Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with colleagues in endorsing the words of this motion and expressing my condolences and sorrow to the families and friends of those who died, who were injured, who stared death in the face, who watched their homes and all their worldly possessions burn, who saw animals suffer and die, who have been left traumatised and shattered or whose lives have been changed in any way whatsoever by the fires that have swept across Australia since September or even prior to that in some parts. Your hurt, your suffering and your grief has touched the hearts of so many of your fellow Australians, and people from around the world have responded with so many offers of help and words of comfort.

In parts of the country the fires still burn. The situation would have been worse but for the extraordinary efforts of firefighters, ADF personnel, SES crews, medical teams, police officers, vets and animal rescue workers, council workers and so many others—the list goes on—who were on the front line of the response efforts right across the country. To them and to all those people who in any way contributed to relief efforts I say thank you. I spoke with so many of them in South Australia. I visited the emergency relief centre at Highbury, just outside of my electorate. They are all deserving of the nation's gratitude. I also say thank you to the South Australian media crews, particularly the ABC, through radio station 891, and 5AA, radio station 1395, for their continuous coverage and information about the South Australian bushfires.

Our priority for those areas where the fires have passed is now to help people and communities rebuild their lives and their futures. It will be an enormous task, and it will take time because the losses are extensive. Even despite extraordinary fire response efforts and the use of the most modern firefighting technology that we have ever had, some 33 lives have been lost, three from my home state of South Australia. From my calculations, 19 million hectares have been burnt if we include the Northern Territory fires. Nearly 3,000 houses; thousands of sheds, motor vehicles, farm machinery, public infrastructure, plantations, wineries; kilometres of fencing; and over a billion wildlife and livestock have been lost. The economic cost to the nation will be in the billions of dollars. In reality, the full cost will never be known, because the long-term health impacts—including psychological effects and smoke inhalation—the ecological destruction and the flow-on economic costs will carry on for years to come.

The immediate question that arises when I speak to people throughout the community is: how do we better prepare for next time? Because there will be a next time. We can only do that if we accept the science—accept that the climate is changing and factor that into the fuel loads and weather conditions that climate change will create.

As I speak to people in my community, four immediate questions arise that I hope will be addressed as part of the reviews that are currently underway into these fires. Firstly, there are concerns about whether the donations will find their way to the victims of these fires. There is a real concern that that may not be the case. Secondly, could we and should we in future be able to call on and draw upon the ADF much earlier and in a much more coordinated way? Thirdly, is our nation well enough equipped with firefighting aircraft? And, fourthly, is the national building code, particularly as it relates to fire-prone areas, adequate and should fire shelters be made mandatory in those areas? Those are questions that I hope will be addressed in the reviews that will take place both at state and national levels.

I also noted that last week we brought into this place bushfires tax assistance legislation and the Business Council of Australia set up a trust fund for volunteer firefighters who have been injured or killed. I didn't get a chance to speak in that debate, but I ask the question: does that fund also cover overseas firefighters who may be here in Australia and also may have been injured or, as we saw, killed? Those are matters that, again, I hope will be considered.

The extraordinary generosity of Australians was evident in my own community. I thank them all for their kindness and compassion. It is simply not possible for me to acknowledge them all individually, and there are more events still to come which I will be attending over the days and weeks ahead. But I want to refer to three examples of that generosity, because I think they encapsulate the spirit I saw in and around my community.

Firstly, Adelaide's Afghan Australian Hazara community raised approximately $80,000 through a joint fundraising effort with the Baba Mazari Foundation and the Wali E Asr Centre. A young refugee boy who came to this country as an infant, Murtaza Hussain, gave all of his savings since his arrival here in 2013 to the fire victims. Secondly, in another initiative, 10-year-old Imogen Stevens, with the support of her family, set up a weekend cafe at her Salisbury East home and raised hundreds of dollars by selling coffee and tea to locals. I can vouch for the quality of the coffee because I had one and it was great! Lastly, my office was used as a collection point for backpacks for schoolkids affected by fire. The goodwill and donations were overwhelming, and I thank all of those people who donated.

