Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This has been a long, brutal summer across Australia. In fact, the bushfire crisis started well before the summer; it started back in spring. Throughout the bushfire crisis we have seen people from all walks of life, from all parts of the community, put themselves in harm's way to keep others safe. In my community of Ballarat, as in so many other regional communities across Victoria, we have been very lucky to have international firefighters based at our airport. Each year, they come to Ballarat and for three months station themselves in our community. They've been doing so for several years now. They give up their time with their families. They often are coming off the back of fire seasons in other countries, so they've been away from their families for a long period of time.

Earlier in the summer I headed out to Ballarat airport to welcome the Canadian crew stationed there. It was very early in the fire season and it was pretty hot, pretty dry and pretty windy—the kind of weather that puts our firefighters on alert. We didn't get far into our morning tea before the alarms went off and the crew ran to their helicopters, responding quickly to a fire in our region. Since the awful news of the plane crash in New South Wales I think we have all developed a new appreciation of the dangerous work that aerial firefighters carry out each day during the fire season. They are keeping us safe, putting their own lives in danger to protect us on the ground. We can never thank them enough and we can never forget the sacrifice that they make.

Our Canadian crews have been up in the air too many times this summer, dousing flames as quickly as possible. Just to name a few, we've seen fires near Creswick, Smeaton, Lexton, Smythesdale, Clunes, Myrniong and Blackwood just this summer. These blazes have threatened homes and lives. They have damaged fences, burnt sheds and burnt fields, but, thanks to the tireless work of these firefighters, paid and volunteer, on the ground and in the air, the cost to our community has not been too great. Across the state and the country of course the story has been very different—the fires have been disastrous, unprecedented and deadly. Throughout these fires, I know the entire Ballarat community has been proud to see volunteers from our region on the front lines, helping out in fire zones across the state and across the country. We saw trucks and crews from right across district 15—from Bacchus Marsh, Sebastopol, Trentham, Ballan, Clunes, Wallace, Lucas, Wendouree and so many others—driving great distances to fight fires to help their fellow Victorians and their fellow Australians. These crews were in East Gippsland on New Year's Eve and were there right the way through when the fire peaked. They've also been in the north-east of the state.

These men and women have given up their time of rest over summer, their time lying on the beach or spending long days relaxing in the sun with their families, to help others. We cannot thank these men and women from the CFA—volunteer and paid—for the work that they've done this summer.