Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Industry and Support) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take this opportunity this evening to raise the Tathra bushfires which caused such devastation to a beautiful community, a wonderful tight-knit community on our southern coast. Living in a beautiful area comes with risks. However, we are so lucky that we didn't lose any lives in that fire and that was really down to the members of that community. They took responsibility for getting out there and making sure that everyone that they could reach was warned, gathered together and evacuated from that area. It was so fortunate that we did not lose any lives, and I salute the community for its spirit and its effective action in preventing casualties.

I also want to thank the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Dutton, and Angus Taylor, who both responded to me on that day on the phone. Minister Taylor came down to Tathra, we talked with the state officials and got the declaration happening that Monday afternoon to make sure that we got support flowing quickly. I am also grateful for the visits from the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. We needed to send a message to the community that the country was with them, and their visits encouraged donations into the mayor's relief fund. I want to thank everybody, and the members here have been donating, but it is important to keep those donations rolling. The mayor's relief fund is open on the number 0264992345. I am also grateful for the cooperation I've had from Chris Taylor, the regional manager for Telstra. We will drill down more into the communications aspect of this disaster. The power was lost to the tower that did exist there and it was badly damaged. So thank you to the regional manager for Telstra, who quickly got in what they call the 'COWs', the cells on wheels, as the community was starting to return and get up and running again.

I have been in touch with Minister McKenzie's office in relation to the Blackspot Program, which was scheduled to provide a new mobile tower, which would have improved coverage in Tathra next year, but we would like to see that brought forward as the community really needs it right now. Also, because of the high dependency on the tourist industry, I would like to encourage people to keep their tourism plans because the essential infrastructure is there. The tourist accommodation is still there. It is the most beautiful beach on the Australian coastline with this wonderful community so please keep your tourism plans together; you will be welcomed with open arms.

Obviously, the RFS were magnificent, just so courageous. The community has asked me to highlight the incredible courage of the helicopter pilots, who were flying in the most horrendous conditions on that day with 100-kilometre-an-hour gusting winds, smoke, flames and difficult terrain. They were just magnificent. We lost, yes, 69 homes and 39 were badly damaged but we saved 380 homes and that vital community infrastructure: the school, the historic Tathra wharf, which my great-great-grandfather built—an essential tourist icon—and the pub, which has been refurbished, the cafe and many other places. The community can rebuild their lives thanks to the heroism of the RFS, the helicopter pilots and SES all getting in there.

I want to thank the Red Cross and Anglicare, which got into the evacuation centre and really looked after people immediately. Volunteers like Ian Campbell took it on themselves to run that evacuation centre. It was really a fantastic community effort as people responded with clothing, other goods and meals that really helped prop up a hurting community.

We now need to follow through on that, of course, and find out about some of the issues around this. The preliminary finding was that it was power lines that caused this fire. There is an issue about this that we need to resolve—to ask questions about the maintenance of these power lines. We know that it was an issue in the Blue Mountains fires in 2013 and again in the Victorian fires in 2009. There were significant class actions that arose from both those incidents, and that is certainly something that I will be exploring with our community—the class action relief that may be open to them. So we will be holding a review conference to cover that.

I'm meeting with the insurers as well to make sure that there is a rapid response to this crisis, and it seems we are getting that. So thank you to all who have reached out to my community. They are most grateful.