In closing, the fires were horrific, but they brought out the best in Australians. I hope that the nation's response will lift the spirits of fire victims.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me no great pleasure, of course, to be here speaking on this condolence motion, but it gives me a great deal of pride. The bushfires have taken a terrible toll in this nation, and for six days now members of this parliament from across the political spectrum have been on their feet to talk about the great sacrifice—one would have hoped an unnecessary sacrifice, but a great sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice—made by so many people who gave their lives in service of their nation. Indeed, it was not just their nation; we had those visiting airmen from the US who came to give a hand here in Australia and lost their lives as a result. So we pay great tribute to them.

It's also an opportunity for us to pay tribute to the many thousands of Australians who have helped during this terrible summer of bushfires across the nation, from the east coast to the west coast and down into Tasmania. We've had our small share. Luckily there have been no fatalities in Tasmania this year, but we've certainly had our share of bushfires. There are thousands of volunteers who support our firefighters and our emergency services personnel. We've got to give a shout-out to the people who make the sandwiches or donate the funds, including the children who have created donation funds. A young man in Hobart was raising funds for bushfire relief out the front of his house, and I came across his Facebook posts because it used to be my house. I don't know the family but I did have a little sense of pride. It is wonderful that a house I used to own is now lived in by a wonderful young boy and his family who have gone out of their way to do their small part to help the relief effort.

It's been an incredible time this summer, a terrible summer in terms of loss, but this summer has also shown the Australian spirit at its very best. I know many members and senators have spoken about this, about how this terrible tragedy, this terrible event in Australia—not the first and certainly not the last—has helped forged a greater Australian spirit. Australians have come together in their millions to pay tribute to and to support our firefighters and our emergency services personnel. The comedian Celeste Barber has overseen an outpouring of support for bushfire relief—$30 million, I think, at last look, in $5 and $10 donations from Australians, many of whom are doing it tough themselves but are putting their hand in their pocket to do their small part to help this incredible national relief effort. We pay tribute to them.

In my electorate I've got fire brigades who have helped out in the fires that have broken out not just in my electorate but across Tasmania. But brigades who have been fighting fires in Tasmania—and this is not a unique story; I know that—have travelled from Tasmania to the mainland to help out here. Just last week, indeed, Rick Birch and his team from the Orielton fire brigade and the Tea Tree fire brigade were out on the South Coast, down Batemans Bay way and around Bega, doing their bit. I'm pleased to say they were caught up in the rain, so they probably had a little bit of an easier time of it than they were expecting, and I'm sure they would have very much welcomed that. They have now flown back to Tasmania. But here I was in Canberra for work here, and there Rick and the team from Tasmania were, volunteering—not being paid but volunteering—to come and fight fires for their fellow Australians.

I pay tribute to all those who have done such magnificent work over this summer—the volunteers, the support personnel, the men, women and children of Australia. I know this has consumed people over the summer. Lessons are to be learned out of it. We do hope that next summer we'll be better prepared and that we can acknowledge that this is probably here to stay and perhaps have a better nationally coordinated response. That is absolutely no criticism of the fire and emergency services organisations that we have now, but I certainly think we can do much better in terms of resourcing those organisations and those people to make sure they have every single bit of support they need. I say thank you to all those volunteers and personnel over the summer and for the next few weeks and months ahead. On behalf of the people of Lyons, thank you.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an absolute honour to be able to make a brief contribution in the limited time available today to this condolence motion relating to the bushfires—the 'summer of dread', as it's become known by many people in Australia. Having spent my early years in primary school at Bermagui public, I'm quite familiar with the South Coast. I returned there to work in a disability service later in my life too, in Bega. So I have many friends still living on the South Coast and I remained in touch with them throughout the bushfire period, and I hope to come back to some of those messages briefly, in a little while.

The extent of Australia's summer of dread is quite overwhelming for most people to contemplate. Over a five-month period, the bushfires that raged along the entire south-east coast of Australia burnt an area that is larger than the country of Ireland. Sometimes that's an easier way for people to picture the magnitude of these fires. These fires have taken 33 lives. They have damaged almost 3,000 homes. The smoke that descended upon our cities and towns left us in a toxic environment; many people who weren't even facing the full brunt of the fires lived under the cloud of toxic smoke that came across their communities. And the fires have absolutely devastated the utterly unique flora and fauna for which Australia is renowned internationally. I think we are still really struggling to fathom just how much damage has been done, and I do acknowledge the efforts of the shadow minister, Terri Butler, in her call for an environmental audit. People are estimating that one billion animals are now dead. It is pretty unfathomable. Some 7.7 million hectares of bush has been burnt. So there is a lot to take stock of.

