spread is obviously much, much greater.

Yet the experiences of this community of the ferocity and the speed of the fire are very similar in many ways. We are hearing stories from Victoria that are very similar to stories from here—and the member for Windsor made comment to this effect as well—in terms of the sheer unstoppability of a fire when it reaches that point. I know that the fire control people and the firefighters here in my community said to me on more on than one occasion after our experience that, even if they had had a fire truck on every corner of every suburb in Weston Creek, for instance, they still would have had no hope of stopping the fire, because once it gets to that point it is, literally, unstoppable. So the points that previous speakers—in particular, the member for New England—have made, in relation to what we can try to do as a community to avoid it getting to that point, are really the salient points of this debate about doing all we can to try and stop a repeat of these horror stories. The experience also we have had here also leads me to comment, if I can, on what we are seeing as an impact down there and what we can begin to imagine is ahead for those people.

Obviously, the loss of life is beyond comprehension. The numbers are horrendous, and behind every single one of those numbers is a person with a family—the human impact. Then we have the loss of homes and buildings, livestock, pets and wildlife. There is also the loss of infrastructure—the community buildings and schools and places where non-government organisations and community support services operate from. All of those support services that exist day by day within our communities have lost their ability to operate out of a facility. And the infrastructure in terms of roads, bridges, power poles, telephone boxes and letterboxes—imagine all of the things that are part of the normal street where you live—is all gone. The rebuilding of all that infrastructure, in every shape that it takes, is going to take a long time.

I turn to the rebuilding of houses. I know that here in Canberra a small number of people who lost everything had left within 24 hours and were never seen again. That was their way of dealing with the impact on their lives. Then we had some folk who could not wait to rebuild and miraculously had a house up within three months. We had others who needed time to think of what they wanted to do. Did they want to replicate their house? Did they want a new design? Did they actually want to do it? Were they prepared to consider trying again in blackened areas? In some of the hot spots the soil was burnt down to a metre, and that is what has happened in Victoria. To imagine that you can begin again in that sort of scenario takes a bit of thinking, and these people needed some time to do that.

Then you had others who took a year or two to decide whether they could stay and rebuild. If you go to the worst hit suburban areas here, you may even today, six years on, see the odd block that is left where people have not been able to make up their minds. They are in a very small minority now but they still exist. So what I am saying is that the human reaction to this is going to be varied and as a community—including this government, state governments and authorities—we need to understand that giving a commitment to rebuild is the best commitment we can possibly give, because it gives an indication to all of those people that no matter what their decision is the community is with them and will do it with them. We also need, however, to understand that the impact is so deep that people will need to be able to work through their reactions in a variety of ways.

Then you have the people whose houses did not burn. Whilst initially they will celebrate that and be thankful for it and shocked by it, they will also have their own pathways of recovery. In many instances, probably, when services come back those people will be able to resume their lives in their houses, although they will be living in blackened, desolate surroundings—and that in itself will have a cost, emotionally, to them. I cannot imagine anything more difficult than going back to a house that was in a beautiful area that is now surrounded by death and destruction in a very blackened landscape. We will have to show them some understanding. Those people will go through a phase where the area around their home, should they be back living there, becomes a reconstruction site. And that in itself will bring a variety of challenges and new circumstances, none of which is insurmountable and none of which, I suggest, is necessarily bad—such as building controls, new shapes of houses and the impacts on neighbours.

The pathway to recovery for all of these people is going to be very vexed and incredibly varied. There will be an enormous range of outcomes for everybody. They are going to have to decide how and when they can afford to rebuild their local footy club. They will need to reconnect with their neighbours. Those who decide to go back to their communities will find that other people have not gone back and their communities are different. That all brings about different social needs, different community expectations and different pressures.

The reconstruction authority and the royal commission that have been announced are absolutely correct and proper and they should happen. In my view we should be dedicated to the rebuilding process and we should do this with the greatest of enthusiasm. I am not doing a comparison here with our experience, because this has had a much heavier impact, but the speed of the fire and the devastation were very similar and the impact on human lives will be very similar. Members of this parliament, members of the community, officials, agencies and governments need to be fully prepared for a long recovery process. We should not expect these people to be okay in six months. We should not think that, if they have their house up, they are okay again. It will take time.

I very sincerely acknowledge the actions that are being taken to offer a variety of counselling. That is going to have to continue for a long time. I want to very strongly emphasise that the need for all of those recovery support services, such as counselling and financial assistance, will last a long time, and people need to be given that time. In that period they will need encouragement as well to know that they are going okay, whatever direction they take.

In any tragedy of any enormity, whether it be an unexpected death in the family, an accident or going through something as enormous as this, we as human beings have a tendency to move after the initial shock of what has happened into a period of grief and then—depending upon the circumstances, of course—into a phase of anger and then into a phase of asking questions such as: How? Why? Is there someone I should blame? Is there someone I can blame because that might make me feel better as it removes from me all of the other emotions that I have gone through? That is going to happen in this instance. It happened here as well. Some folk found it necessary to continue down the path of blame for some time. In my view, in doing that they left the sores of emotions open for a long time. Others really just wanted to get on with their lives and put all that behind them. So again there will be a variety of responses.

I join all the other members of this parliament in applauding the community response and the appeal process. People have an anxiety to help. People want to do something. They feel that the only way they can deal with this terrible thing is to be part of it, to get in and assist in some way. I actually smiled wryly the morning before last when I had morning TV on, which I usually do not do. The journalist was interviewing a fellow standing outside a recovery place somewhere who was doing his little bit. He had a barbecue and he was cooking breakfast for everybody. He said that people really needed a feed. When someone asked him if there was anything he needed, he said he needed some bacon. Within 20 minutes he had 50 kilos of bacon in front of him. He did not know what to do with it, because he did not have enough people to eat 50 kilos of bacon.

That reminds me of what happened here in Canberra when there were lots of offers of furniture and mattresses. The ABC put out a call for utilities: ‘If you’re out there with a ute and you can help, could you call in.’ Within 20 minutes they were saying: ‘Please, we don’t want any more utilities. We’ve got nowhere to put them. We’ve got a traffic jam outside the ABC.’ These instances reflect the general population, who are not involved in this in a physical way, wanting to be involved by offering their help.

Obviously what we can do there is turn that into support. I know that they are being flooded down there with physical assistance—they have so many clothes and all that sort of stuff—and that is wonderful, but I am saying to my community—and I think we all are to our own communities—that we really need people to donate money. It does not matter if it is a $2 coin or a $2,000 cheque; what matters is that we get some financial assistance down there through the appeals that are now open. I am asking my community to do that, and I know we all are.

I want to commend the speakers preceding me through this whole debate. Mention has already been made of the member for McMillan—and I have to say that contribution yesterday was pretty enormous—but I want to thank the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for the leadership they showed at the beginning of this debate and the words that they have given to the parliament. I want to repeat the condolences from my community. I am aware that the Premier of Victoria and the Chief Minister of the ACT have already had some discussions. Given our experience, we have some knowledge on how to set up recovery processes and so on. I know that that is now happening. I am really pleased about that because I know that there will be people here who will really want to help in any way that they can in a practical sense in those processes. I am sure that that will happen.

In conclusion, I want to repeat that feeling from our community to Victoria. I want also, as I have indicated, to mention that there are going to be other people around our communities who are indirectly—and therefore directly—affected just by the impact of having family members down there, let alone by the loss of family members. We should consider that as well when we are talking to our own electorates. We must do what we can to help anybody if they need to get some assistance and they need to talk to people. If they are feeling boxed in in any way, we should not leave them there. We should get them out and offer them whatever access we can to counselling, so that they can sit down and talk about the emotions that they are going through. As has been said, this is the biggest and the worst that we have seen in this country in terms of human impact, and we need to deal with it. I really am grateful to have this opportunity, and I join my comments to the comments of all other members of the House. I wish everybody in Victoria the very best under the circumstances.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise with great sadness too to speak on this motion. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for moving the motion. I too pay tribute to the words of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, but more particularly to our colleague the member for McMillan and those affected in the fires. I look forward today to the member for Gippsland’s contribution at 2 pm and to the contribution of the member for Indi, whom I spoke to this morning. As we all know, Sophie is a tough person, and she is pretty upset by the whole thing. I look forward to her words this afternoon, as everyone else does. I was impressed by the speech by the member for New England. I thought he made some very good points, which I will speak of later in my contribution.

