Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a short contribution in this matter of public importance debate. I speak as a both a senator for Queensland, which is experiencing bushfires again right now, and also as Labor's shadow minister for natural disaster and emergency management. As other speakers have made clear, we do continue to face a terrifying situation in much of Australia at the moment. My own home state of Queensland is again facing bushfires from Central Queensland through to the southern border. And, of course, there are parts of New South Wales which face, arguably, an even greater threat, with more minor—for the moment—but still serious bushfires happening in other parts of the country.

I have been in regular contact with the Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management, Minister Littleproud, and his office, and I appreciate the briefings that they have provided to the opposition through me. I have also been in contact with state government representatives and councils to make sure that the federal opposition is fully informed about what the situation is and what communities need. Yesterday I participated in a briefing with the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Albanese, conducted by officials from Emergency Management Australia—and, again, we appreciate the government's willingness to provide those kinds of briefings to the opposition.

We've been very clear at all times that the opposition are going to be taking a bipartisan approach to the management of these bushfires. This is a serious national threat that we face and, in those circumstances, we think that the responsible position is to take a bipartisan approach. We've made it clear on a number of occasions, and I know the Labor leader, Mr Albanese, has made this clear to the Prime Minister as well, that Labor stand ready to support the government in its efforts to fight these bushfires and ensure that Australians are kept safe. Unfortunately, we have already seen the tragic loss of life of three Australians at this stage. We desperately hope that that number will not increase in coming days. Of course, there has been a lot of property damage across large parts of Australia as well. As I've repeatedly made it clear, and many others in this chamber have as well, our thoughts are absolutely with the communities that are threatened and affected by these bushfires. We hope that there is no further loss of life or loss of property, and we wish all residents in those areas the absolute best over the coming days.

I also want to put on record the opposition's gratitude, again, to emergency services personnel and volunteer firefighters. The bravery that is shown by these people is absolutely extraordinary. I think, as do any of us who have seen the footage of firefighters driving through flames—literally through flames—that it is just astonishing to see the lengths that Australians are prepared to go to look after each other. Sometimes these situations do bring out the best in us. Again, I want to give a massive pat on the back to those people who are putting their own lives in danger to protect their fellow Australians.

In closing, I do want to reinforce a point that the opposition has made in the last couple of days, particularly through Senator Wong. Obviously, when we face events of this kind on this scale and frequency, and the earliness of these bushfires, they raise serious questions for this parliament about the impact that climate change is having on our environment and our communities. We are up for a debate about that. But, right now, we think that the primary task facing everyone in this chamber and everyone across Australia is fighting these bushfires and keeping people safe. It has been very disappointing in recent days to see members of parliament from a number of different parties take the opportunity to point-score and advance their political agendas—in some cases, in pretty despicable ways—rather than keep everyone focused on staying alive and looking after each other. We are absolutely up for that debate; our position on climate change is very clear. But the primary mission at hand is making sure that Australians don't die and don't lose their property. Let's hope that things settle down with these bushfires and that we don't see any further loss of life in the coming days.