I'd like to spend some time thanking people in our communities, people who often regard themselves as quite ordinary, for stepping up and being the most extraordinary human beings in a time of crisis. I really do want to give a big shout-out to New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons, who we watched day in and day out, multiple times a day, reporting on the state of the fires and dealing with the terrible grief when firefighters lost their lives, and when people died defending their properties and other people lost everything. He showed extraordinary leadership, and I really want to extend a very personal thankyou to him.

I also want to thank all of the extraordinary broadcasters on ABC emergency radio that kept everyone, many who were literally in the dark, in touch with events and in such a detailed manner, who maintained calm and the information flow into those communities when they had no alternative sources of communication.

I'd also like to acknowledge upfront the amazing efforts of our Pacific neighbours. We've often been called on to deliver aid and support to our Pacific neighbours in times of emergency. I'm sure, like many members of this parliament, my heart just melted when I saw those photographs of young people in Lae in Papua New Guinea pushing a wheelbarrow around and getting donations for Australians. The idea that people who are amongst our poorest nations in the world would give cash donations is just extraordinary, and it says a lot. And it wasn't just the people of Lae. There were fabulous efforts in Vanuatu as well. But I hope that people in this House remember that in times to come. When this parliament deliberates on overseas development assistance issues, I hope Members remember why it is important that we should be good neighbours in our region, because, when our house was quite literally burning down, our Pacific neighbours were there to support us.

I'd also like to acknowledge their warm condolences to Australia. I was here in Canberra from 13 to 15 January because we were hosting the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum. In fact, I was chairing the climate change session at that forum. I would like to convey to the House that every single nation at the table for that discussion offered their profound condolences to Australia before making any further remarks. They were in Canberra at a time when that toxic smoke was hanging right over the top of this city, so they had a very good feel for what Australians were contending with at the time. They offered their condolences to Australia and asked how they might support us, going into the future, in trying to make efforts to ensure that we are doing absolutely everything we can to look at not just mitigation and adaptation but also real, long-term solutions for the climate change issues that we as a region are facing. They were very, very alive to those issues and are looking very carefully at Australia to see what steps we will be taking on those matters

As I said, seemingly ordinary people stepped up to do extraordinary things in all of our communities, and I would like to take some time to acknowledge a few of those people now. Newcastle artist Sally Bourke, who's a volunteer and a member of the Animal Rescue Cooperative, was initially driven to respond by those North Coast fires that took place later last year. She's part of a series of hubs or collectives of people that were collecting donations for animal food, water, medicines and other items that wildlife carers across the country need. So a big thankyou to the Animal Rescue Cooperative. The people in Newcastle did some terrific work around making and providing bedding and support for native animals who'd been devastated by the fires. Likewise, there was Merewether's Beach Hotel supervisor, Claire Hamilton, who was hosting 'sewing bees' at the pub to make pouches for animals injured in the fires.

There were incredible donation drives across the Newcastle community. Novocastrians donated approximately $50,000 worth of food, drink and health products in a big drive organised by Gillian Summers. The items were then loaded into five seven-tonne trucks and a one-tonne ute and driven to the Shoalhaven emergency management centre, the Hunter Valley Fire Control Centre in Bulga and the Lower Hunter Fire Control Centre in East Maitland. Gillian doesn't like to take credit for that work herself and has acknowledged a number of the volunteers who worked with her. I'd like to give a shout-out to those people now, including those who loaned and drove the trucks: Allan Woodham, Oliver Coakes, Mark Trenter, Luke Orton, James Ferguson, Ian Bamford, Greg Kerr, Mitchell Vajda and Samantha Phillips. Thank you all.

