Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I start by congratulating the member for Blair and also the member for Hinkler on the contributions they have already made during what I think is an important opportunity for members in this place to put on the public record their experiences in their electorates over this troubling summer of natural disasters. It does feel quite alien to be standing here in a suit and looking around at my colleagues in these quite salubrious surroundings, having come from a bushfire scene in Gippsland where over the past couple of weeks it has been flannelette shirts, jeans, workboots and gloves while standing beside my constituents. Having heard the member for Hinkler's tales of his experiences in dealing with the mud, the sludge and the disgusting mess left behind by the floods, I know it would have been quite compelling for anyone listening at home.

I welcome the opportunity to report, first of all, back to the parliament on the impact of the devastating fires in my electorate and I do note that many of the speakers here today—from regional communities including many of my Nationals colleagues and also my friends in the Labor Party—as regional MPs are joined by our experiences in this regard. With the bushfires in Tasmania and New South Wales and in my own electorate and in Western Australia and also in other parts of Victoria, along with the floods and the storms in Queensland and New South Wales, tragically this has been a dangerous summer for our constituents. There has been loss of life. In the fires in Tasmania one of my constituents passed away, a man from Tyers by the name of Peter Cramer, and in the recent Gippsland bushfires Stanley Hayhurst from Seaton was killed. I believe there were seven fatalities in the Queensland event.

Having looked at the coverage and listened to my colleagues over these past few days, I believe we were quite lucky. Given the rapid rise of rivers we experienced in Queensland and given the extraordinary spread of fire in Tasmania and Gippsland, I think we were quite lucky that we did not have greater loss of life. We have been sorely tested in many parts of regional Australia over the past couple of months but I can assure the House that none of our communities are beaten. I am constantly amazed by the resilience we see from our communities.

It is a part of life in regional communities, and we are lucky to represent such amazing people who are so incredibly tough. I guess it is the price that we pay for the magnificent environment we live in: the majestic forests of Gippsland and Tasmania, the beautiful rivers, the coastal areas and the extraordinary expansive coastline of Queensland. When nature turns vicious on us, unfortunately these beautiful surrounds make it very difficult for us to deal with it.

In Gippsland, unfortunately, we have had a lot of practice in natural disasters. In my short time in the parliament we have dealt with significant floods, the Black Saturday bushfires and now these bushfires. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the emergency services in particular, both the paid emergency service people—the police, the ambulance, the Department of Sustainability and the Environment and the paid staff within the Country Fire Authority—and the volunteers, whether they be with the SES or the CFA. I also thank the staff of the Wellington shire, the Department of Human Services and the Department of Primary Industries. It is an enormous contribution that we get from so many different people pulling together when we have these events.

It is something that we should be very proud of as a nation that we do have plans in place to help our fellow man in very difficult circumstances. We are a lucky country to have such organisational capacity and people ready to swing into action at a moment's notice. The professional people are there, the plans are in place, and they are backed up by teams of volunteers who are just so desperate to get in there and lend a helping hand. I would also like to thank, in the time I have today, the local media. We benefitted enormously in our regional communities from not only the ABC but also our commercial radio networks and our newspapers and television stations. They are very responsible in trying to report the most accurate information they can, and some of the information they provide is faster and more relevant to people facing particularly bushfire threats. When they can get people ringing in, giving up-to-date information over the ABC, it is very handy for people who are literally in the firing line.

It is a real community effort and I am very proud of the way that the people of Gippsland and beyond Gippsland have rallied to this enormous challenge. It would be remiss of me not to thank the communities—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:57 to 17:03

As I was saying, it would be remiss of me not to mention the support that the people of Gippsland have received from people throughout Victoria and, indeed, from throughout Australia. There were CFA crews present from right around Victoria during the efforts to control this bushfire.

The amazing thing about an event like this when you get out amongst your community and start talking to people is their capacity to count their blessings. You meet people who have been adversely affected by the fires but who will automatically point to someone else down the road who has been more adversely affected. They will say, 'Don't worry about me,' and they will direct the aid effort to someone else even though they certainly should receive some support. They are quite selfless and humble in the way they respond to these tragic events.

