Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to enter this debate in relation to the natural disasters that have hit our country and, on indulgence, say a few words.

Of course, the true destructive nature of Australian bushfires was very much felt in January, when a number of communities across the Lyons electorate, and also the Braddon electorate in the north-west, were devastated by bushfires. A number of homes and properties were destroyed in the firestorms that caused real damage and a real loss of livestock on many, many properties. The worst were the fires that swept through the Tasman Peninsula from Forcett right down to the back of Taranna, and raging through Dunalley on its destructive path. Dunalley is a very old settlement with a canal that was built at the small top end of that peninsula over 100 years ago to lessen the burden of sailing right around the bottom end where Port Arthur is. In those days, boats were used much more as transport.

As the fires approached Dunalley and that area, many people took refuge on the beaches and under jetties, and some people were on boats—if they were able to get the boats in—and they got their neighbours on and went out and moored. The police commissioner, and also the Chief Fire Officer of Tasmania, both said to me that they believe that we did not suffer any loss of life because we were so close to the water. When you recall the Victorian fires, with so many people caught trying to get off mountains in those sorts of circumstances, we were lucky with the amount of water that was there and that people were able to take advantage of it. It certainly lead to a Dunkirk-style flotilla of boats going down to evacuate residents and their pets, and some stranded tourists were taken off because they could not get off the peninsula either.

I visited the fire-devastated town of Dunalley with the Prime Minister following the disaster. On our visit, we talked to a number of local residents who had been affected by that disaster and we listened to their stories of hope and survival. Many of them were talking about how they were going to rebuild and start again. We visited the town's devastated school, where I had been only a few months before, reading to the students and the students in the leadership group showing me the boats that they had built. Although the school had been lost to the fire—as well as all its teaching resources—I was pleased to see that the hall we built and did up through the BER funding had survived and was being used as a recovery centre after the fires because of all the showers and toilets that had been put into it. The hall was on a slightly lower level than the school, but the whole school had gone. The community understood what an important community the school can be and they rallied around to rebuild that school. It was the Parents and Friends Association rather than the education bureaucracy that managed to get a temporary school in place so that when school opened yesterday, 5 February, the students in Dunalley walked into their brand new temporary school, with a replacement permanent school already in the planning process. Quite a feat, and a surprise, for the state minister for education.

Although it is never the same after losing a special place, the speed with which the rebuilding has been achieved has allowed hope to arise from the ashes. Thanks must go to the Dunalley Parents and Friends Association, under the careful guidance of Elizabeth Knox, with help from the state body, and Jen Eddington, without whose dedication and commitment the school would still be in ruins.

The fires also took a boatbuilding project, as I mentioned, that was being undertaken through the school. The year's work lies in ashes; they were going to show their boats at the Wooden Boat Festival this weekend in Hobart.

Luckily the boatbuilder who was running the course had a couple of unfinished shells, one was in the Nubeena school further down the peninsula and one was safe in his workshop, which did not get burnt, down near the slips on the canal. With the help of the children and one of my staff members, the boats have been rebuilt and there will be one or two of those boats at the Wooden Boat Festival this weekend in Hobart. That will be a great opportunity for the school and for the kids to show what they have achieved and that the community is still achieving.

I also visited the temporary emergency shelter that had been set up in Sorell for those who had lost their homes. I heard the stories of loss and remarkable survival. All of our service clubs in that area were working there. The Sorell RSL, which is attached to that hall, was involved right in the middle of it as well. The church groups were all busy and active in a pastoral care role, and the council, with a mayor who had been elected to that job only three months before, came through with shining colours.

I learnt of the website that had been set up by Mel Irons. She was one of the key assistance services dealing with the countless donations of food, clothing, livestock feed—there was a great set up at the Sorell sports grounds—bedding, fuel and money was made. Hundreds of hours of voluntary work was also being offered through this Facebook website that Mel had set up. She was a tireless volunteer behind most of the donations and coordination for the Dunalley Tasman Peninsula fire. In her own time, she coordinated the thousands of donations that were made, as well as using Facebook to keep people updated on everything that was happening—reconnecting friends and family who had been separated during the disaster. There were people whose children were on the peninsula with other families—it is a big holiday area—and for the people who were in Hobart while their families were on the peninsula with a fire between, it them caused a lot of angst.

I spoke with Mel and thanked her for all the hard work that she had done, and social media had played a really important role. I just heard the member for Gippsland talk about social media from the fire service in Victoria. It certainly was used very successfully by the fire service in Tasmania. They feel that they got their message out very successfully to many people. Social media was used to keep people abreast and also, as Mel had done, keep people in touch with family and caught up with where things were happening. Mention must also be made of the state member Bec White, whose office in Sorell was thrown open to help all comers. Her staff spent hours working with Mel to ensure that cries for help did not go unanswered. They need to be thanked gratefully for all the work that they put in.

