David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise as a Victorian senator to make some remarks concerning the terrible events that have wrought such havoc in my state and in particular to support the comments made during yesterday’s condolence debate in response to the catastrophe on Saturday. I remember waking up on Sunday and being shocked and astonished, as was every Victorian and, indeed, every Australian. In particular, I was shocked at the prospect of a death toll that at that time numbered in the order of 40 persons. As we all know far too graphically, that number has now expanded many times. The toll now stands at over 180 persons, and it seems that final toll is on the cusp of becoming very much greater. Of course, that does not take account of the many hundreds of people who are injured and the many hundreds of people who are now homeless.

I begin by extending my deepest sympathies to the families of those who have lost their lives. I fear this will be a very great number of people. They will need our support for a very long time. In that vein, I was very pleased by the Prime Minister’s statement offering the full resources of the federal government to assist them in their hour and indeed their weeks of need. This is on top of the very prompt action taken by the Victorian government in providing immediate and large-scale material and financial assistance.

It is hard to comprehend that such a disaster could happen on a summer afternoon in peaceful Victoria. While most of us in Victoria were going to the beach, watching the cricket or relaxing in the shade, trying to hide from some of the most punishing hot weather Victoria had ever experienced, scores of people were losing their lives in the most terrible way, some of them only an hour’s drive from Melbourne in picturesque country towns like Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong and Hazelwood. Hundreds more were losing their homes.

As many Victorians have stated in considering these dreadful events, these are well-known towns to Victorians. They are leafy, comfortable, delightful places proximate to Melbourne and are frequented by both their local inhabitants and Melburnians. My own wife, Liberty Sanger, is a native of Wodonga and my in-laws and family live throughout north-eastern Victoria in Wodonga and Wangaratta and thereabouts. I do not think that makes me unusual. I think these are common connections amongst Victorians, and they bring into sharp relief the exact focus, the exact magnitude, of this disaster.

In terms of loss of life, this was the worst peacetime disaster ever to occur on Australian soil. In all of modern Australian history it compares only with the loss of 645 lives on HMAS Sydney in 1941 and the 251 killed in the bombing of Darwin in 1942—both wartime events. If the worst fears of Victoria Police are realised, the toll from this catastrophe may eventually exceed 300. Many of us remember Ash Wednesday and Cyclone Tracy. This event was worse than both put together. After 70 years we have not forgotten the terrible fires on Black Friday in 1939 in which 71 died. This was more than twice as bad, and I am sure these fires will be remembered for at least as long.

On Monday we heard very moving statements from the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Australian Greens and other senators. Three Victorian senators, Senators Conroy, Ronaldson and Fielding, spoke with great emotion about the appalling loss of life and property in our state. Indeed, every Victorian today is in shock and mourning. Everyone who spoke in this House in the condolence motion on Monday rightly paid tribute to the firefighters, police, emergency services workers, doctors and nurses and all the other people who have responded so magnificently to this disaster. In fact, it is true to say that there were more Victorians mobilised to fight those fires on that dreadful Saturday than in any other emergency services operation in Victorian history.

Today I want to be a bit more specific. I want to pay particular tribute to the 60,000 volunteer firefighters and 1,200 paid staff of the Country Fire Authority who have been battling these fires for days without respite and are still doing so. They have been on the front line against these fires, as they are in every fight against bushfires. Although many lives have been lost, many more have been saved by the skill, heroism and dedication of these firefighters. Most of these firefighters live in the communities which have been worst affected by these fires. Indeed, that is why many of them joined the CFA in the first place. Many of them lost their own homes while they were fighting to save other people’s homes. Tragically, some of them have lost family members to the fires. They all deserve our highest praise and our continuing support. So too do those members of the metropolitan fire brigade who have gone out to the affected areas to help their comrades in the CFA. The professional staff of the CFA and the MFB are all members of the United Firefighters Union, a very dedicated and hardworking organisation which has done a great deal to improve the working conditions of professional firefighters. These men and women risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, to protect the lives and property of their fellow Victorians. I take this opportunity to thank the UFU for its advocacy on behalf of firefighters and its commitment to improving the effectiveness of our firefighting services.

It is a similar case with the Australian Workers Union, Australia’s oldest union. It was founded in Creswick, Victoria in 1886 as the Australasian Shearers Union. Over the last week more than 600 members of the AWU employed by the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment, the Department of Primary Industries and Parks Victoria have been working very long shifts to aid the firefighters in protecting homes, farms, public buildings, state forests and national parks and, of course, all of those people who live and work in these affected areas. In addition, many of the 300 AWU members working on the North-South pipeline, which runs through the fire zone, were also diverted to join the struggle against the fires. All too often in reckoning the many contributions in these fights, the contributions of agencies such as the DSE, the firefighters, the rangers and others who work in them are forgotten, and I take this opportunity to make some small contribution towards making sure those agencies receive appropriate recognition.