The Gippsland bushfires started on 17 January but they are still going today. While the department staff and the CFA have done a great job in establishing containment lines, the fires have now burnt in excess of 74,000 hectares. They have burnt an area from Aberfeldy, which is north-east of the Thomson River Dam—and at one stage the fires threatened the water catchment of Melbourne—right through to Seaton, Glenmaggie and areas to the north of Heyfield. The fire perimeter itself, if you went around the entire perimeter, is 300 kilometres.

In the first 24 hours, when the fire did most of its damage, when it ripped through the communities around Seaton and Dawson particularly, 21 houses, 54 sheds, 13 vehicles, several caravans and about 170 head of stock were lost. The fencing losses are still being assessed and the fodder loss is obviously a major challenge for the farming sector. At the peak we had more than 600 firefighting personnel in Gippsland working on the fire. We were a bit lucky, I suppose, in some regards that we were the only major event in Victoria at the time and so there were a lot of crews and tankers on the ground and also aerial support. It was tremendous to have that at the time.

But you cannot measure an event like this in raw numbers like that; the statistics do not tell the full story. It is only when you get out amongst the community, talk to the people on the ground or fly over the area, as I had the opportunity to do, that you appreciate the full extent of the damage that has been inflicted upon the Gippsland community. As I flew over the fire ground I was stunned by some of the more remarkable saves that you could see, where fire had burnt right up to the very outside of homes and yet landholders had been able to save their properties. They had lost a lot of shedding around the properties but they had made a stand at their homes and were able to save them. People had taken the messages well in terms of early preparation, reducing the fuel load around their properties and having the appropriate firefighting pumps in place, and a lot of people were able to save their homes.

The fire itself, as any fire I have ever experienced, was very indiscriminate in its nature. There were examples where one house had been burnt to the ground and the neighbour's property was unscathed. There were sheds that had been burnt to the ground and the house was fine and vice versa. That is the nature of fires.

I went out and spoke to my uncle and aunty, John and Lee Gell, who live at a place called Paradise Valley. Thankfully, I can report to the House that Paradise Valley has earned its title and retains its title because the fire somehow managed to jump over most of the valley and burnt both sides of the hills, leapt over the Macalister River—where campers were seeking refuge at the time—and no-one was injured and very little damage was actually sustained. Remarkably, when I spoke to my uncle and aunty about their experiences, they said that it was just like 1965. The weather conditions, the typography of whatever seems to shape the fire in a certain way where that particular place seems to be blessed. So it seems that Paradise Valley has survived.

Their neighbours at the Montana Caravan Park, Barry and Sue Taylor, with their family fought the fire literally to their backdoor step. Their preparations held them in good stead and they were able to prevent major damage to their residence.

Unfortunately, there were some very severe losses. I spoke to some great friends of mine, Richard and Dianne Dennis—and people who read the Weekly Timesmay well have seen the photo of Richard on the front cover. I must say that it was probably not the happiest that I have ever seen Richard look. He is a tremendous fellow. He and his wife Dianne and their family are a great support. In fact, their parents, Michael and Helene, have been heavily involved in the farming family business for many, many years. Tragically, the Dennises lost more than 100 head of stock and an enormous amount of fencing. They are facing some very tough times ahead. We hope to be able to support them as they work their way through this.

The thing about fire is that we see it on the news and we hear about the loss of life and buildings that are lost, but some of the costs of a fire are hidden to those who do not live in the community. The environmental toll it takes is something that members who come from regional areas probably understand more than others. When you go back to these communities the silence in the bush is something that strikes you as quite eerie. That is because the birds are gone. You see the other native wildlife and the charred remains of wallabies, kangaroos and wombats that were not fast enough to flee such a fast-moving event. So there are these hidden impacts on the native environment and on the birdlife and the impact that it has on stream and water quality in the aftermath. These are all things that these communities have to deal with for not just days, weeks or months but for years after the event.