Newcastle ArtSpace in Islington held a fantastic art sale, with proceeds going to the bushfire charities, including the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, WIRES and the Red Cross. I understand that almost 50 Hunter Region based artists took place in that event, raising about $7,500 from the sale of their works. The Newcastle Surf Life Saving Club raised $24,700 in a bushfire appeal event they conducted, with that money going to four different charities. The Newcastle Pride, Timber Productions and Heaps Gay presented a 'queer bushfire fundraiser' at the Mayfield Bowling Club. Again this was great support from our LGBTQI community in Newcastle. The bushfire relief gig at Lizzotte's last week raised more money, with a fabulous rollcall of local musicians, including our perhaps most famous export John Paul Young. In January, Big Dog Comedy was fundraising at The Happy Wombat. Last week Nicholas Connors and Ahlia Williams put on a rock'n'roll barbecue bushfire fundraiser, at a very infamous live music venue in Newcastle called The Lass O'Gowrie. Again, all proceeds go to the RFS and WIRES. The Prince at Merewether held an Australian Day sausage sizzle. On Australia Day most of the pubs in Newcastle, including Mayfield's Stag and Hunter, were all fundraising for the fire victims.

You have great community groups like the Newcastle Greek Orthodox community, whose Blessing of the Waters Ceremony was dedicated to those affected by the bushfire crisis. The Newcastle mosque has been doing fantastic work—again, handing over much-needed cash that is required by these communities now. There are too many more to mention.

I know many other members have acknowledged this in the past; but, when you're in a time of crisis, you really see the most remarkable responses from our community members. My conversations with people on the South Coast during that period of fire also reminded me how people who would otherwise regard themselves as very ordinary people in their communities showed tremendous leadership when that was needed, and they are acutely aware of the need to now rebuild their communities and the important role that each of them will be playing in that rebuild. They want all of us in this parliament to work collaboratively towards that endeavour.

Many of these people know there are some long-term issues to be addressed in terms of how we better prepare for these seemingly more frequent and more intense fire seasons. People are looking into the future and wondering about how this parliament will respond to these very real issues of climate change. They don't want to see a retreat into the climate wars within this parliament. That has been made acutely clear. It has been the worst habit of this parliament for the last 10 years, this parliament not being able to deal with the very real issues of climate change and reform that have to happen in this nation. I hope that there is an opportunity for everyone in this parliament to rise to the occasion and to meet the expectations of the community. Yes, there is a lot of rebuilding and healing work to be done in all of these bushfire affected communities that are feeling intense trauma, but we cannot walk away from those tough conversations that must happen in this place if we are to address the issues that are driving these profound changes in Australia's climate.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Technology and the Future of Work) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm really grateful to the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for securing this time in the parliament for us to say something about this extraordinary disaster that occurred right around the country throughout this summer period. It was appropriate, of course, that the main contributors to this debate were those with electorates where there were immediate impacts of fire and loss of life. I thank the members for Gilmore, Eden-Monaro and Gippsland and the others who were mainly affected by these tragedies for their really incredible contributions in this debate.

I want to take the opportunity to say something on behalf of my community. This was a national tragedy, one that no Australian was untouched by over the summer. The first thing I want to do is express in the most sincere terms how devastated the people I represent were by the things that they saw over this summer, particularly the loss of life. We lost so many Australians. The fact that so many of the people who died were volunteers who died in the effort of protecting their communities is an extraordinary thing. I know there's not a single person in my electorate who wasn't affected by the news of those deaths. It was striking how many of the people who died had young children or had partners and wives who were pregnant. You can't imagine anything more terrible for a child than growing up without ever knowing their father. On behalf of the people I represent, I want to say how much we're thinking of the families that have lost a loved one. Our hearts are going to remain with you while you deal with this grief. Please know that the nation is so united in its gratitude to the person in your family who died trying to protect others. It's a thing of enormous honour.

One of the things that was a little bit unusual about this disaster was that, as I said, it was experienced by all Australians in different ways. One of the things that was distinctive was how much visual imagery and how many pictures were created. I think they will be forever associated in my brain with the disaster that befell our people over the summer. There were the images of Mallacoota: the eeriness of red blackness covering a town in the middle of the day; hundreds of people crowded on a beach where the only place to go to keep safe was out into the ocean. These are gut-wrenching images that I know all Australians will carry with them. I think of another image I saw of a mum on the South Coast of New South Wales. She was sitting on the footpath. Everything she had been able to take from her house was in a shopping cart. She had two kids with her. They were just running around and she was trying to look after them on this street. She was just absolutely spent, without any means of processing what was going on for her. There were the images of Allison Marion's son Finn as he steered the boat carrying his family members out into the ocean to escape the fire that was coming towards them. There were images of the charred remains of farm animals and wildlife that had been absolutely defenceless in the face of the walls of flames that they had faced.

