Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

7 February will become etched in our national memory as a day of disaster, of death and of mourning. This nation has been scarred by natural disasters, disasters that remind us of our tenuous hold on this vast and forbidding land: ‘Her beauty and her terror’, as our nation’s poem reminds us, of this ‘wide brown land’. Except that the land is now black, the earth scorched and the people in mourning. Fire holds a great terror for us all. Its power, its speed, its roar, its relentless destruction, its capricious shifts in course, its want of mercy—all personal stories I have heard from its survivors in recent days. And the numbers just mount and mount: so far 173 deaths, more than 500 injured, nearly 1,000 homes destroyed, thousands now homeless, 365,000 hectares burnt, 25 local government authorities affected and entire towns gone.

Our first response as Australians must be, as it has been, to extend the open hand of friendship, empathy and giving. The people of Victoria are not alone in this disaster because the entire nation is with them, and not just the nation but good people across the world—an expression of our common humanity. In the last day or so I have received calls from President Obama, Prime Minister Brown, President Barroso of the European Union, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the prime ministers of New Zealand and Turkey—our ANZAC brothers. President Obama said that we in Australia should know that the prayers of he, his wife, Michelle, their family, and the American people are with the people of Victoria and the people of Australia today. We have also received messages from others around the world: Andorra, Brazil, China, Cuba, East Timor, France, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, Nauru, Peru, Pakistan, Samoa, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the Solomons, Thailand and others.

Expressions of sympathy have also been accompanied by offers of practical help. France and Japan have made urgent inquiries as to what assistance they might offer. Thailand is proposing a financial donation to the bushfire victims. Indonesia has offered assistance with disaster victim identification. New Zealand has offered a hundred firefighters. Singapore has offered to deploy Super Puma helicopters. The United States Department of the Interior is in discussions with the government of Victoria on the provision of personnel and assistance. We welcome each of these offers of support and these expressions of sympathy from around the world. It is good that they have come. All Victorians and all Australians should know that in this darkest hour they are not alone.

Since Saturday night the Australian government has been working closely with the Victorian government in response to this disaster. The Commonwealth disaster plan has been activated. The Australian Defence Force has established a Victorian based joint task force of more than 450 personnel, under the command of Brigadier Michael Arnold, commander of 4 Brigade. The joint task force, which includes full-time and reserve defence members from Navy, Army and Air Force, has provided tents, stretchers and sleeping bags to accommodate 120 people at the Yea recreation reserve. One hundred and forty soldiers from Puckapunyal are assisting with this task. One hundred and sixty reserve soldiers have been deployed to assist police with search and recovery.

The joint task force has also provided 150 portable beds or mattresses to relief centres in the Baw Baw Shire. This is to enable emergency workers with facilities so that they can get enough rest to continue their tireless work. The task force also includes heavy plant, chainsaw sections and logistics support, which have been assigned to the clean-up task. Graders, bulldozers, front-end loaders and their operators have been asked to assist with fire containment measures, reopening of roads and firefighting measures around Yea and elsewhere.

Defence Force personnel will help build containment lines around Yea, which is still being seriously threatened with fire. Four communications-dedicated armoured personnel carriers have been sent to the town to assist Defence Force engineers and to provide an emergency medical capability if required. The ADF has also been asked to provide aerial imaging of affected areas. This will enable the identification of all residences affected by fire.

Ninety personnel from the Australian Federal Police have also been deployed to help Victoria Police with the investigation and response to the fires, crisis centre operations and general responsibilities. The AFP team comprises some 16 disaster victim identification specialists, 14 members from the AFP Melbourne office to assist with the National Registration and Inquiry System, and 60 from the International Deployment Group’s Operational Response Group. Minister Macklin and I have both conveyed to the Victoria Police that, if any further ADF personnel or AFP personnel are required, they will of course be made immediately available. That will include any assistance required in the investigation into the causes of these fires.

Emergency Management Australia is also providing critical support in coordinating our response across the government and in liaising with the Victorian government agencies. Tony Pearce, Director-General of Emergency Management Australia, has been providing me and my office with written and verbal briefings about the fire situation throughout each day.

The House will be aware that we have made available the Australian government disaster relief payment. This payment is $1,000 per adult and $400 per child for those affected by fires, in order to provide immediate cash help. As honourable members will be aware, people escaping from fires have often arrived simply with the shirts on their backs, if that, and therefore the provision of immediate cash to help get the necessities to get through the next day has been of vital importance. Payments started flowing on Monday. I am advised that, at close of business on 9 February, we had received 2,027 claims, with 427 paid and 1,600 pending. Cash payments were made at Yea, Warragul and Alexandra yesterday.

Other relief and recovery that did not have access to banks will have cash available from today. Indeed, a number of banks have agreed to establish facilities at local recovery centres to make cash payments there and then. Five hundred and ninety-three adults and children have been provided with assistance worth $493,400, and authorities are working to provide further assistance as quickly as is humanly possible.

