Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to offer my condolences today to the families and communities of the brave Victorians who gave their lives fighting fires to protect us all: David Moresi, Mat Kavanagh and Bill Slade. They will be remembered as heroes. To the families and communities of East Gippslander locals Mick Roberts and Fred Becker, who sadly lost their lives defending homes, and to all the families, friends and communities of those 33 people who died across the country in these tragic and devastating fires, I offer my condolences. On behalf of all Victorians, I say thank you to our emergency workers and firefighters, paid and volunteer, who have battled extreme exhaustion and the worst conditions and have just kept going with courage and with conviction. Thank you to all of you who have donated whatever you can and who've run fundraisers or volunteered. To those working hard restoring services, power and access to communities that have been cut off, to those staffing evacuation centres, to those rescuing and caring for injured wildlife and to the ADF evacuating and protecting those in danger: thank you.

This summer we have seen death and destruction. Thirty-three lives have been lost across the country, with five lives lost in Victoria. Thousands of homes have been destroyed, including over 300 in my home state. Right now those Victorians are in the toughest of times. In trauma and having lost everything, they now face the decision of whether to rebuild in the fire zone and confront more dangerous fire seasons ahead or to leave the communities that they love. Wildlife has been killed and injured at a horrific scale, and we've all been sickened at the scale of this loss. Farms and businesses are under extreme stress, and I know that so many people living outside the immediate bushfire zones have felt helpless as they watch the communities of their fellow Australians burn. They've felt helpless as they've seen extreme heat, toxic smoke and dust replace the carefree summer life that, for so long, we've taken for granted in this country. Checking our emergency apps and wearing face masks have become part of daily life, and it shouldn't be this way.

These bushfires have touched everyone, and they've also brought us closer together as a state and as a nation. From the smallest acts of kindness to the most heroic acts of saving lives, we have united. And now the community wants its political leaders to unite too. This summer people have spoken to me about little else than the bushfires and the need for politicians to stop arguing and start acting, to just figure it out and get on with it. The Australian people want this parliament to come together, so it's time for us to unite to deal with the immediate crisis and get urgent relief to where it's most needed right now—and then to stay with those devastated communities long beyond this fire season and for as long as it takes to rebuild lives, homes, jobs and communities and to rebuild hope.

It's also time for us to unite together as a parliament and confront the underlying causes of our longer and hotter fire seasons: our warming climate. There is just no real question in the community anymore about whether our planet is heating up. It is, and we all know that carbon pollution is what is making that happen. So it's well past time that everyone in this parliament listens and that we act—that we act to cut our carbon pollution, that we act to invest in renewables and that we act on the global stage to bring others along with us. The Australian people want their political leaders to find a way forward, and, if we care about our future, the future of our children and the future of our planet, our home, we will do just that.