When I spoke to my community about how this affected them over the summer, what they told me was that, even though they weren't in the line of fire, this absolutely defined the summer of 2019-20. It defined the quality of the time that they spent with their family. What a lot of people have said to me is that they were not able to enjoy summer in that carefree way that we love to do as Australians because they knew the whole time there were people in other parts of the country who were literally facing crisis. I know that so many Australians have donated to the recovery efforts. My electorate is no exception there. I just want to say how proud and grateful I am to every Australian who has dug deep and found a way to make a contribution to the rebuilding efforts.

Crises like this are horrible things. No-one would wish this on a country. They do show us some of the darker things about what we deal with as Australians, but, of course, it always brings forth the greatest beauty that exists in our community, and this was no exception. One of the things that I really noticed over the summer was this sense of abiding connection that Australians who live in the cities feel and share with Australians who live in the bush. I think there are people around the country, some of whom work in this parliament, who try to stoke division and make people feel like we can't be one country. But the truth is that the people I represent—I represent a city electorate—feel so much for country Australians. When there's a drought, we talk about it, we think about it and we worry about it. I think we really saw that in the way that people reacted over the summer. So it's really important that we remember that there is so much that unites the beautiful people that we represent, and this feeling, affection and care between the country and the city is very much a part of things.

One of the other very much abiding and recurring themes I gleaned from talking to my constituents was just how important our national broadcaster is to us in Australia. It was obviously something that my constituents relied on completely to keep in touch with their fellow Australians over the summer as they faced these incredible moments of crisis. I think, in a time of such polarisation, it's so important that we get to experience things like that and understand them as they're happening.

I know many people in my community who spent days and weeks—literally 24 hours a day—listening to the ABC. They were watching the coverage on the news and listening to the coverage on the radio. The quality of that service was just extraordinary—to share with the rest of the country the actual voices and the stories of people in these communities experiencing such crisis, and, of course, to fulfil that critical role of actual communication about what was happening around the country as the disaster panned out. It was an extraordinary thing that the ABC did. It gave us a way to walk alongside people who were in crisis. It was essential as a line of communication to people who were experiencing that crisis.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12 : 35 to 12 : 47

Again, it's a privilege to contribute on behalf of my electorate of Hotham to this important debate about the horrible bushfires that have affected the lives of so many Australians. I've talked a bit about the sorrow that my community has felt for the families and communities most affected by this disaster. One of the most important things that has come out of the conversations that I've had with my constituents has been in relation to climate change and how the bushfires have absolutely sharpened the urgency for us to take action, to take calm, clear action that sits right in front of us as a parliament, to address the issue of carbon emissions in our environment.

When I talk to my constituents, they don't talk to me about the Paris Agreement and different targets that may lie ahead for us. What they say to me is: 'Something has to change. We cannot go on like this.' We've had now almost seven years of continental drift on climate policy, and instead of going down, as our emissions were under the previous government, our emissions are going up. Some of the other speakers in this debate have talked about the need for us to be bipartisan in our approach to this. We are ready for that conversation. This is not about which political party you're in. It's not about which part of the country you represent. It is about the sort of country that we are going to leave to our children and grandchildren. It is absolutely the case that every politician of my generation is going to be judged on how we deal with this issue. Something has to change, and I'm very hopeful that we as a parliament are going to be able to have a better conversation about this.

One of the reasons for that is that if this last summer showed us anything it is how much we as a country have to lose if the world continues to do very little to combat global warming. One of the things that's been so clear in this summer is that the Australian summer is iconic. This is the time in the year that the families in my community live for. This is what we wait for. I think about the summers of my childhood when we played cricket on the beach. We went to the beach as much as we could. We just revelled in the natural environment almost every day, and I fear that my children and my grandchildren are not going to be able to experience that with their own kids. The truth is that my kids and my constituents' children couldn't have that sort of experience this summer. One of the reasons for that was the air quality. I don't in any way equate anything that we experienced with the horrible bushfire crisis areas. I'm not attempting to do that. I just want to make the point that millions of people breathed in air for over a month that was not good-quality air. In Melbourne, the world's most liveable city, there were days when we had the poorest quality air in the world. If this is not a clarion call to action then I don't know what else needs to happen for us to see the urgency of taking action on this issue.

