Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This time three years ago I was desperate to leave parliament to get back to my community, which was in the midst of a big bushfire. By early December 2019 we knew that this fire was beyond anything we'd seen, but we didn't realise that it would become the world's biggest fire from a single ignition point.

It has taken the full three years since for most of the RFS firefighters who spent months fighting the Gospers Mountain fire, volunteering on the North Coast or heading down south to receive their National Emergency Medal. It has been a huge job for the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury RFS headquarters. In the Hawkesbury around 640 RFS members were awarded the medal and in the Blue Mountains a staggering 840 medals were awarded. It gives you a sense of just how vital those volunteers are.

Each division chose to hand them out to members in their own way. In the Blue Mountains I was able to be at several AGMs earlier in the year, where the beautiful green-and-gold wattle emblem was presented. For the Hawkesbury there have been a succession of large medal events, including in the last few weeks, where brigades came together to recognise and remember that time.

It still feels fresh, even after three years. The service they showed our community during one of the worst bushfires this country has seen will always be remembered.