Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Summer brings out the best in Australia and the best of Australians. We enjoy our beaches and the protection that surf lifesavers provide us. In my electorate of Perth, the fringe festival makes the city come alive. We share in the traditions of Christmas and remind ourselves of the importance of compassion. Our barbecues get their once-a-year proper clean and, after a long holiday, children go back to school.

Summer in Australia also means bushfires. This summer was no different. Western Australia has had three major heatwaves this summer, topping 40 degrees each time, and over the last week there have been bushfires raging throughout Western Australia, with climate change making these events more severe, more intense and more common.

This has been a terrifying time for the communities in the Wheatbelt, the south-west, the Great Southern and even for communities in Perth and the metropolitan area around Rockingham. There were 60,000 hectares burnt, productive farmland was lost, phone lines are down, communities have been disconnected and, sadly, the homes of six families are gone. Every Western Australian, including you, Deputy Speaker Irons, sends their support to those who have been affected by these awful bushfires at this time. They have meant sleepless nights for communities around Bridgetown, Corrigin, Denmark and so many of the towns that feed not just Western Australia and Australia but the world.

We've got native bushland that will take years to recover, damage that is still being assessed and investigations into the cause of some of these awful fires. Fortunately, we have seen that the Bridgetown threat has been downgraded in the last day, but there are still threats remaining. I note the Minister for Emergency Services, Stephen Dawson, has warned there may be more fires later this week.

I want to thank emergency services staff and volunteers from across Western Australia for their efforts. There were some 1,300 people out there, facing danger to protect others, battling fires in 42 degrees and more. I know that every member of this place is grateful for the efforts of our first responders, our emergency services and the communities who do their bit in the middle of the crisis, whatever it takes, just to help one another.

I want to acknowledge in this place that we've had a lot of state rivalries over the last few years, and that has probably intensified, but I do want to acknowledge in particular the efforts of people from New South Wales who came to help battle these fires. Thirty-six professionals from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, with practically no notice, jumped on a plane and flew to Western Australia to battle fires and to help save the homes and communities of Western Australians. To them I say thank you.