I want to make the commitment to my constituents that, as I have been doing every day that I have been a member of parliament, I am ready to make a change and do something serious about this problem so that we meet our responsibilities as public leaders and as Australians and do what we know needs to be done to arrest this problem.

I want to finish by just expressing my deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the fires. We're not going to forget that this happened to you and your loved ones. I just want those families to know that we're with them now and will always be as they deal with this grieving process.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to echo the words of so many on all sides of the chamber over the last several weeks. While the fires may not have burnt in Fraser, my community has been touched, as so many others have. We have witnessed with great sadness the loss of life and property of our fellow Australians. I send the thoughts and prayers of my whole community to those who have experienced loss. We have seen the incomprehensible destruction of our natural environment—millions of hectares of bushland and, as earlier speakers have indicated, a billion animals. It's almost too much to comprehend. We have been inspired by the bravery of thousands of volunteers who put their lives at risk and, in too many cases, made the ultimate sacrifice. I specifically acknowledge the CFA, Victoria's other emergency services personnel and the brave firefighters from other states, including the Rural Fire Service in New South Wales.

Like so many communities across the nation, Fraser has rallied in support of those who have experienced loss. An outpouring of generosity has occurred right across my community. At the Lunar New Year festivals, people celebrated the Year of the Rat and then immediately turned their attention to how to help those in other communities. At the Quang Minh temple in Braybrook, funds were raised. At the St Albans new year festival, over $20,000 was raised in one day. Businesses throughout Fraser organised fundraising efforts. A good example was the St Albans Traders Association. Schools throughout Fraser have organised events, raised money and have sent messages of support, and the not-for-profit organisations, of which there are too many to mention, have also done so much.

In addition to making overarching comments indicating the support that my community feels for those who have suffered such great loss in the whole of Australia, I also want to make some personal observations. My father lives in Batemans Bay and I was with him on New Year's Eve and the days that followed. People huddled on beaches as a wall of smoke and fire approached. Neighbours went door to door, making sure that no-one was left isolated and vulnerable. And, as so many speakers have already mentioned, when mobile phones lost coverage, when power was out and people were literally in darkness, the ABC provided people with information, with clarity and with at least some comfort in the midst of all the chaos—a lifeline to the rest of the community. My family was in Eden as thousands of Victorians escaped the fires in Mallacoota and the east of Victoria. We saw the desperation and fear of the many people streaming across the border and also how a town opened itself to welcome them and provide them with refuge. My family was in Ulladulla when the roads to the north were blocked. We benefited from the generosity of being given accommodation and food from a stranger as we waited for the roads to clear. My family will never forget the generous gesture that the family made for us over the days that we spent there.

The eloquent and powerful speeches of the members for Gilmore, Eden-Monaro and Macquarie, amongst many others, including the members for Gippsland and Monash of my own state of Victoria, reflect the experiences of hundreds of thousands of people who had similar experiences to my family. The speech from the member for Gilmore resonated very powerfully given that my family, my father, is her constituent. I saw firsthand that particular community coming together in a powerful show of sacrifice and resilience. Hundreds of thousands of people experienced fires or the threat of fires over a sustained period, week after week over many months, draining people's reserves of energy and optimism. It was the sense of community that helped people persevere and, ultimately, overcome these incredible challenges. To all those who have lost so much, I offer condolences on behalf of my entire community; to all those still experiencing challenging times, our community remains ready to help.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with my parliamentary colleagues in expressing heartfelt condolences for the devastating loss of life, property and innocence in the bushfires that have ravaged our nation. The statistics are heartbreaking: 33 lives lost, more than 3,000 homes destroyed, over one billion animals killed, and almost 12 million hectares burnt across our nation.

To the families and friends of those grieving the loss of their loved ones, I extend my heartfelt sympathies. To lose someone in such horrific and unexpected circumstances is heartbreaking, and the public nature of the loss can compound those emotions. In particular, to the families of the nine firefighters, on behalf of all the people of Warringah, I thank you for their service and for their ultimate sacrifice. The nation grieves with you at the loss of these young men, who represented the best of human spirit. That spirit and that sense of selflessness and compassion for others was constantly on display during this crisis, from families opening up their homes to strangers, to volunteers rescuing injured wildlife, from surf club members turning their clubhouses into evacuation stations, to volunteers working three days straight to distribute care packs, the best of humanity constantly came to the fore, and as Australians we can stand rightly proud of that.