I know the member for Lyne has experienced similar things in his beautiful environment, and I am sure his community will be facing similar challenges. But I can report that the environment is extraordinary and it does recover. To endure the Black Saturday events, and to go back to some of those communities now, only a couple of years later, and see that environment restored is something quite extraordinary.

The rebuilding effort is going on even though the fire is still burning. So we have the unusual situation where the response to the fire is continuing. The DSE and the CFA are out there trying to do their best to protect against further losses, but the rebuilding effort is going on at the same time. We have had volunteers on the ground from a wide range of local community groups. We have efforts from the VFF and other organisations to provide fodder relief for our farming community and we have people on the ground like BlazeAid organisation helping out with restoring fencing. As I said, this is going on while the danger period continues. The danger period certainly has not passed for Victoria. We are maybe halfway through the fire season.

I notice that tomorrow has been declared a day of total fire ban in Gippsland and I assume in other parts of Victoria as well. There are warnings coming through, in my email as I speak, about a large fast-moving bush fire at Hotham Heights in the Dinner Plain area in the member for Indi's electorate—but neighbouring my electorate as well.

There are continuing fire threats in the Gippsland region as I stand here today. There is plenty of fuel out there, there is a likelihood of hot and dry conditions and there is always going to be a point of ignition in an environment like ours in Victoria and in south-east Australia—whether it is a natural event like a lightning strike, an unfortunate accident or a deliberate act by someone acting maliciously. On that point, I urge people in regional communities to be extraordinarily vigilant in the weeks and months ahead in this fire season and to report any suspicious activity to local police immediately. There are people in our community—who I simply cannot understand—who get some perverse enjoyment out of lighting fires on these days. We ask people to be vigilant, to report suspicious activity and to give the authorities every chance to, first of all, catch the offenders; but, if they do happen to succeed in lighting a fire, early detection is so important for the emergency services.

We are constantly learning from experiences like this, and the Gippsland bushfires are no exception. The fire experts were stunned by the behaviour of the Aberfeldy fire as it burnt through the Gippsland region. They described it to me as a forest fire behaving like a grass fire. It moved so quickly and ripped through that community ahead of a wind change. It certainly moved quicker than any of the locals expected, and it proved extraordinarily difficult for them to contain on the evening. It was only the return of better weather conditions that actually helped them out. Frankly, our best efforts—whether it is the CFA, the DSE or our water bombers—will not put this fire out. Only a good drenching rain will put this fire out and we face that reality over the coming weeks.

As I said, we are constantly learning and there still remains room for improvement despite our great efforts as a community to combat this fire. One area we need to have a better look at, as responsible agencies in the community, is the issue of roadblocks. The issue of roadblocks is one that constantly causes additional hardship and exacerbates the trauma for people in the affected communities. People recognise the need for roadblocks once a bushfire has gone through. They recognise it in that immediate stage, but in recent times we have seen roadblocks continuing for many hours after the apparent danger has passed, restricting access to and from areas. People who have a legitimate reason to be there want to return to their properties to check on the welfare of their properties and also to check on the welfare of their stock. They did not have that opportunity within the first 30 hours of this particular bushfire, and there was a certain amount of grief in the community about that. They wanted to get back there and make sure their stock was alright. They knew they did not have enough feed; they knew they needed water and they knew they needed tending to. We need to finesse the way we manage these roadblocks in the future. Safety is paramount and the community accepts that. The risk of falling trees causing further deaths in the aftermath of a fire is a very real risk. We need to prevent looting, so we do not want people moving indiscriminately through these communities. We want to reduce the intrusion by any sightseers who think they can just turn up and have a look at what has been damaged. People need to be able to get back into these areas as quickly as possible. Perhaps in the future we may need a little bit more common sense in the way we provide escorted trips into the fire areas once the immediate danger has passed. I think it would be one way to not exacerbate the situation.