The words to describe this tragedy are not there. There is nothing we can say which puts into perspective what is actually still occurring in Victoria. The article on the front page of the Australian today—especially the first seven or eight paragraphs, about what happened in Marysville—is quite staggering. The suggestion that 100 of the 519 residents may have perished in Marysville is something which is beyond belief outside a war zone—one in five people in a township. As I said flippantly yesterday at a doorstop interview on the way into parliament, it just reminds you to hug your kids, because what is going on in the human tragedy that we see still occurring is beyond belief.

We talk about the stages of recovery—and the member for Canberra knows too well. We moved to Canberra not long after the Canberra bushfires, for work, as many do, and many of the people who became our friends lived in Duffy and those places and had similar experiences of a firestorm. It is remarkable that only four perished—four is too many, of course—and 500 houses were lost. One of the things that struck me in Duffy was when we moved here and we went for a drive around, as you do in a new city—you explore. We went up and had a look. This was about six months after the bushfires. The indiscriminate nature of it strikes you. I remember driving about four streets back in Duffy, and a house was gone. All the other houses around it were fine, but there had been embers and it had gone up. I think that was one of the houses that someone had died in. The other bit was the road. I forget the name of the road along next to the pine forest—

Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Eucumbene Drive.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that is right. It flew down. There were two or three houses that survived. In most of the street, how bad it would have been for those people. That would be terrible. And it is the same in Marysville, where I think there are four houses out of all the houses in that town. How you would go back is very difficult. I do not think we have any ability to understand this just yet. Looking at people around this place, I see a look of shock and disbelief in everyone’s eyes. That is the best way to describe it.

I am very proud to be part of this parliament and the response that we have made this week. I commend the Leader of the House on today’s announcement. I know he spoke to our Manager of Opposition Business this morning. I had dinner with the Manager of Opposition Business last night. As many know, I live with the Manager of Opposition Business, which brings all sorts of challenges for me personally! I said to Joe last night—and I know my colleague the member for Mitchell did as well—that it is just not possible to have question time this week. There is no question you can ask of the government this week which seems reasonable in this circumstance. I am very pleased that the manager of government business and the government have agreed with that.

I thought the speech of the member for McMillan yesterday was something else. It was just dripping with emotion. It really indicated how difficult it is down there. I put out my heartfelt thoughts to the member for McEwen, whom I have known for some time. In my role previous to this role in parliament, in the Prime Minister’s office, she was one of my ministers. We had a close relationship. The member for McEwen is a very tough lady. I sat on a plane with her last week, and we were talking about all sorts of things. Her community came up, and the love she has for where she lives and the people of her electorate—as many of us do, of course—is second to none. She is really feeling it. She spoke to our Opposition Whip this morning, and she is doing it tough. She has had to abandon her house and her office. I think we should all acknowledge and think about what she and her community are going through and will continue to go through for some time. It is an ongoing crisis.

On that, there is one last point I want to make. I am not sure whether members saw it, but yesterday in the Australian there was an article by Gary Hughes, who was there. He lives there. He is a journalist with the Australian. I think it is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever read. The ability of a journalist to describe things, of course, is their job, but to live through it and be able to do both is another matter—I think it is an extraordinary piece. I pay tribute to him for it.

That brings me to my electorate, the electorate of Mayo, in South Australia, and our connection to these issues. If there were a major fire in South Australia, it would be in the Adelaide Hills. We have not had a major fire in South Australia around suburban Adelaide—although we have on the Eyre Peninsula—since prior to the first member for Mayo being elected. That was Ash Wednesday, in 1983, where I think 28 died in the hills, six on Greenhill Road. For anyone who does not know Adelaide, that is a major metropolitan thoroughfare. They were caught with falling trees and so forth.

I can tell the House that last Saturday I was scared. It was a scary day. The wind was unbelievable. The heat was unbelievable. I had a mobile electorate office at 10 am on Saturday, and the car told me it was 42. It was just insane. I pay tribute to the 12 people who rolled up to that, because I probably would not have! It was a very scary day, and I had the radio on all day, listening. We were very lucky, and I thank those above us who prevented anything from occurring. The CFS do a wonderful job.

But I am very concerned, as I said in my local paper today, about going forward. I think we do need to look at how people are warned. You cannot fight these firestorms, and we do need to consider in the future whether there should be a better early-warning system on days that are 41, 43 or 44 degrees with high winds. I do not think we should be encouraging people to stay with their properties. We give cyclones categories; maybe we need to look at categorising days in the summer if you live in a higher risk bushfire zone. I am pleased the Victorian government is having a royal commission. There should be a range of inquiries into this. We need to learn the lessons. But we are only halfway through this fire season. We have got another hot weekend ahead in Adelaide, we are in a massive drought—water is a huge issue in my electorate—and of course there is no groundwater because of that and the trees are very dry.

In our country we forget that our bushland is meant to burn; it has traditionally burnt. We are fighting against nature in a lot of ways. I have heard other members in their contributions talk about the fact that people live in areas that they previously did not live in. But, in the Adelaide Hills, that is not really true; people have lived in the Adelaide Hills since Adelaide was born. The Hahndorf area and so forth was settled in the 1830s by German Lutherans, so people have been living in and around the hills for a long time. My electorate does not have many national parks where burn-off is a big issue but it does have a lot of private property where it probably is, and so we do need to look at the undergrowth debate at the appropriate time.

I also strongly believe that in bushfire zones we may need to go down the track of implementing a system of fire shelters—fire bunkers or cellars; whatever you like. In Northern Queensland—and this happened in Darwin, of course, after Cyclone Tracy—you build houses that will withstand a cyclone. I understand the access road argument, but in some parts of the Adelaide Hills you are not going to be able to build more roads to get out. It is the nature of living there.

So we do need to consider the lessons here. I am very concerned about the rest of this fire season. I just hope and pray we get through it. But I do think we need to very quickly look at the lessons from this fire tragedy—and look at worst-case scenarios, because there are a lot of circumstances where you can stay and fight and prevent the fire; however, if it is a firestorm such as it was on the weekend, with those high winds, it is just not possible. We do need to ask these questions at the appropriate time. We need to look at the policy responses here and at the state and local levels. But today is not an occasion to do that; this week is not the occasion to do that. This debate today and over the following days is a time to send our support to those who are suffering in the ongoing crisis and those who have lost so much already. As the member for Canberra rightly acknowledged, there will be stages of grieving, and we need to be there for those people.

I end on this note: my thoughts and prayers this week are with Fran Bailey and her people, and all those others who are affected by the fires—but in particular with Fran because I know how deeply she cares for her community and for her people, and I know she will be very sad at this time. I hope that everything works out for her for the rest of the week.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to speak on the condolence motion moved by the Deputy Prime Minister, and I do so because it is through me that in a collective way the citizens of the electorate of Throsby can extend their sympathy, empathy and compassion to all the people who have suffered in this unspeakable national tragedy.

The people of the Illawarra know a little bit about human tragedy. It is a mining region and up until the events of this week the greatest national tragedy in peacetime in fact occurred in the Illawarra. The Mount Kembla mine disaster of 1902 led to the deaths of 96 men and boys from the village surrounding the mine site. That human tragedy followed another mine disaster in March 1887, when 81 men and boys were killed at the Bulli mine. Our local paper on 2 August 1902 had this to say about the events of the mine:

A gloom was cast over the whole district on Thursday last when it became known that a dreadful explosion had taken place at Mount Kembla a few minutes before 2 o’clock at a time when there were upwards of 250 men in the mine. The explosion resulted in the roof of the mine tunnel collapsing and imprisoning the men.

So I say that it was, until this week, the largest peacetime land disaster in the nation’s history. In human terms, a third of the village’s male population died in the tragedy. Thirty-three women were left widowed and 120 children were fatherless.

