Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Like many people in New South Wales, for many, many weeks now I have spent hours poring over the Fires Near Me NSW app. Green Wattle Creek, Morton, Currowan, Gospers Mountain, Ruined Castle, Erskine Creek—these are now sadly familiar names which are indelibly imprinted on my brain. Every single one of these names represents the impact of the fires on that part of my state—on the families, the communities, the farms, the business, the wildlife, the environment and the fireys, so many from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue New South Wales.

Many fireys have protected my own communities in Western Sydney and the New South Wales Southern Highlands, like my long-term farm manager, Alistair Wood, and his family—his wife, Lesley, and his son, Murray—who are members of the Mandemar brigade, and like a well-known character of the lower Blue Mountains, Graham Chapman, from the Llandilo brigade. They and thousands of their ilk have given all, and today is our opportunity to say thank you.

From the Myall Creek Road fire in Richmond Valley, right down past those areas I've just mentioned to the border fire in the Bega Valley, the bushfires have impacted on an unprecedented scale in New South Wales and across the nation. In New South Wales alone, more than 70 fires have burned. Many continue to do so. By the end of January, fires in New South Wales had burnt through over five million hectares.

We've seen tragedy before. Many of us remember Black Saturday, Ash Wednesday and Black Friday, to name just some. But the scale of these fires has made it likely that many more Australians have this time been exposed to the trauma, the hazard and the destruction of these blazes than ever before in this country. There are many thousands of people who have stories to tell, experiences to share and lessons to impart. The motion before us today is our opportunity to pause, to reflect and to remember.

Having visited a number of the bushfire affected communities from the Mid North Coast to the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains to the New South Wales South Coast, I've found that many people need to have their stories heard at this time. It's true of my own community in Western Sydney. On 13 January, with Minister Littleproud, with Andrew Colvin, the head of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency, and with Susan Templeman, the federal member for Macquarie, I visited Bilpin and the small township of Bell at the crossroads of the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. Bell was surrounded by the Grose Vale and Gospers Mountain megafires in December. Thankfully and mercifully, no lives were lost. But, in a township of 15, five families lost all—their homes.

We met many of those locals at the Bell New South Wales RFS shed. It's a humble building, but it's become the natural meeting point for the community in the wake of the bushfires. It was a small refuge to the residents of Bell, who fled as the fires raged around them, to be surrounded by their local volunteer firefighters, their neighbours and their friends. What we saw together on 13 January was a natural continuation of what the residents had been doing then for months—banding together as a community in the most extreme of circumstances. Across the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, let me say one thing, Madam Deputy President, to you and to this chamber: this community is open for business. This community wants people and visitors to support it and to 'holiday here', as so many of the international views of our social media campaign have reminded us: 'Holiday here.' They are ready and are encouraging people to come back to their communities.

A couple of weeks ago, I brought together a roundtable of women from the community in Port Macquarie with the local member, Pat Conaghan, the member for Cowper, to hear firsthand from their perspective how bushfires have affected the Mid North Coast region, especially on top of the crippling drought. One of the people in the group described how she fled with her children to the evacuation centre when the bushland around the township of Bellbrook was ablaze. She became separated from her children. She didn't know how her husband, who stayed to defend their property, had fared. There are countless similar stories.

The people of Port Macquarie and surrounding areas were particularly affected by the drawn-out nature of the fires and the aftermath on their community and economy. On the Mid North Coast, those bushfires first took hold in July. But much of the nation's attention has moved, due to the all-encompassing focus in other areas, to other fires. While there was grief and anguish, those who met with me in Port Macquarie acknowledged—I admit sometimes through tears, potentially theirs and mine—the incredible efforts of those emergency services personnel and others who stood by them when the bushfires were bearing down upon them.

Pat and I heard of the extraordinary efforts of volunteers—the thousands of meals cooked, the beds provided and the great courage of the RFS firefighters. We heard from small businesses that just want their message to resonate. They're still standing. They are open for business. They need people to visit and to stay and to enjoy what is a beautiful part of the world.