I can report to the House, in a very positive manner, that the text message warning system—which we have talked about in the past and has been partly sponsored by the federal government and partly sponsored by the state government—worked well in this particular event. Again, the only proviso remains that it only works well if you live in a region with mobile phone coverage. Large parts of my region have had mobile phone coverage in recent years over the past decade, but there are still sections in my area—some of the most bushfire prone parts and some of the most flood prone parts—that do not receive mobile phone coverage, and they will not benefit from the text warning system in the future. But I have heard very positive feedback, and I would like to pass that on to the minister for emergency management, on the ground about the way the text system worked and about the way it was used by the authorities to provide accurate and useful information. In these events, you do not want to be plying people with too much information to the extent that they start ignoring some of the warnings. The text system is something that my community certainly appreciated.

It is tempting on these occasions to run through a huge list of people who need to be thanked. I will not do that now, but it would be remiss of me not to thank the political leaders in this country for the support they have shown to the people of Gippsland at this time. I include in that the Prime Minister, who visited Gippsland with the Premier of Victoria. They were very well received as they moved through my community and offered some support to the residents who have been affected. I also thank the Deputy Premier of Victoria and Police and Emergency Services Minister, Peter Ryan; my state colleague, Tim Bull; and Mayor Scott Rossetti and his fellow councillors.

It is a difficult role as a local member or political leader at a time of natural disaster. You run the risk of being seen, quite cynically, as turning up for a photo opportunity. Those in the community may wonder what you are doing there. But I think it is an important role as well for members and senior leaders to show that they are interested, that they are there to support these committees and that they understand the troubled times and the challenges we are now facing. I listened to my great friend the member for Hinkler as he described the floods through his community. In such harrowing times the role of an MP is almost a mix between parish priest and advocate for the community. You are there to offer support and to be a mate and a friend—because they are our family and friends as well—and make sure that people who are perhaps traumatised do not fall through the gaps in the system and know what support is available for them. I can recall many occasions where just a phone call from someone in my office has been able to help people in the community access the support they needed at that time. It is true that we need to reassure these communities that we will be there and stand shoulder to shoulder with them for the long term. The recovery effort in Gippsland, in Tasmania and, of course, in Queensland is going to be long term; this is not going to be something that is going to take a few days or a few weeks. The effort is going to be ongoing and require enormous amounts of support from the state government and also the Commonwealth.

On the behalf of the people of Gippsland, I pass on our best wishes to the people who went through the floods. It amazes me how many people in the bushfire affected areas talked to me about the floods. They would say, 'Can you believe what happened to the people in Queensland!' It was extraordinary. They were more worried about those things. When you saw those things on TV they did beggar belief. We have had floods in Gippsland, but 4,000 homes have been so badly damaged, particularly around the Bundaberg area. The people of Gippsland felt great sympathy for the people in the Queensland region.

Our fellow Australians are facing such enormous adversity and rallying together and getting on with the clean-up. As we gather here in this place at the start of a parliamentary year, there is a real challenge for us to focus on the things that matter to these people and to these communities. I think we will be judged very harshly in this place, particularly in the next few weeks, if we indulge in petty political games. When we have got people on the ground building fences, helping mates out and shovelling mud out of their living rooms while we are shovelling dirt on each other I suggest we will be judged very harshly by our constituents if we cannot find ways to work in a very bipartisan way, particularly when it relates to these communities which have been so adversely affected.

There is a challenge there for us as members, and I think we are up to it, to stand shoulder to shoulder with each other as we help our fellow Australians who are in this for the long haul. I take on board the comments from the member for Hinkler that we need to take whatever steps we can to help minimise and prevent such damage in the future. There is an opportunity for us, as state and national leaders, to find ways to reduce the impact of these disasters in the future. We need to help our businesses and our farming sector get back on their feet. One of the things we sometimes forget is that business communities, in particular tourism businesses, suffer a fair bit of damage after a natural disaster. We need to get the message out there when we can, when these communities are safe to return to, that these are great places to enjoy a holiday. I think it is going to be a challenge for us in the months ahead in these tourism areas which have been adversely affected.

I think as a nation we have been sorely tested over the last couple of months. I think we have been reminded about nature's great power. Our communities are certainly looking to us as leaders of the community to put aside our petty political differences, and I think that, as a parliament, we dare not let them down.

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