In recent times, since I have become the member for Throsby, I and my colleague the member for Cunningham every year participate in the commemoration of this disaster at a place called Windy Gully, an eerie place where many of the miners were buried. So it is in that context that the region, having itself lived through and understood the history of human tragedy, understands and grieves, and I am sure that each and every person in our communities, in both Cunningham and Throsby, is really heartbroken by the events in Victoria.

The motto that we commemorate each year at the Mount Kembla mine disaster commemoration is this: ‘The past we inherit and the future we build’. So despite the devastating events early in this century I think that there is a message of hope to all those communities who at this present time are indeed in grief and mourning. Regrettably, now 7 February 2009 will probably go down in the annals of our history as the darkest day in Australia’s recorded peacetime history. We all know about the events of Black Friday in 1939, Ash Wednesday in 1983 and the more recent Canberra bushfires that my colleague the member for Canberra spoke about this morning. But this day, 7 February, so graphically commented on by the member for McMillan yesterday in the House, we will remember always as a day when 400 fires burnt across that state in the most severe weather conditions recorded. As the member for McMillan said yesterday in talking about this disaster, there was the inescapable disaster in the face of an indestructible force, the awesome fury of the fire and the unprecedented trauma it created.

I have never visited the villages and towns of Kinglake, Marysville or Flowerdale, but somehow I feel over the last few days that I really understand the grief of that community and see what would have been idyllic towns and hamlets set among that beautiful natural scenery. You really feel that the names of those towns will for ever be etched in memory—Kinglake, Marysville and Flowerdale. How could we ever forget? And how could we ever forget the time when the Deputy Prime Minister was moving the condolence motion and just in the course of her speech another dozen or more people were added to the list of those who have lost their lives?

At last report, I think the number of people who have perished in this enormous inferno is registered at 181, let alone the hundreds who have been burnt and injured and the people who have lost not just loved ones but property and livestock—even, in a sense, their own identity. It is absolutely devastating. One can only imagine the horror and grief that surrounds all of those communities. It is important that as politicians we let people know in Victoria and in the areas affected that the nation is with them and that we are doing what we can, in prayer, sympathy and contribution, as this disaster unfolds. For the coming weekend, portents of heatwave conditions again are very worrying for all concerned.

To all my colleagues directly affected—the members for Bendigo, Ballarat, Indi, McEwen, La Trobe, Gippsland, Casey and Wannon, and others who will speak today about the terrible situation in North Queensland, with the flooding there—I just want you to convey in your own way the condolences and sympathy of the people who I represent in my electorate of Throsby. We are all absolutely stunned by the magnificent heroism of the firefighters—people who put their lives on the line in these really tragic circumstances that have confronted these wonderful communities. I want to acknowledge the efforts of the state and federal police, members of the emergency services, councillors, government personnel, defence personnel, medical teams, nurses and doctors dealing with burns victims and other injuries in the major hospitals in Victoria, all those who have participated in the bushfire relief funds, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and other agencies. Last night when I came home I turned on the cricket, and even at the cricket there was an enormous gesture of commitment by the people and the team, who I understand are also visiting the affected areas this morning. Very importantly, I want to acknowledge the volunteers.

I just want to recount a little cameo. I rang my former PA who worked with me at the ACTU—a wonderful woman by the name of Denise Power—and I was not able to get through to her. She had previously lived in Arthurs Creek, very close to the affected area, and has now moved to Fran Bailey’s electorate of McEwen. I could not get through to her so I sent her a text message and asked, ‘Are you okay?’ She said, ‘Yes, Jennie. I’ve been working down at the Diamond Creek Community Centre.’ I replied, ‘You’re a good girl, Denise.’ I did not mean that in a patronising way but meant to say: ‘It’s people like you who we as a nation can always rely on—the good, kind community- and civic-minded people for whom nothing is ever too much trouble.’ There would be hundreds of Denise Powers working in all those community centres, doing what they can to aid our NGOs in that very important work that they are undertaking.

I also particularly want to acknowledge the efforts of the Prime Minister. He was in the right place; he should have been there with the people. They are obviously going through a terrible time and I think that to have the leader of the nation and our minister for families remaining with those communities is very important. My thoughts are also with the Premier of Victoria. I think the Leader of the Opposition said it well when he said, ‘We have to do as a nation whatever it takes to deal with this immense tragedy.’ The member for New England, who spoke just before me this morning, talked about taking the politics out of the issue and how important that has been. That has not failed to register with our communities.

In that regard, I want to read a message that was emailed to all members of parliament yesterday. By chance it is from a constituent of mine. I want to read it because I want it to go into the Hansard record. Mr Steve Lewis of Flinders probably expresses in this message to the Speaker the views of people outside the parliament. He wrote:

Being a train driver, I have neither the stature nor the eloquence of speech that the honourable members have. Having been a volunteer with the SES and Fire Brigade for 20 years I realize the problems being encountered by both victims and rescuers. My emotions well up and feelings go out to those involved.

Today I watched Parliament and was taken aback by the speeches. Never before have I been so proud to be an Australian. Here were my representatives putting into words what I could not and to a nation that I could not. It goes to show what a great country we are. Aussies don’t all fly the flag, have an Aussie flag tattoo or know all the verses of The National Anthem. But like all families, when ones in trouble, we all come to the rescue.

To put it simply: You blokes made me very proud today.

Mr Jenkins, please thank The Honourable Members for myself and other ordinary Aussies.

So, thank you very much, Steve Lewis, for taking the time to convey in your own words the expressions of feeling that I am sure are shared across the nation.

The rebuilding of lives and communities is not going to be an easy task, nor is it one that can be completed within a short period of time, as the member for Canberra rightly pointed out. But I think these devastating events, as with those in our nation’s history that I referred to earlier, will bring out the same qualities of resilience, strength and stoicism, with Aussies one and all pitching in to do whatever they can in their own way to assist in dealing with this enormous tragedy.

In conclusion, on behalf of all the citizens of my electorate of Throsby I want to say that we are grieving with you, we feel for you and we empathise with you. We pay tribute and commemorate the lives that have been lost and feel for the victims. And we want to thank the firefighters and all the volunteers, without whose help it could have been so much, much worse.

Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Sustainable Development and Cities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend all my colleagues for their contributions, particularly the previous contribution, from Ms George. In my 12-plus years here I have not sensed a more poignant or purposeful atmosphere in this parliament. It has been quite an inspiration and there has been a sense of shared purpose throughout this building, which is actually a bigger town than some of those that have been lost in the fires. There are more people in this place than in some of those communities, and you can sense the atmosphere here and the sombre solemnness with which people are going about their work. But there is a sense of genuine and sincere effort to help those communities, many of which are still facing great dangers, and our thoughts are very much with them.

I was keen to convey the condolences and best wishes of the community of Dunkley. My electorate is known for its generosity and my constituents for their preparedness to roll up their sleeves. We were touched briefly by fire much earlier in the season, with grassfires on some of the major arterial roads in our community, and we unexpectedly lost houses from grassfires getting out of hand. I think it was an enormous shock for our community that so early in the season fires of such rage and vigour happened in our homes. They were very small in scale and ferocity compared with what we are talking about now, but they were profoundly disturbing. Those who lost their homes and showed great courage to preserve the homes of others have perhaps an insight into what many thousands more are experiencing right now. That was on a much smaller scale, but still incredibly life-changing for those directly involved.

What is happening now, though, elsewhere in my state, the great and courageous state of Victoria, is a ferocious fire that we cannot stop. It stopped the nation but we cannot stop the fire, and people are fearful about what may be ahead. What we do know is that the loss of life has been extraordinary already, and we are fearful that that will get much worse. Our condolences and our prayers go to those who have lost loved ones. Our sincere and ongoing thoughts are with those who, at this stage, are well but who have to cope with the unrelenting wait and anxiety of loved ones missing.

I know, from the time when I was responsible for some of our overseas responses to international disasters, that the term ‘grave concern’ takes on a special significance. There are dozens for whom we hold very grave concerns, and it is an exhausting time for those who are having to cope with that. They have a personal imperative to keep nurturing their own reservoirs of hope and optimism for their loved ones, but in the back of their minds they are realising and contemplating a more fateful outcome. I particularly want to mention them, having had some insight through other work into what that is like—not knowing. That uncertainty is agonising. No serenity can be found, because there are no answers for people.

