Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I briefly want to thank Senator Evans very much on behalf of the opposition for keeping the Senate informed on the latest developments of the bushfire tragedy in Victoria. I indicate the opposition’s ongoing full support for all that the government is doing at the Commonwealth level to assist with the recovery. I indicate our strong support for what we know from our years in government is an extremely professional and confident Australian Public Service. As Senator Evans has indicated, they are involved in assistance on very many levels across the breadth of the Public Service. I thank him for his explanation of the circumstances surrounding Centrelink and for dealing with that. I think we all have to understand that these are unprecedented circumstances and that there will be difficulties and mistakes made. We acknowledge that, and we thank the government for its explanation and rectification of that issue.

We join with the government in congratulating all Australians on what has been a typical but nevertheless fantastic response to this tragedy. At the expense of sounding parochial, I was watching the Australia-New Zealand one-day international at Adelaide Oval yesterday and saw the response of my fellow South Australians. I think some $6 million was raised at that cricket match alone as a contribution towards the victims of these fires. Obviously, we join in expressing our heartfelt thanks to all those volunteers still out there fighting these ongoing fires in Victoria. Finally, we extend our prayers and best wishes to the families of the victims and also of course to the many who are suffering very badly in hospital from horrendous injuries; there is nothing worse than burns injuries. Our heartfelt wishes and prayers go out to them.