Like all Victorians, I have been very impressed by the way the whole community has come together to fight the fires and to assist those affected by them. The Victorian Premier, John Brumby, has provided outstanding leadership. Yesterday, Mr Brumby announced the establishment of the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority, which will be headed by the retiring Victoria Police Chief Commissioner, Christine Nixon. I cannot think of a better choice than Commissioner Nixon, a brave commissioner who has won the respect of all Victorians, to head such a vital agency.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister pledged that the national government would assist in every way possible with the long and difficult task of rebuilding the towns devastated by the fires and the towns in North Queensland devastated by the recent floods. He committed an extra $5 million in immediate aid to the people of these communities. He also said that the government’s $6.4 billion social housing fund, which is a part of the economic stimulus and nation building plan currently before the Senate, would be available to the Victorian and Queensland state governments to help meet the housing needs now arising out of the disaster in these affected areas. Victoria will be able to draw on the $1.5 billion it can expect to receive from the social housing fund. In a similar way, Queensland will be able to draw on its $1.3 billion share of those same moneys. Similarly, state governments will be able to use part of the $14.7 billion Building the Education Revolution funds for the repair of schools in disaster affected areas. In addition to all of that, most of the thousands of people affected by the fires in Victoria and by the floods in Queensland will be eligible for the immediate payment of $950, which is part of the government’s $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan, commonly known as the stimulus package, to stimulate demand, keep our economy out of recession and prevent more people from losing their jobs.

I notice that there has been some small, albeit muted, criticism of these announcements on the grounds that, since the government’s package is being opposed in this place by the Liberal and National parties, announcing that Victoria and Queensland will be able to use part of this money for rebuilding houses and schools is somehow improper. It is true that the bills that will create the Nation Building and Jobs Plan have not yet passed the Senate. If they are defeated, the social housing fund and the schools fund will not come into existence, and the Commonwealth will then be forced to find some other mechanism to assist Victorian and Queensland communities to rebuild their homes and their schools, and indeed their lives. Also, if the bills are defeated those thousands of Victorians and Queenslanders affected by the fires and floods will not receive their $950 payment. But does that mean that it is somehow improper for the Prime Minister to announce that some of these funds will be available to the states for disaster reconstruction? I do not believe so. There are plenty of precedents. The former government spent millions of taxpayer dollars on advertising to promote the GST and the Work Choices bills long before the relevant pieces of legislation had passed the parliament. We are not doing that; we are merely making an announcement to assist Victoria and Queensland in planning the reconstruction of their disaster-ravaged states. Decisions on these matters need to be made soon, and it would be irresponsible for the Commonwealth to leave the states and the affected communities dangling in uncertainty about whether they will have access to these critically important moneys.

I will make one further point about the cash payments. The purpose of this part of the stimulus package is to put money into the hands of people who will, and who need to, spend it quickly, thus helping to maintain demand in the economy, which in turn maintains employment. Some of those opposite may not accept that linkage but this is the advice the government has from every major economist, not least of them the IMF, and it would be irresponsible of us not to act on that advice. I ask: who better to receive these moneys than the thousands of people in Victoria who have lost most if not all of their property—their homes, their cars, their furniture, their clothes, their bedding? These people urgently need to buy new household goods, and these grants, on top of the other forms of emergency aid already announced, will enable them to do so. It seems very logical to me that, if on the one hand we need to stimulate demand, as every economist is recommending, and on the other hand we need to transfer money quickly to individuals affected by the fires and floods so that they can rebuild their lives, we should do both simultaneously, thus achieving both our economic and our humanitarian objectives. I do not know what alternative is being proposed, apart from endless debate in this place. In this connection let me quote Olivier Blanchard, chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, who said late last week:

… commit to do whatever it will take to avoid a Depression … adopt clear policies and act decisively. Do too much rather than too little. Delays in financial packages have cost a lot already. Further rounds of debate will stoke uncertainty and make things worse.

That advice was given in relation to the urgent need to enact stimulus packages to prevent Western economies from sliding into recession, and it is very good advice. It is also relevant advice when we consider the urgent need to assist individuals, families, communities and states so grievously affected by last weekend’s fires in Victoria and by the floods in Queensland. These people need our assistance now. That is why the Prime Minister pledged to support them yesterday, and that is why I am sure he will have the support of every Australian.