I also record our support for the families and friends of those who have loved ones on the fire fronts. They are very alert to the dangers and they know that people very dear to them are in that space. For people from regions like ours on the Mornington Peninsula and for those in the hilly country around Melbourne and beyond, there is a general awareness of the dangers. We can only admire those who know that their loved ones are in harm’s way whilst they are trying to do good and showing enormous selflessness and resolve. I say to the families and friends of those who have loved ones making that extraordinary contribution: we are thinking of you as well. And we are thinking about those who are actively implementing their fire plans and having to make very difficult judgements about what to do and when to move.

My best wishes and encouragement and that of the community I represent also go to the officials and the agencies charged with this awesome task of planning and managing the response and to all those supporting that effort—the logisticians that are trying to make sure it all works so that those on the front line can give of their best. Everyone is trying to make sure their performance is optimised. We see the images on the television. What is less clear is the enormous work that goes on behind the scenes to make those extraordinary efforts possible. I greatly admire the support service providers who are collaborating on the ground—the police officers and the ambulance officers, who have a really tough and demanding job in ordinary circumstances and who are carrying out such a difficult responsibility in the unspeakable and barely imaginable circumstances we face now. The local councils, essential service providers, companies, small businesses and community organisations that generally make our communities tick are executing their ordinarily routine responsibilities in these extraordinary times. They are persisting under great stress, and I admire their work.

I particularly want to mention our respect for the patience and diligence of the medical officers, particularly the burns specialists, who are caring for those who have been injured. Caring for a burns victim is an extraordinary responsibility. The honourable member for Bowman, who is at the table, would know, as a medical doctor, about the risks involved, the roller-coaster of recovery, the setbacks in the condition of health and the way the body can react to the toxicity of what was survived immediately but which sneaks up on the victims. That is extraordinarily hard. I also mention those with that gruesome and difficult but incredibly important task of disaster victim identification. Again I draw from my time as Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs after the tsunami and from the time I spent with our experts in Phuket and other places who were working to try to get an answer that was 100 per cent right, because mistakes can mean that people are revisiting nightmares. Care and diligence are what is needed. I hope people appreciate the patience that is required and the importance of getting that work right all the time in every case. It is crucial.

I also want to talk about the helpers and the healers—that network of people who come out and make sure things are okay. They make the tea; they listen to the experiences. They are the pastoral carers that work amongst those with more defined roles. They fill in the gaps that need to be filled and they lend an ear, a shoulder and a hug, and make sure that those who have a more defined role are supported. I have often said we can always do more to care for the carers. Carers are so giving, helpers are so keen to help and volunteers are so absolutely driven by the conviction to do all they can that there is a need for someone to make sure they are okay too so that they can keep doing that work.

I want to commend the generosity of Australians that are donating of their own free will. Again, down in my community, and particularly around Frankston, Mornington and Langwarrin, there is a very generous community. The greater Dunkley community has been very generous in this case, and that is terrific.

Words do not seem to quite capture my enduring admiration and respect for the firefighters. There are probably a million other things the volunteer firefighters could be doing but they are doing this. Their service is extraordinary. We have volunteer crews up there from the area that I represent. I will touch on that a bit more later, but to see the selflessness, the courage, the persistence and the overcoming of fatigue and physical weariness is just extraordinary. I salute each and every one of them and admire them greatly.

I mentioned their physical weariness; I would like to move on to the emotional health and wellbeing of all those involved. Those that have suffered and served will not immediately bounce back to their cheery selves when the fires are extinguished. These people are seeing things that we are not really supposed to see and feeling emotions that we hope people never feel. That could bring a post-traumatic response that could affect their wellness for a long time. Long after those hills around Melbourne start seeing green shoots of fresh life and a rebirth of communities, they will still be recalling what they have endured. Particularly for firefighters, those that have survived the inferno, it is an apocalyptic environment. We need to appreciate the mental impact and the emotional burden of what people are enduring now and will continue to endure for some time.

I hope that those planning the response take account of the emotional wellbeing of the communities involved. I commend the government for recognising the importance of that part of this endeavour, with Centrelink social workers and the like being part of the government’s response. I commend the government for responding generously, wholeheartedly and with all that it has to offer. There is capability right across the Commonwealth and the agencies that we interact with, and I am pleased to see that that is being brought to this extraordinary task. I congratulate the Prime Minister for his presence in the area, for the time he was able to attend; the opposition leader and the government ministers that are there doing all they are able to; and the local members who are doing all that they possibly can and wishing they could do more. I know Fran will work herself into the ground. Our thoughts are with her and we hope there is some respite for her so that she can continue her good work. She is a good woman and she will be there giving all of herself for her community.

I would also like to acknowledge, recognise, congratulate and give encouragement to our other parliamentary colleagues who are there providing whatever contribution they can. I have mentioned the member for McEwen. I want to note that the speech from the member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, yesterday in this parliament was vivid, captivating and incredibly insightful. To the members for Gippsland, Mallee, Casey, Indi, Ballarat and Bendigo, as well as others: our thoughts are with you, and we respect and admire what you are doing.

In the local area I was able to speak to the Country Fire Authority and brigade duty officers in the electorate of Dunkley. Frankston has an interesting firefighting presence. It is both CFA and Metropolitan Fire Brigade; it is both professional and volunteer. We ask a lot of the Frankston fire service and they do a terrific job. The organisational work that has been going on to make resources available is quite extraordinary. I want to acknowledge that the MFB has supplemented the CFA capability in our community that is geared to rural firefighting so that that rural bushfire capability best suited to this task could be made available to make a contribution. The MFB then brought some of their capability down to Frankston so that our community was not left unsupported and unserviced by a fire response capability. The teams are big and the activity is characterised at the moment as a big stretch. It is testing everybody and there is an enormous amount of work going on. The Frankston brigade has sent volunteer members and strike teams to Gippsland. It has been part of a region 13 regional response. It has been covering fires in Cranbourne, which is not normally part of its reach. It has been doing a remarkable job and I want to salute all of the people involved.

I also want to congratulate and give credit to Frankston City Council. This tragedy has its epicentre of activity and the action to deal with it creates a ripple effect all the way through. I have mentioned how making available the rural fire capability out of our outer metropolitan fire service then saw the Metropolitan Fire Brigade come in to supplement it. Also, Frankston City Council has made available some of their parks vehicles and ranger vehicles to supplement the resources that are available. That kind of collaboration is to be commended, and I congratulate Frankston City Council for recognising it had the tools, equipment and capability that could make a contribution to this cause.

Langwarrin has been extremely busy as well, making tankers, strike crews and relief crews available, and Kylie at Langwarrin was particularly keen for me to mention the ladies who have been walking in off the street. The good folk of Langwarrin recognise that the men and women of the fire brigade are very stretched, so people are randomly walking in off the street to help out and to make sure there is a bit of sustenance for those that are doing the work. I think that is just terrific. Taking Mornington, we have got tanker and bushfire response crews out at Kinglake. Mornington’s involvement is five trucks, five members and a lead vehicle with a crew operating in the bushfire zones. At five o’clock every morning a bus leaves Moorooduc, carrying crews to go and provide relief for the strike teams up there, and then it gets back at 10 o’clock at night. That is happening every day. It is an extraordinary effort.

I also want to mention our local Frankston State Emergency Service members. They have been very busy. Their crews are in the Upper Yarra. In fact, the SES community has certainly made its contribution. In Marysville eight of the SES volunteers out there, working as part of the effort, have lost their homes. In other areas, other volunteers who have lost their homes are still putting in an enormous effort.

Last Saturday was extraordinary in Melbourne. For those people who are not familiar with the climatic conditions, I note Frankston SES were very busy last Saturday but it was not because of the fires. They were very busy attending to storm damage. The extraordinarily strong winds were so powerful that our SES crews were out fixing roofs that had been blown off or damaged. That gives you just a little picture of what it must have been like in the fire areas where the microclimates that fires create were being fanned by these winds so severe and so damaging that we had SES crews dealing with storm damage. That gives you a sense of the conditions up there.