In the Wollondilly and the Wingecarribee, where my family has lived for decades, in Wingello and Bundanoon, in Buxton and Bargo and surrounding areas: I want to also acknowledge the loss and the damage that they have experienced there and to recognise what I know will be a significant challenge to rebuild and to recover. On the New South Wales South Coast and in the Shoalhaven, the Eurobodalla and the Bega Valley there were over 1,200 homes lost. In the Snowy, fires have wrought devastation. In these communities, it has been the most terrifying time for so many. It is still a struggle to see the path to recovery and rebuilding, but I know that they will. In little Mogo, where I was a few weeks ago, and in Cobargo—places I've visited many, many times—they will rebuild. To those in Kiah, Eden and many other communities, I want to say from the Commonwealth's perspective but also from the perspective of those of us in this chamber who are so passionate about our communities that we will work with you, your families, your councils, your state government, your businesses and your community organisations to help that rebuilding and recovery process. We recognise that it is a significant task and it is a long road ahead.

I took one very special memory from my time on the coast in the last month: the Malua Bay Bowling Club, which Senate Seselja referred to. I confess I had visited before. I am no bowler, but it was a centre of the community in so many ways. It was burnt to the ground. The clubhouse and all its facilities are gone. Driving down that road on the second Saturday in January with my partner, with Andrew Constance, the state member, and with his wife, Jen, I was greeted by a very Australian sight. The club is absolutely gone—a mess of melted, twisted remains—but the bowlers were there, rolling their bowls down the green towards the jack, determined to get on with it. There is the Malua Bay Surf Club as well, the centre of community support for so many from that horrific New Year's Eve. Volunteers, all of them, opened that club day and night as a centre for their impacted community. Eleven days later, I sat with some of them as they reflected on that experience.

At times, the bravery that has been on display here in Australia has come from afar. I want to express the condolences of the government and the Australian people to the families and friends of the American firefighters Captain Ian McBeth, First Officer Paul Hudson and Flight Engineer Rick DeMorgan Jr, who lost their lives in support of fire efforts in the Snowy Mountains. We are ever grateful for the help that those brave firefighters gave to Australia. We will not forget that they lost their lives far from their loved ones and homes to protect Australian communities. We also appreciate the support of the more than 200 US firefighters who have helped us this year. That contribution is another example of the bonds and common values that join our two countries. The United States has been here for us in the same way as Australian firefighters were there for their US colleagues in the Californian bushfires of 2017 and 2018.

We are deeply grateful also for offers of support from so many around the world. Our diplomatic network overseas has literally been flooded by offers of condolence and informed of a large number of fundraising activities and donation drives to support Australian charities. My department is managing, in cooperation with Emergency Management Australia, a significant number of offers of international assistance from governments, from companies and from other entities in 70 countries, and we are very grateful. We thank those firefighters from the United States, from Canada and from New Zealand for their professionalism and support. We acknowledge the provision of defence assets and the work of defence personnel from Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and the United States. For materials and equipment from Israel, Japan, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the UAE, we are very grateful. And we are closely collaborating with France and the United Kingdom on options for longer-term recovery efforts.

I also want to acknowledge and thank the ADF, the work of the Defence organisation. They've done an exceptional job. To see them coming down the road has literally lifted spirits and has engendered even a small smile in the most desperate of situations. I thank the men and the women of the ADF for the contribution they have made and will continue to make to this very significant recovery effort.

Finally, I acknowledge those who have lost so much, those who have lost all, our firefighting volunteers and their families across my state, the farmers and the men and women who've lost their lives defending their homes and livelihoods.

I want to particularly commend the work of the National Bushfire Recovery Agency and its head, Andrew Colvin. We know that it will require absolute diligence and focus on the recovery to support affected Australians. We are committed to that for the long haul. We say, and we mean, that our communities are open for business and for visits, whether it's a Holiday Here This Year in Australia or 'bring an empty Esky', or the countless other campaigns that have been launched. Every single one of those means something to an individual in those communities, to the small-business owner, to the farmer, to the people supporting local wildlife, to the surf clubs, to the bowling clubs, to the restaurants, to the retail sector. Every single facet of life is looking to our country to work with them, to stand with them and to support them, and that is something that we in this chamber, every single one of us, and every single member of the House of Representatives is able to be an absolute advocate for. I look forward, in these difficult circumstances, to working with all of our colleagues from across both chambers to do exactly that.