Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the:

(a) devastating impact of the Victorian bushfire emergencies on regional communities;

(b) tireless work of volunteer firefighters and emergency service personnel who put themselves in danger to keep the community safe; and

(c) long-term recovery effort faced by the impacted areas to get back on their feet;

(2) notes that the:

(a) Victorian State Government is failing to properly manage public land by inadequately carrying out fuel load reducing planned burns which mitigate the bushfire risk;

(b) Victorian State Government has not learned the lessons from previous bushfires and is failing to keep people safe; and

(c) shutdown of the sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria has limited the capacity to fight bushfires in the state; and

(3) urges the Commonwealth Government to:

(a) support those who have lost their homes and livelihoods;

(b) recognise the need to mitigate the bushfire risk to regional communities through planned burns;

(c) ensure Australia has the sovereign capability to fight bushfires; and

(d) co-ordinate a national response to bushfire emergencies when they occur.

Last month in my electorate, but also, predominantly, in the electorate of the member for Indi, catastrophic bushfires tore through communities, farmland and bushland. In the area of Longwood, which is a small town and a very proud community situated just off the Hume Freeway, the main road between Melbourne and Sydney, a fire started, and the north-westerly winds pushed it into the bushland and farmland. Over 140,000 hectares were burnt, including the communities of Ruffy and Gooram. The Yarroweyah fires also happened on a similar day, in the same heat event, in the north of Victoria. Yarroweyah is just south of the Murray River. Again, strong winds and hot temperatures pushed this bushfire catastrophe along the roadside, destroying some 10 to 12 houses.

When you go out and have a look at the situation after the fire has gone through, you can notice one thing very clearly, and that is that, however the fire started—and there's a lot of speculation that it was sparks coming from vehicles on the road—it followed the path of the fuel load on the side of the road. This fuel load appears to locals not to have been managed in the way it should have been. You can see, particularly on the Benalla-Tocumwal Road, that as that wind from the north pushed it to the south the roadside fuel load and vegetation was the conduit for the fire and pushed it. It would go towards any dry paddock and, tragically, destroyed 10 to 12 houses.

The CFA recommend that, for catastrophic fire events, the roadside vegetation, dry grass, should not be higher than 10 centimetres. The CFA volunteers have observed that it was higher than 10 centimetres. It's very important that we learn from this and that, particularly, the Victorian government understands it has a responsibility to manage that roadside fuel load. Now, we don't know whether it would have stopped this fire completely, but among those in the know the CFA volunteer group's Brad Marson has said that this makes the situation hazardous and fires a lot harder to suppress.

A lot of damage has been done, particularly in the shire of Strathbogie, which is where Longwood and the towns of Euroa and Ruffy and a number of other places are. It's critically important that the federal government come to the party and help this community and this shire, which has a very low rate base, rebuild its roads, bridges, culverts and community infrastructure, such as town halls and playgrounds, to give just some examples. The reason that this community is a bit desperate to try and get the Albanese government's attention on this is that they had a bridge that was damaged in the 2022 floods, called Kirwans Bridge. They have applied to every program they can think of to try and get that bridge funded. It'll take $7 million to get that bridge, which connects two communities, funded for the repair after the 2022 floods. At every point, the Albanese government has refused to fund it. So they're looking at a backlog of infrastructure funding from the previous disaster, and now they've had another disaster—the fires—and they're worried that the federal government is not interested.

On a more positive note, I do want to commend the CFA volunteers, who, with their bravery, courage and professionalism, went out and fought these fires and saved a great number of dwellings and a great amount of farmland from being destroyed. I also want to pay tribute to the member for Gippsland and my National Party state colleague Annabelle Cleeland, who is the member for Euroa. What she has done for her community in the aftermath of this fire, despite being personally affected herself, has been amazing and shows the community spirit and what a great local member could do. I also want to give a shout-out to the professionalism of Kestrel Aviation, which is located in Mangalore in my electorate. Their work with their helicopters put out many fires. I encourage the government to continue to fund those sorts of fire emergency services.

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