The emergency response effort continues, and the rescue and recovery work is ongoing; it is chilling in some respects and extraordinarily rewarding in others. We salute everyone involved with that. The rehabilitation work is beginning in some cases. The building is one thing, but rehabilitating the lives and the wellbeing of the people involved and the community fabric is another challenge entirely. I am pleased that, in my own electorate, Joe Dimech and his team from Kitome have said, ‘We just want to help.’ There is scope for his business to work with building suppliers to very quickly make housing available, if that is helpful. They can ramp up production and put specific living pods in place that are very basic but give people a chance to get on with their lives in their own homes and their own communities. These could then be incorporated into the more permanent structures that will need to be rebuilt. I will pass Joe’s offer and ideas on to the team the Prime Minister has working on this. I think it is a very useful contribution of something that is needed urgently here and now, but it is also something that can play a role in the longer term re-establishment and reconstruction of communities.

It is also a time to think about what we might learn from these events. I will not mention the full name of this person, but just minutes ago an email came to me and, I think, a number of other members. Amanda has written to me reflecting on her sister-in-law’s experience at one of the sites of the fires. In fairness, I will not mention which one specifically, but she is conveying a deeply-held concern amongst residents who were apparently told that there would be some restrictions on rebuilding activities—that there would be some broad acreage threshold that would need to be met if people were to rebuild their homes. She connects that disturbing advice with some people choosing to stay to protect their home, fearful that they might not be able to rebuild.

I do not know and I have not been able to verify the accuracy of these reported comments, but it reflects a concern amongst the community about what may happen next. For me, it emphasises the need for clear, accurate and reliable communications at this time of rebuilding and reconstruction. I remember travelling to Banda Aceh shortly after the tsunami. The tectonic plates had dropped around the Ulee Lheu port, and king tides saw all the water come back in. Families just wanted to get on with their lives, and these difficult decisions about reconstruction templates were very hot topics there. People were already highly emotional, for reasons you could understand. The need for clarity, thoughtfulness and calibrated language is never more important than it is now. I will pass that on to the Commonwealth authorities to alert them to some of the anxieties that are there.

In closing, I just want to touch on something that my colleague the member for Mayo touched on. This relates to what we may learn from this tragedy. I understand and recognise the advice that is given to property owners about having their fire plans, being certain about their intentions and being able to implement those plans should circumstances arise. What I have seen and what I have been told is that it is hard to calibrate the scale of the danger that people are facing and what that might mean for those fire plans. The heat—the 600 degrees Celsius heat—that melts alloys on motor vehicles and the like and that sees trees instantaneously combust and houses turn to embers, rubble and ash so quickly is something that is hard to contemplate. I do not know how I would contemplate that. I wonder how people in a serene moment with all of their faculties fully operating and no external stressors, would, even in that perfect environment, contemplate it. But how must people contemplate that and make those split-second decisions while facing the fierceness of this ferocious beast on their doorstep, which is moving at speeds of a runaway train that you cannot stop? I wonder whether being prepared is one thing, but knowing what you are being prepared for may need to be a part of that education.

I have a friend who, thank goodness, has left his property, which is north of Yea. He was there. He was prepared. He is an extremely capable individual but he was there on his own. His family were terrified for him every day and could not ring him because the communication systems were not working. As the member for Throsby mentioned, you could send texts but not communicate by voice. Trees were blocking roads, so he could not move freely. Of the local fire appliances in his community, one had already been destroyed in the fire and the other one was damaged, so there were not many supplementary resources around. The only way he was able to understand what was happening with the weather conditions was by my texting them to him, and he was having to make judgements about what to do.

He characterised it to me as not being a regular grassfire, which he had planned for and could understand. This was a wildfire; it was in the air. Thankfully, he revisited his ability to deal with that. He reflected on his actions to move his beloved stock—’the girls’, he calls them; they are Lowline Angus beef cows—and how they were very, very frightened and not behaving well. He thought, ‘Gee, they could knock me off my feet; something could happen, because of the extreme environment and the animals behaving accordingly.’ He thought: ‘What can I do? I can’t ring anybody. I can’t get anybody to come and help.’ He said they were important moments, as he had spent day after day on his property with a heightened sense of awareness about ember strikes and the like, hearing snippets about what was going on, wondering who would be there to help and thinking about a conventional fire. And then it dawned on him: there was nothing conventional about this fire. It was bigger and angrier than anything he could have imagined. His desperate need to know what was going on and what to do was hampered by communications impediments in the area. The information could not get delivered any way other than via a text message.

The empathy for those who faced those decisions must be real and ongoing. We need to go beyond the talk of ‘be prepared to fight’ or ‘leave early’ and actually talk about the kinds of fires that people can reasonably contend with. The front-page story in the Australian by Gary Hughes was extraordinary. Recognising the limits of individual capacity in the face of something as extraordinary as this is something we need to address. When people talk about being prepared we should not just say, ‘I’m prepared,’ but ask: ‘What, actually, am I prepared for?’ When do the limits of what an individual or a property owner can do strike? When is there an opportunity to revisit?

With those few remarks I most sincerely wish everybody well. The weekend coming up is not going to be good. The climatic conditions are going to present new challenges, and the best we have to offer have been giving their very best now for over a week. They will be tired and fatigued but they will give their best again. I hope we do not see a further escalation in the scale of this tragedy and in the enormous loss of life we have already seen. Our prayers are with everyone who is out there trying to deal with this extraordinary tragedy.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to add my condolences to those already offered in this place and to say that the thoughts and best wishes of the people of Fremantle, and indeed the people of Western Australia, are with those who have suffered and continue to suffer the effects of the Victorian bushfires. I commend the Deputy Prime Minister and all the speakers to this motion for their words from the heart in this place in the last two days, as particularly exemplified by the members for Bendigo, McMillan and Mallee. These speeches have been marked by grief, compassion, a love of the people and the land of Victoria and a sense of being in this together. I hope the spirit of bipartisanship in this place can continue beyond the immediate tragedy of the bushfires.

The toll of human loss and injury in the Victorian bushfires is appalling. Some of the stories are awful and some are awe inspiring. To see roads littered with the stripped hulks of cars that could not escape, to hear recorded on television what must have been only a fraction of the firestorm’s infernal roar and to see Marysville rendered into a flattened, ashen moonscape, the likes of which we associate with war: these are details of the disaster that will stay long in the memory. Each day the numbers and the pictures reveal more of the damage and we hear more stories that are hard to absorb for their freight of pain and suffering. But we also see the magnificent courage of those caught up in the bushfires, the bravery of those still battling to contain the fires and the incredible compassion and support that has flowed in response from all over Australia and from across the world.

In his speech to the motion yesterday, the Prime Minister listed the many world leaders, including President Obama and the United Nations Secretary-General, who had contacted him over the past few days with messages of condolence and offers of help. The human story of tragedy and loss is one that all people, wherever they are, can relate to. As we speak, there are people similarly suffering through no fault of their own—from war, natural disasters and extreme poverty—all over the world. They share our pain and we share their pain.

There are some other aspects of this disaster that I wish to acknowledge. The fact is that fire is devastating to all forms of life. Animal suffering and loss of animal life have occurred on a large scale, and the full extent of it will never be known. Wildlife Victoria, Help for Wildlife, the Victorian Farmers Federation and the Department of Primary Industries are receiving reports of significant horse, cattle and sheep deaths as a result of the disaster. The department has mobilised teams to assess the impact on livestock of the fires and it will be working with the Victorian Farmers Federation to arrange emergency fodder. The loss of native fauna throughout the more than 330,000 scorched hectares can only be estimated, but it will have been immense. I know that RSPCA Victoria is also working with authorities to provide emergency care to wildlife, pets and livestock and is offering temporary animal accommodation in its shelters across the state.