In New South Wales, much of the focus has been on the South Coast and the devastation to communities there. We have seen heartbreaking scenes of evacuations, loss of property and complete towns wiped out. But it is important that we don't forget those regions on the North Coast, where this crisis first started unfolding in August. Those communities also experienced devastating loss of life and property, and they need our support as they start the slow process of recovery. I, for one, will be encouraging members of my community in Warringah to visit our sister city of Glen Innes as we support Mayor Carol Sparks and her community to get back on their feet after devastating losses there in November.

Reflecting on the North Coast fires is also a reminder of just how long the bushfire season has gone. We have had more than six months of the fires and I have no doubt that no-one is feeling it more acutely than those on the front line, who have battled the conditions. Like many other Australians, I have nothing but the highest level of admiration, even awe, for the men and women of our firefighting services, both volunteers and paid professionals. Due to some incredible mobile phone video footage, for the first time we went inside those trucks with the firefighters, and it was terrifying. As they drove through scenes that can only be described as pure hell, we looked out the window with them at 60-metre flames, we drove through ember attacks with them, we heard the howl of the flames and the wind above the wails of the sirens; yet, all the time these men and women remained calm, giving instructions on radios, focusing on the road ahead, driven by a sense of duty to get the job done.

At this stage, I'd like to pay a special tribute to the Rural Fire Service crews in my own area of Warringah, although we were fortunate enough to avoid any bushfires ourselves. The men and women of our local units constantly stepped forward and were deployed to various locations across the state, and they did us proud. To Inspector George Sheppard, and to the men and women of the Northern Beaches District of the NSW Rural Fire Service, I say thank you. The individual units are Beacon Hill, Belrose, Coal and Candle, Coasters Retreat, Cottage Point and Davidson—and here, I would especially like to commend the actions and the volunteerism of my predecessor, Tony Abbott—Duffys Forest, Ingleside, Mackerel Beach, Scotland Island, Terry Hills, Tumbledown Dick, Warringah and West Pittwater.

Our nation has experienced bushfires before, with devastating loss of lives and property. Bushfires are part of our nation's history and character, and that can't be denied. But this year was different; we all know that, even those who won't admit it publicly. They know this year was different. The scale, the intensity and the reach of these fires was different. The fact that fires burned in so many states at the same time was different. The firefighters are telling us that it was different and that the fire behaved differently. Flames were more intense and the fires created their own unique weather patterns. The people of towns that were burnt to the ground are telling us that this was different. The experts are telling us that this was different. Therefore, our reaction and our response, especially from those of us here in this place, must also be different.

I welcome the fact that governments at various levels are prepared to investigate these fires, but we must not become bogged down in more red tape. The various inquiries and royal commissions will look into all the factors that contributed to the severity of the disaster, and I encourage those and look forward to reading the various terms of reference. I intend to help by listening and by finding solutions to prevent future disasters. As a member of the House's Environment and Energy Committee, I look forward to constructive discussion as we carry out our inquiry into the efficacy of past and current vegetation and land management policy, practice and legislation and their effect on the intensity and frequency of bushfires.

This disaster will provide many lessons about Indigenous land management practices, about resourcing and, of course, about the impacts of climate change. In that respect, I wholeheartedly support the comments made by the member for Bennelong, in his very moving condolence speech, that today is a day for commemoration, not politics. One thing I would like to mention is the need to recognise that these fires are not a warning about climate change; they are climate change. The Leader of the Opposition mentioned that this is not normal. I fear this is actually the new normal. I for one refuse to accept this new normal and I know many others inside and outside of this place who refuse to accept it as well. I will be doing all I can to ensure that that is not the legacy we are leaving for future generations.

We all know that bushfires lead to new growth—to rebirth. It's what has been happening for tens of thousands of years. My hope is that these bushfires, which in many ways have galvanised our community, will lead to a new growth in our discourse and to a rebirth and reset of climate change policy in Australia.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important motion of condolence and commemoration. This has been a summer of horror for way too many Australians—in fact, for all Australians. Many have lost loved ones, and I honour them all today. Tragically, 33 people have lost their lives. Children have lost fathers and mothers. Wives have lost husbands; husbands have lost wives. Parents have lost daughters and sons. Some died as they were battling to save the lives and homes of the rest of their community. They are true heroes and we'll never forget their service. Brave firefighters—some young and enthusiastic, some veterans who had outrun many a heaving mass of flames—put their lives on the line only to have them snatched away.