But Dunalley was not the only area that suffered great devastation in January; fires were experienced across the state. The Lake Repulse fire around Ellendale, which is high in the Derwent Valley—a very large forest area that goes right back into national parks as well as active working forests—was a very big fire burning through there for quite some time as well as in the Bicheno area, which burnt right through to the Coles Bay national park. I have spent time in each of these areas talking to the residents and making sure that Centrelink was available to issue those first areas of assistance to help, and then later talking of other means of assistance and helping in that area.

I also want to thank Centrelink for getting their bus to Tasmania from the mainland. I think that was a bit of a rush down to the ferry in Melbourne to get it on the ferry and get it over overnight to Tasmania and then a big rush down to the south. I thank them for the work and the effort; those officers put in a lot of time.

In late January, I again visited Dunalley, with the Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Sid Sidebottom. Following the disaster, the federal government made emergency funding available to those who had been directly affected by the fires. The community and the whole of Tasmania have been raising funds for the disaster appeal. Our regular and our volunteer fire brigades, along with the SES, who were involved in much of the clean-up afterwards, all played an enormous role around the state in fighting fires. Also, despite it being the holiday period, many people on their holidays were actually fighting fires. Many of them worked many long shifts. I visited the control centres and was extremely impressed by the efficiency and coordination of all the emergency groups: fire, ambulance, police and the SES. We would have to have one of the best services in the country in Tasmania, and I think it was a credit to those services that there was no loss of life in these fires. The people at Aurora, our energy company, must also be thanked for getting on with the job of putting in new poles even when the old ones were still smoking. They are a remarkable bunch of workers.

Unfortunately, a volunteer firefighter from the mainland—I think the member for Gippsland mentioned he was from that electorate—Peter Cramer, lost his life during this period. It was not as a result of the fire but rather a medical condition. I and my constituents thank him and his family from the bottom of our hearts for coming to our aid in our time of need. It was a truly heroic gesture on his behalf.

One of the greatest property losses was the loss of fencing. While much livestock perished in the fires, those animals that survived were left without adequate fencing. Of course, this causes problems with stock getting onto roads and into other areas. Also, some damage was caused to potato crops, which is an important feedstock for Tasmanians—we feed quite a few mainlanders potatoes from Tasmania.

I say thank you to BlazeAid, a voluntary organisation set up following the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires in 2009. BlazeAid was supported by a number of sponsors, including the Country Women's Association, the Salvation Army, the ABC, Rotary International and the St Vincent de Paul Society. BlazeAid volunteers helped rebuild fences in bushfire affected areas and have volunteers around Australia and the world, including, I understand, in New Zealand, England, Canada, Germany, France and America. Through their efforts, many kilometres of fence line have been restored in the Evandale and the Sorell-Dunalley Tasman Peninsula area.

But there is still a lot more to be done and I am sure many of the property owners will welcome working bees to help them continue to repair their working lives. The next few months are going to be a hard time for those people who have lost houses and businesses or whose farms have been affected. The clean-up process is beginning and the insurance people have been out and about, working on their assessments. Both of my offices are available for people seeking assistance and have been working with Bec White, the state MHA for Lyons, in the Sorell area. So, hopefully, we can cover most of the problems that might arise.

There are also a few communication problems that need to be fixed. Our local ABC was wonderful in giving out regular emergency messages. I met up with them at Bicheno and at Sorell. They do a tremendous job throughout high-sided areas where you can still get a signal. As the member for Gippsland mentioned, there are parts of regional Australia where you just do not get phone coverage. That is no-one's fault. The difficulties are in gullies and mountainous areas where you do not get a direct signal. Sometimes the ABC have a signal, and they provide an important service in an emergency. Their messages were loud and clear right across all these areas. I thank them for the work they did. They went into some regions and put out the message, and they talked to people who were affected. Some of the signals did not get through, in some cases because of substandard equipment, particularly in outlying areas where work still needs to be done. We need to continue to work to have those upgraded.

I also want to thank all the Tasmanians who came to help and who donated goods and money, and who volunteered all sorts of things to help out. Some provided help to businesses they compete with—in particular, some of the oyster growers at Boomer Bay who lost their sheds. The other guys helped them get their fish to shore and process it in their sheds. We saw great community spirit in helping out your neighbour.

When we are in crisis in Tasmania, the island pulls together. It is great to see. Many teams who came down to help us have now headed back north and are probably helping out in Queensland. I want to thank all those volunteers from Victoria and other places who came to help us in Tasmania. It was a great effort and I thank them very much. Tasmania is a great place to live. It is not what you have but what you can contribute to others that seems to be the Tasmanian ethos, and that is a wonderful value to have. Thanks to everybody who assisted. I also pay special thanks to the Prime Minister for coming and lending her support to all my communities.

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