In the circumstances that have confronted Victorians over the last week, many have lost beloved pets. In many cases, they were forced to leave them behind. The inability to save pets and livestock will have been one of the very sad, gut-wrenching aspects of the bushfire trauma. On Monday night I saw an interview on the ABC with Mr Stephen Collins, the assistant manager of two resorts in Marysville that no longer exist. Mr Collins had escaped the firestorm, taking with him half an esky of belongings, including socks, a camera and a tub of burn cream. At the end of the interview, he said how much he wanted to get back to Marysville to look for his cat, Stardust. We have also seen the tragic story of two sisters in Kinglake—Penny and Melanie Chambers—who died trying to save their horses.

Another more positive aspect of this crisis is the quiet, caring and efficient work of the volunteers and essential service and health workers who have assisted the affected communities in innumerable ways. As other speakers have done before me, I would also like to mention the contribution of ABC Radio to this emergency. As the disaster unfolded, ABC Radio was often the only source of information and support available to terrified people.

Also deserving of praise is the fast and decisive action of the Victorian and federal governments in mobilising relief efforts. During Hurricane Katrina, the people of New Orleans discovered to their detriment how ill-prepared, disorganised and incompetent governments can make a terrible situation worse. Thankfully that has not been the experience in Australia. It is to be hoped that the royal commission announced by the Victorian Premier will shed some light on the difficult issues surrounding the causes of this tragedy and the effectiveness of responses to it. But, whatever the specific findings with respect to the Black Saturday bushfires, this review will be of enormous assistance in guiding future preparations for and responses to extreme weather events, such as fire, flood and cyclones, which, sadly, are likely to become more frequent occurrences due to accelerating global warming. The Victorian bushfires constitute the most destructive natural event that Australia has confronted. As in so many cases in our history, the worst is bringing out our best.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because of its importance, I wish to read part of my speech today. I wish to first express my deepest sympathy for and commiseration with all persons affected in so many ways by the disastrous Victorian wildfires. I wish also to endorse the contribution of other members to this debate. I thank the Australian people for their generous and compassionate response to this tragedy. I thank all those who have fought fires and provided all those other personal services in professional and volunteer capacities.

With matters like this, where such loss of life and property occurs, it is a responsibility of this parliament to immediately commence the process of ensuring that it will never happen again. The forest in Victoria is still burning, and without changed policy this tragic event could recur in another state’s forest next week—tomorrow, if you like. Such a response from authority is not uncommon in other areas during a period of grieving. There is no more frequently recurring disaster event within Australia than wildfire, yet the political establishment, with one state exception, has failed dismally over the decades to address the problem. By the extent of these fires, the tragedy level is increasing in both magnitude and frequency. I consider, therefore, that I can best serve all Australians today by pleading through this speech for the wider political establishment to act now with the practical responses that have been recommended by properly qualified and experienced persons to the probably 10 or more official inquiries conducted over the decades into past wildfire events.

On 27 November 2003, I tabled one of the latest of those reports, entitled A nation charred: report on the inquiry into bushfires, produced by a bipartisan parliamentary select committee, and in doing so I made a speech, the content of which has equal meaning today. This report followed the wildfire event that destroyed approximately 400 houses in Canberra and took four lives. I referred to this conflagration as the first nuclear wildfire event. That is a line in the sand for forestry wildfire. For the first time ever, houses were not burnt down; they were blown away. The evidence given to the coronial inquiry—one of the many other inquiries and reports that have been available to this parliament—referred to it as the equivalent of one of the nuclear devices that were dropped on Japan during the Second World War. What this means is of grave interest and concern to me.

There is an article appearing in today’s Australian that points out that 80 per cent of the fires since Australia Day occurred in national parks and state forests, which are the direct responsibility of the political establishment. Some then go on to say, ‘Yes, but there weren’t many trees where the houses blew up,’ thereby trying to create some argument that I wish to refer to further: that fuel load was not necessarily the problem in the destruction of these homes. A nuclear device at the point of impact occupies less than a square metre yet can flatten a city. So, when in the burning of forest waste and trees full of eucalyptus oil you create that explosive device its effect can be felt many kilometres away from the actual point where it went ‘whoof’.

And what does that mean for suburban residents? What does it mean for the people who have chosen, as they have every right to do, in my mind, to get closer to a forest or tree environment—a tree change? The Australian newspaper yesterday carried a report from David Packham, who, to use his words, has been ‘50 years in the business of forest management and fire prevention’. I want to read a couple of things he said. He said:

The science is simple. A fire disaster of this nature requires a combination of hot, dry, windy weather in drought conditions.

And, as somebody in this place has said, of course that is aggravated by climate change. That is a possibility, and I do not want to argue it. He goes on to say:

It also requires a source of ignition. In the past, this purpose has been served by lightning.

I had a phone call from a person telling me lightning does not start bushfires, which shows how diverse and foolish this debate is in some parts.

In this disaster, lightning has not played a big part, and for this Victorians should be grateful. But other sources of ignition are ever-present. When the temperature and wind increase to extreme levels, small events—perhaps the scrape of metal across a rock, a transformer overheating or sparks from a diesel engine—

and, let me add, the deliberate efforts of an arsonist or some foolish person disposing of a cigarette butt. But let me say of that, which some use as a diversion to focus people’s thoughts on that single event, that the day we catch the last arsonist will be the day before we catch the last drug dealer. If we think we can fix this problem by the pursuit of despicable people alone, there will be many more deaths and much more property destruction. We must look at the broader attack. Mr Packham goes on to say that those small events:

… are capable of starting a fire that can in minutes become unstoppable if the fuel is present.

I make the comment, ‘No fuel, no fire.’ He goes on:

The third and only controllable factor in this deadly triangle is fuel: the dead leaves, pieces of bark and grass that become the gas that feeds the 50m high flames that roar through the bush with the sound of jet engines.

Fuels build up year after year at an approximate rate—

this is in the forest—

of one tonne a hectare a year …

And please remember that the forest fires have already reportedly destroyed over 300,000 hectares of forest. You can multiply that area by whatever level of debris was there, and that of course equals the fuel output that can be created by a nuclear device.

If the fuels exceed about eight tonnes a hectare, disastrous fires can and will occur. Every objective analysis of the dynamics of fuel and fire concludes that unless the fuels are maintained at near the levels that our indigenous stewards of the land achieved, then we will have unhealthy and unsafe forests that from time to time will generate disasters such as the one that erupted on Saturday.

When the A nation charred report was tabled in 2003, I made a speech which included these words:

Prevention is a better solution than burying four or six people around Australia—

and how miniscule that is, seven years later—

and wiping out 400 houses in Canberra alone. Let us look to history to find out how this might be done.

I then said:

Deputy Speaker Adams might be interested in what Abel Janz Tasman wrote in his logbook in 1642 when he was at the north end of Storm Bay, Tasmania. He talked about massive trees and went on to say:

… the country was covered with trees; but so thinly scattered, that one might see everywhere to a great distance amongst them … Several of the trees were much burnt at the foot …

In my speech I went on:

That was the forest that people say we are supposed to protect. But it is not the forest today … In Western Australia in January it gets a bit hot; it is not exactly the time you would light fires. But William de Vlamingh, commander of the Dutch ship Nijptang during January in 1697 at the Swan River recorded:No men were seen but they observed many smokes …

That was in the electorate of Fremantle as we know it today. I went on:

The Aboriginals were burning in January with safety. Why? Because they burnt all the time, as recorded by Governor Phillip, when he wrote in 1788:

… and they—

the Aborigines—

are seldom seen without fire, or a piece of wood on fire, which they carry with them from place to place, and in their canoes.

…                     …                   …

The natives always make their fire, if not before their own huts, at the root of a gumtree, which burns very freely and they never put a fire out when they leave the place.

Why could they walk away and not get fried? They could do that because they managed the forest environment for fuel.

In the same speech I used another quote about the circumstances in America. This was from an article that was published in an American ABC publication. It said:

With wildfires raging out of control in 13 Western states, Rex Wahl has seen enough. Like a peace-loving homesteader who finally reaches for his six-shooter, the influential environmentalist has unholstered his chain saw. Wahl is ready to cut down trees to save the forest.

