Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy President, I will not take very long. I listened this morning to Senator Cameron in his sterling role of being an apologist for the bully boy, Daniel Andrews, over this whole sorry affair. It speaks for itself. You have had his own minister, Ms Garrett, who would not do the dirty work that he wanted her to do, and she resigned. You had Ms Nolan, who would not do it either—she quit as CEO. You had the Chief Fire Officer: he resigned. The replacement board—the puppet board—that was then put in by the Premier had a marathon session. I think the final figure was about five to four to approve this EBA.

I am opposed to it. I agree with Senator Hume and her remarks about volunteers. I say that as a person who was one of the lucky ones. I had my own farmhouse saved during Ash Wednesday, when my neighbours all lost their houses. Not to mention the heroics of the volunteers and the paid firefighters during Black Saturday.

All I want to say today is that you have a million homes being looked after by these volunteers. You have something like 1,200 units that they belong to, and there are 57,000 of them. They are the core—they are like our lifesavers, they are volunteers. It is not just fires they go to. If you have ever lived in the country you know that if somebody runs his car off the road at three o'clock in the morning and hits a big tree, the first people there giving emergency services are fire volunteers. My own farm manager, no matter how much work he had to do on the farm, would get up at five o'clock on a Saturday morning and go down to do training.

So all I want to say is that, as a newcomer to the Senate, I am very proud on this occasion to support the government and hope this legislation passes.