On Kangaroo Island, Dick Lang and his son Clayton Lang had been fighting the fires side by side for two days before they lost the fight. Sadly, three Americans who travelled to our burning country to help us perished when their Lockheed C-130 Hercules air tanker crashed. Many Australians have lost homes. Three thousand or so homes have been destroyed by fire. All their possessions and all those happy family memories, built up over a lifetime, have gone up in flames. A billion animals have perished. It is hard to even contemplate the enormity of that carnage now and the legacy to follow. Our precious wildlife may never recover completely from this loss.

As a nation, we've been shocked to see our fellow Australians grappling with an inferno that could not be contained. So, too, the world has been shocked to see those images. We were shocked to see families with nowhere to go sheltering on the beach as the smoke turned day into night, the sea their only form of escape. Even those of us who have homes far from the bushfires have seen, smelt and breathed the effect of these conflagrations. Australia's air quality on some days over that 'black summer' was the worst in the world. This 'black summer' has been devastating. It has been heartbreaking. Australians are tough people. We've been through disasters before, but this 'black summer' has tested even the toughest of us.

Some of the toughest are the brave firefighters who've worked their guts out for months—some every single day without a break, for weeks at a time. Some are professional firefighters, remunerated well, whose skills have been utilised to the fullest in the biggest test of their career so far, I would suggest, for many. Other firefighters are volunteers, part of the important Rural Fire Service that stretches across the country. These firefighters have day jobs as well. They have to balance time off work not for a day or two but for weeks and months. The businesses that employ these volunteers deserve credit as well. The volunteers can't put all of their energies into fighting bushfires if they're worried about losing their jobs. And I understand the concerns bosses would have, especially in small businesses.

We also need to remember these brave firefighters working day and night have carried on even when some of their own—their friends, their colleagues and even their family members—have lost their lives in the line of duty. That must be so difficult, and yet they have carried on with true courage. They face down the personal fear, the exhaustion and the sheer emotion of seeing lives and properties destroyed around them. They've shown us what true courage is. They've shown us what selfless service really looks like. We'll be forever in the debt of every single one of those brave firefighters who fought the largest and fiercest fires that this nation has ever seen. The worst of times so often brings out the best in people.

These fires have been the worst of times, and in my community on the south side of Brisbane there have been many who've risen to the occasion. I'll just name a few—I know I'll be missing some! The Islamic Council of Queensland raised $55,000, which they donated to the Country Women's Association to help bushfire victims. I just love the balance of that—the Islamic Council of Queensland giving money to the Country Women's Association. The CWA was a big part of my youth, and now I have a big Islamic community. I love that link. The Tamil community in Brisbane used their Pongal Festival as an opportunity to fundraise for bushfire victims in other states. The Ipswich City Symphony Orchestra performed at Graceville Uniting Church in Moreton to fundraise for the Red Cross bushfire appeal—and a big shout-out to the Red Cross for the wonderful work they do. Coming up this Sunday, the Annerley community's Facebook page is hosting a community screening of the Fire Fight Australia concert at Souths Rugby Union Club in Annerley to raise funds for Queensland firefighters and Brisbane based wildlife carers. And there were many other fundraising efforts, but I'm not going to name all of them.

Even though Moreton was obviously well out of the reach of the flames, local community groups stepped up to help in the wake of these dreadful bushfires. That is true Australian community spirit. It's been a summer of darkness, but it will be years of rebuilding—rebuilding homes that have been destroyed, rebuilding lives that have been broken, rebuilding our native habitats that are essential to the survival of many native species that were already threatened and now may be right on the brink of extinction. As the weeks and months of recovery roll on, it is important that we remember to ask those who have been impacted if they are okay. Putting on a brave face is all well and good, but everyone needs to feel supported, especially those who have endured these traumatic circumstances. That is something that all Australians can do: we can support each other.

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

I understand it is the wish of honourable members to signify at this stage their respect and sympathy by rising in their places, and I ask all present to do so.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank members.

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

by leave—I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 13:09 to 16:00