I said:

There is an environmentalist looking out for the environment. I could go on to explain that he saw massive destruction of 200 homes in a fire near his place. The article is interesting because it talks about history. It went on:

A century ago … healthy conifer forests sprouted 25 to 70 mature trees per acre. Lush meadows filled the gaps.

That is like the Tasmania of 1642. The article went on:

Today’s forests stand in cadaverous contrast. After a century of fire suppression, as many as 850 spindly trees per acre clog the same forests. More than half stand dead, starved for sunlight and strangled by insects that bore into them.

So the practice now followed in Australia is not good for trees. But we all might remember that there were massive fires in America, and Australian firefighters went there to see if they could assist. And when they returned it so happened that I was Minister for Forestry and Conservation, and I called a council of state forestry ministers. The New South Wales minister, who I think now graces this parliament, was the only absent minister, although officials from his department were present. I got them a briefing from this highly qualified firefighter, and I mentioned it in this speech. He explained how in these nuclear style fires the ground is sterilised one metre down. The seeds are burnt out. There is nothing to regenerate, and as we will discover very soon, when it starts raining in Victoria, in that region the soil is so destabilised that it will rush down and fill the creeks and some of the reservoirs. It will have a very devastating effect on Melbourne’s water supply.

When the firefighter left, I said to the ministers present: ‘What are we going to do about this? Are we going to get ahead of the game?’ To that, they replied, ‘We’d better put out a press release.’ I said, ‘And what are you going to put in the press release?’ ‘Well, we’ll have to buy more firefighting appliances and better uniforms’—to confront a nuclear event that could burn the seeds out of the ground for a metre. I said, ‘I thought we might like to focus on prevention,’ thinking of that great old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’. There was deathly silence around the table, and they said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to look at forest management, I think.’ They said, ‘Do you mean cutting down trees?’ I said, ‘Yes, that may have to happen to reduce the fuel load, to give access to the forest so we can put fires out before they become holocausts.’ One fellow said, ‘If it means cutting down one tree, we won’t do it.’ I hope that same person, if still living, is prepared to go up into the forest country of Victoria to explain to those people why they have lost their loved ones, because that is the outcome.

I eventually went on the Laurie Oakes show trying to get this message across at the time. I was attacked by the Australian Conservation Foundation, at a time when their president was a person who now occupies this parliament. They said I did not know what I was talking about. To quote them: ‘Australian native trees are naturally fire retardant.’ To that I replied, ‘Does that mean that in the future we can sprinkle woodchips on a fire to put it out?’

That is the standard and the status of the political debate in Australia. I plead with those here at the moment and those who might read this speech: we really have to think again. No fuel, no fire. Western Australia, as the member for Fremantle would know, had a dramatic event of this nature in 1961. In fact, numerous towns were obliterated, and it was all deja vu for me to see those images last night of stone and brick chimneys, the remaining monuments to a township. Those photographs can be found in the archives of the West Australian, going back then.

The nature of government in those days in Western Australia was different. I do not know which political party was in power, but it implemented a system known as prescribed burning, which was designed to reduce or in fact burn 20 per cent of the forest every year. David Packham in his article pointed out that after eight years you are in serious trouble, so a 20 per cent requirement is probably about right. That was practised right through the Second World War in difficult times. Then a campaign started amongst green activists that this was bad policy. There had been no wildfires in Western Australia since then and up until this moment—practically nothing of moment, and certainly not deaths and massive property loss. They have campaigned and campaigned, and now, as an article in the West Australian admits today, that rate is down to eight per cent if you are lucky. A responsible, caring, experienced officer spoke to me some years ago, when that campaign started—okay, the governments past and present in that state did not give in entirely, but what they did in concession to that campaign was to start to put in a mass of bureaucratic interventions based on Perth bureaucracy. This caring forest protector said: ‘You get up in the morning, bright and early, and it’s the perfect day for a safe, cool burn to better make the forest environment safe. But then you’ve got to wait for nine o’clock for the office in Perth to open and see if they’ll let you do it, and by the time you jump all the hurdles it’s getting closer to midday and the opportunity is lost.’

If you want further evidence of that sort of situation, you go to the reports of the state Forest Department of New South Wales and the national parks and wildlife group, whatever they are—the environment department. You will find that the forest people were maintaining 15 per cent in area of hazard reduction, whilst in the same period parks and wildlife, that had been progressively taking all the parks and reserves from the forestry department, had got down to 0.5 per cent and were proud of it. As this report will tell you, roads that were constructed to put the fire out during the conflagration up here, that wiped out Australia’s oldest observatory and blew up 400 homes, were immediately ripped up by these same people as soon as the fire went out.

There are two things that must be done to make the forest a safe environment, and if I were talking about occupational health and safety the responsibility of the owner or manager is paramount. The first is to commit to a comprehensive fuel reduction program throughout the forest industry of Australia. The second is to properly enhance the response. As has been reported, a water tanker and some very courageous and dedicated people is no response even at the urban interface to this nuclear fire. They cannot do it and that response is too late. There is nothing you can do there in this context. In others, it is, and if you lower those fuel levels the tanker becomes more effective again.

In the days when Australians thought they should harvest their own forests rather than exploit those of Indonesia, the equipment and the expertise existed within the forest products industry. Then the Australian people supported political parties that said, ‘We want no more of that. We will go on using sawn timber and paper as long as it is made somewhere else.’ Okay, I will not object to that, but in those days there was a very comprehensive observation procedure. And why was that? Because they do not want their trees burnt down. They have an economic value for forest industry people.

Secondly, their road network was typically and deliberately destroyed. That road network provided immediate access to the fire and, hopefully, an environment where the debris was not that thick, and heavy equipment—D9s and D10s, bulldozers and big excavators—was rushed out there and was often able to push the fire in on itself so it did not become a nuclear device that was going to race towards urban communities at 100 kilometres an hour, even when there were no trees left to carry it.

State governments should not continue to make political mileage out of this situation. The Premier for Victoria announced some more national parks just recently, no doubt in some trade with the Greens over preferences, yet the ones he has been responsible for produced 80 per cent of these wildfires.

The situation was described to me by one of the lawyers assisting the coronial inquiry. He said, ‘Mr Tuckey, did you know that in this region we have no large bulldozers and we have nobody who understands moving them in a forest?’ I said: ‘Well, if you have no industry, do you think those people are going to wait around for a bushfire? They’ve all gone to the mining company or somewhere where their expertise is welcome.’ In that situation, government, following their policy, have only one choice: to re-implement appropriate hazard reduction and to put within, or immediately adjoining, these forests an adequate road system and equipment. They park a few crop dusters at the airport as a response. That does some good, but not much. They should have 200 or 300 people employed for each major forestry reserve and a large amount of equipment on call 12 months of the year. When they have spent that money, they may have to tell the community that they are a bit short on for schools and hospitals, but that would be a political choice that I would not criticise. But they cannot go on getting the warm and fuzzy feeling of creating these reserves when they are turning them into deathtraps. That is the situation as it exists today, and I owe it to the people who are suffering this day to say something about it.

