Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to contribute to the motion on natural disasters moved by Senator Conroy earlier today. I concur with the comments made by my colleagues regarding the various events which have caused enormous sadness and loss in most states in Australia during the past two months. My thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones during these events.

As a Western Australian senator, I would like to record the hardship felt by residents living in the Gascoyne region. They had to deal with two floods in three weeks, and, as my Western Australian colleagues have described very graphically, these floods have devastated many pastoral leases and horticultural businesses within the region. I must congratulate Dudley Maslen, the Carnarvon Shire President, and all the fire and emergency people, the CWA and everyone involved in getting people back on their feet, and recognise the fact that Gascoyne Junction was evacuated with no loss of life. That was very, very important. I wish those people all the best in their recovery and hope that we in this place can help to get them back on their feet.

I live in the hills in Perth. Last Friday evening I was very fortunate that the winds, gusting up to 90 kilometres an hour, were not blowing from the west. They were blowing from the east, which probably saved me. My neighbour rang me at 9.30 and said a fire had broken out. It was five kilometres to the west of me. Everything was broadcast on the ABC, who I would like to congratulate. Messages at first were quite mixed and quite confusing but the ABC was very clever in getting Sarah Knight, who had been a rural reporter, on the evening show. She carried the messages every 30 minutes throughout the night to tell people in a very sensible and practical way where things were going.

Unfortunately, as this fire went across Toodyay Road and down the escarpment, it was threatening Red Hill, Herne Hill, Brigadoon and Baskerville in the Swan Valley. This particular area has a large number of two-acre and five-acre hobby farms—a terrific lot of horses there—and people really and truly were trying to get their animals out. With Sarah on the radio guiding the procedures, and the fire and emergency services personnel coming on every half an hour to tell people what to do, it all went very well. As I said, I was very lucky the wind was not blowing back towards me. There were 150 emergency workers working throughout the night and the next day. The Child Protection Agency also had set up a safe haven down in the Swan Valley, which people were able to relocate to. However, they only had one way out and that was to go west; they could not go east. To those people and the volunteers involved in that fire, I do thank them very much for the work that they did.

To complicate things, at 12.30 on Sunday—the day I was flying back to Canberra—the Roleystone-Kelmscott fire broke out. All of the infrastructure—the helicopters and the water bombers—was up to the north and this area at Roleystone and Kelmscott is about 25 kilometres south. Unfortunately a lot of this area has gullies, but beautiful homes, and there is one road in and out. People were given 20 minutes to get out with whatever they had. How no-one lost their life there is absolutely amazing. It shows once again the organisation of our fire and emergency services, the police and all the volunteers who were gathered there. Just looking at the West Australian this morning, you can see the shock and the horror on the faces of those people—64 houses destroyed, 28 buildings really damaged. Having been a farmer I have myself been involved in fires and floods, but I have been lucky—I have not lost my home. My heart goes out to these people in the situation that they are in. I hope that once again we can help them. The City of Armadale has the same problem as the City of Swan. Local governments are set up to cope with these things but not quite when they have impacted on us in this way.

In conclusion, I would like to thank very much the emergency services and anyone who has been involved. I wish all those people well.