Having used this time as I have, I should now cease. But I hope that the member for Fremantle, after hearing these words, sees that her idea that we were better prepared than the people of New Orleans is hardly justified by the disaster we have just experienced. We have had reports throughout the last century, and we are going to get another one. Let me tell you what is more than likely going to happen unless we do something about it. We are having our valedictories, and so we should. As the death toll and the people involved are better known, someone might, properly, propose a memorial in the Great Hall. I would have no criticism of that. Then we will have an inquiry of sorts somewhere.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A royal commission.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A royal commission. That might be helpful because when this report was conducted by this parliament, not by the Howard government—in fact, John Howard did not want it—it said a lot of things which were good advice, but the governments of two states, New South Wales and Victoria, forbade their public servants from coming and providing the expert evidence that might have helped. They said it was because they were too busy, but they all turned up in the gallery with notebooks and took notes of the names of poor individuals who had the courage to attend independently and advise the parliament on how we might fix the problem. At least a royal commission could give protection to those witnesses, and I hope it does. But it will be meaningless. There have been royal commissions before. They are all there, all stacked up somewhere; this book just happens to be one of the last, and we have done nothing about it. To the contrary, we discover today in the media that one local government authority was forcing people to plant trees around their houses as a condition of building them. Someone can say, ‘It’s Tuckey playing politics again.’ I have not mentioned a name, and I certainly do not lay the blame on this government or the Labor Party. As far as I am concerned—I published an apology yesterday—I am equally complicit, because I gave up after this report got chucked in the wastepaper bin by our government. I should not have. I think some of those people would still have died. There would have been a very nasty fire, but it would not have been a nuclear event, and I think the expert opinion I have quoted supports me in that.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity I have just had. I hope we, the members of this parliament, can move on appropriately from the grief we are now recognising so properly and come up with practical and simple solutions. Maybe—and I did suggest this once—because of the federal nature of this problem we should have an inspectorate of safety for the forest. And maybe we should not give states natural disaster funding, which is a form of insurance, if they deliberately create an unsafe environment, because that is what it is. If it were an OH&S jurisdiction, there is no doubt what people would be saying in this place today.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not religious but the Bible has a passage that I think is apposite to our circumstance, which is that ‘to everything there is a season’. I think this is the season for us coming together as a community and sharing our respect for those who have acted in this crisis to protect the life, limb and property of those who are under threat, to grieve with those who have lost and to come together as a community as best we can to work through how we can, with good sense, move forward into the future.

I might say some words from my own perspective because I know that the wounds that will have been opened up will not close quickly. The member for O’Connor mentioned the 1961 event in Western Australia. I am, for my sins, old enough to remember the 1967 fires in my state of Tasmania. It was the first year I went to high school, Claremont High School, which had only three years of students as it had just opened. The school was closed at about noon because the skies had become blood red and it was plain that the whole of the city of Hobart was burning. We were not sure how the young kids from the primary school would get home, so many of the high school kids went down and walked the primary school kids home, some to homes that no longer existed by that time.

One of my friends from high school lost their father in that fire and I know that others, including a parliamentary colleague of mine in the lower house, lost their homes and all the photographs and possessions that go with family memory. In my own circumstance we were very fortunate. The fires reached down to the back fence and my grandfather put them out with a hose. The white fence down the back was scarred by those fires, and we were an awful long way from the nearest tall trees—at least 800 metres, perhaps more.

The fires raging down the valleys and the mountains above the city of Hobart created the firestorms, the rolling fireballs and the vacuums that we hear of. The member for O’Connor says it is a new thing that houses explode, but if you go back to the testimonies of those who experienced and lived through the 1967 fires you read that people saw houses literally explode in front of their eyes in those circumstances. Sixty-two people died there, and it affected many thousands of families. Many, many more people lost their homes, their property and their pets. Entire small towns were essentially wiped off the map, but the fires had their effect right across the whole of the community.

I suppose that explains the generosity of the Tasmanian community in responding to these events. It has become known that federal members are collecting clothing and footwear to be made available to those in Victoria who have lost their clothing and footwear as a result of these fires. I have seen some pictures on the Facebook pages that members operate, mine included, which show that our offices are being filled with generous donations of everything from blankets to clothes and footwear, reflecting the fact that everywhere across Australia the fires are being seen as an event that we have to respond to personally. I have had many messages from people indicating that they wish to give blood. I hope that intent continues not just during this week but into the weeks that come because the burn victims will continue to require transfusions for weeks, if not months and perhaps years, to come. I hope the first instinct that leads people to make these decisions continues over time so that instinctive generosity is followed through in a way which enables those who have suffered so horribly to have the supplies of blood products they will need.

Like everybody else, I want to share my sense of a sheer lack of understanding as to how people have the resilience and the courage to continue to exist through these experiences and to work and survive and go on when they have lost their children or their possessions or they have seen their friends and families lose theirs and yet they are out there still working and still contesting against these terrible events of nature.

I am hesitant about going into the next stage of discussion, which is about the royal commission and the like and to look at steps we would wish to take, as I think it is more appropriate for it to be left to a period afterwards. I really do hesitate. I have no doubt that the member for O’Connor has come to this debate with great passion. He has argued his case before and he is entitled to take the view that this is the time for him to advance a case as to how we should proceed into the future. But I really do not think it helps us as parliamentarians or the community to have intruding into this phase of our debate, when events and emotions are so raw, a context of blame whereby someone says something to the effect that those who stood in the way of the policy proposals that the member for O’Connor has advanced have blood on their hands and are effectively responsible for these events. There are significant issues that we will have to look at by way of how to respond to these events. There is no perfection in our parliament. There is no perfection in our states. We can always improve our learning. It may be that, through this process and the royal commission, we will develop new methodologies and approaches—and I am quite open to those possibilities—but I do think that we need to be wary of a debate where we seek to find within our society those to blame and victimise as if these great events are their responsibility.

We cannot completely engineer ourselves against grief and destruction in this country. Dorothea Mackellar, in her poem about Australia which we know from childhood, talks about the ‘beauty’ and the ‘terror’ of this great brown land of ours and speaks of fires, speaks of floods and speaks of all the natural catastrophes. We cannot engineer our way out of the crises that the people in Queensland are facing through flood. We cannot make certain that no-one will face that most horrible of events, facing a fire not prepared properly for it, because you cannot prepare properly for some of the great events of the kind that we have seen—the Tasmanian fires in 1967 or this terrible set of fires. There is no circumstance that some of those people could have been in that would have immunised them from the harms that befell them, their pets, their animals and their property.

If I can go back to the starting point, when I said that there is a season for all things, this is a season for us to recognise what so many outside of this parliament have seen in us. It was exemplified in the email that the Speaker sent around. They saw in the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and so many of the people who spoke on both sides of the House—they were marvellous speeches which actually showed us as humans—the capacity for compassion and understanding of each other in that rarest of circumstances, where we do not seek to attribute blame but simply to understand the grief and loss that each of us is facing as fellow members of a common community.

We can pass on to those other debates at a future time. In my view, that is the time and the season for that. I think that we have set up appropriate mechanisms to make certain that sensible debate can occur in that framework and that we can learn any lessons that we need to learn. But I do not think it is appropriate for me to engage with the member for O’Connor on behalf of those to whom he has attributed blame and to respond to his remarks. I do not think it would help this parliament and the regard and stature in which it is held by the community if suddenly, instead of the manner in which we have been debating these events, we start arguing amongst ourselves about those circumstances, and so I decline to do so. I decline to do so deliberately, but I also recognise that the member for O’Connor—and I think I should recognise this—no doubt believes that equally it is a time and a place to do what he has done. I think that, whatever else the member for O’Connor is, he comes to this debate with sincerity and passion. I just think that his judgment and timing is inappropriate and unhelpful; and therefore I do not want to engage in a debate which would then lead others to participate and distract us from what I think is our primary responsibility.

This morning in the Age there was a very interesting article by Andrew Macleod about how we can further move towards rebuilding. I would commend that article to our policymakers for examination. Andrew Macleod is a man who has played a large role in the United Nations and in international restoration efforts at many incidents, such as the earthquakes in Pakistan, and he currently has a leadership role in disaster relief and reconstruction in the Philippines. He occupies what is probably one of the highest roles in the international community now held by any Australian—the member for Fremantle, Ms Parke, having left her role with the United Nations. That article is worth looking at. It is worth us reflecting on what we have by way of common ideals within this debate. I appreciate that those who may listen to or read about this debate may see it as if it has, as a result of earlier contributions today, slightly moved from the rails that it was on. I hope that we all understand that there is no single way that some 150 parliamentarians will see the world but, in this instance, I think that about 148 of them see it in the same way and there are one or two who do not. I will be content to stand with the many on this issue and say that the many come together in great respect for those who are still facing the threat that the bushfires in Victoria represent. Fires are still burning as we speak, and we come together to acknowledge and to grieve for those who have suffered loss. I thank the House for its indulgence to permit these remarks. I know that every Tasmanian shares common sentiments, because Tasmania of all places experienced similar events in the living memory of those over the age of 45. For many of their children and grandchildren, those events are still vivid by way of others’ recollections.

Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.