The government’s National Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements currently apply in 25 local government areas: Alpine, Baw Baw, Cardinia, Corangamite, Greater Bendigo, Hepburn, Horsham, Indigo, Latrobe, Macedon Ranges, Mitchell, Mount Alexander, Murrindindi, Nillumbik, Southern Grampians, Wangaratta, Wellington, West Wimmera, Whittlesea, Yarra Ranges and Lake Mountain Alpine Resort. Today South Gippsland, Greater Dandenong, Casey and Knox were added to the list, and the list continues to grow. NDRRA assistance involves measures to help with those suffering personal hardship and distress assistance: emergency personal hardship grants of $427 per adult, $213 per child and up to a maximum of $1,067 per household, and temporary living and re-establishment grants of up to $8,650.

On Sunday the Commonwealth announced a $10 million contribution to an immediate Community Recovery Fund to assist local communities, small businesses and primary producers. We are currently working with the Victorian government on the specific details for the operation of this fund.

The Commonwealth has also made a $2 million contribution to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal Fund. I understand it currently has received donations of more than $15 million. I urge all Australians to make a contribution to this appeal, and I thank from the bottom of my heart all of those Australians who have dug deep. It is a great testament to what Australians do at times like this.

I announce to the House today that the Victorian government, in partnership with the Commonwealth government, will establish the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority to coordinate bushfire recovery activity across Victoria. The authority will be responsible for coordinating the effort of all local, state and Commonwealth government agencies and the many community organisations involved, aimed at helping communities to recover and to rebuild. The authority will be established under existing state government legislation.

The head of the authority will be the outgoing Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Christine Nixon, who will be responsible to the Premier. A CEO will be appointed. The Premier will be assisted by a ministerial advisory group. The group will include the Commonwealth’s coordinating minister, Minister Macklin. The head of the authority will chair an interagency task force comprising all relevant state and Commonwealth government agencies and local government representatives. The authority will be supported by a dedicated project team with the specialist skills needed for the reconstruction and recovery task. Community input and consultation will be directed through a community reference group.

The Australian government can also announce today further steps to assist the natural disaster affected areas of Victoria and Queensland. The government will provide an additional $5 million for emergency relief for our most recent natural disasters in Victoria and Queensland. This will be provided immediately to church and other non-government organisations working in the field—organisations such as Anglicare, the Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, UnitingCare and others—to help them provide food and other essential supplies to those affected.

For councils in the natural disaster affected areas, the Australian government will allow them the opportunity to reprioritise their projects under the government’s $250 million Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program to better meet their needs. These councils will be notified of this change in program today. In order to assist fire affected Victorian local governments and flood affected Queensland local governments, I have asked that the payments for the local government financial assistance grants also be accelerated. As a result, the final payment for the 2008-09 financial year, which is due on 15 May 2009, will be brought forward to 23 February 2009. All Victorian and Queensland councils, including those affected by the current emergency, will receive these advance payments. This will provide fire affected councils with an immediate injection of funds to ensure that recovery can commence immediately. These funds are untied and can be spent on local priorities determined by individual councils. These priorities will vary from council to council depending on the individual circumstances of the council and the impacts of this terrible disaster. For example, Murrindindi Shire Council has lost about one quarter of its houses. This has affected its rates base and consequently its ongoing cash flow. In addition, the Commonwealth Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government will consult with all affected councils and communities in Victoria and Queensland to determine the immediate and long-term needs of their communities.

The government today will also put in place an income support recovery assistance program for individuals who have lost their primary source of income, including small businesses and farmers, as a direct result of the Victorian fires and the floods in Queensland. This assistance will be in the form of an ex-gratia Newstart-like payment up to the maximum amount of Newstart for a period of 13 weeks, to be extended if necessary. The Australian government through Medicare and Centrelink will also work with the Victorian government to assist individuals to re-establish their identity for those who have lost licences and other proof of identity. When you meet personally the victims of this extraordinary disaster, the desperation is compounded for those who have lost every form of establishing who they are. It is something which, unless you have experienced it, is beyond imagining. It is not just the loss of memories and photos and entire family histories; it is the loss of the certification of who you are and your legal personality. So we will provide the resources necessary through Centrelink and other agencies to assist in the immediate provision of necessary means of identification for people to begin the difficult and long task of establishing anything approaching a normal life.

Job seekers in the affected areas of Victoria and Queensland who volunteer to help with the clean-up and recovery efforts or who live in locations where job opportunities have effectively been destroyed will not be asked to look for work for a period. Job seekers who have been personally impacted by the tragedy will also be subject to a waiver of compliance obligation for a period of time. The Australian government will also enter into negotiations with the Victorian and Queensland governments to establish a farming and small business assistance fund. Businesses in affected regions will be able to apply for capital grants to purchase or replace premises, machinery or other capital needs.

The Australian government’s $6.4 billion social housing fund, announced as part of the nation building plan recently, will be available to state governments responding to social housing needs in disaster affected areas. The government of Victoria will be able to draw on its estimated $1.5 billion share of the social housing fund to assist families in need as a result of the Victorian bushfires. The government of Queensland will similarly be able to draw on its estimated $1.3 billion share of this fund to meet the needs of those affected by flooding in North Queensland.

In dealing with the reconstruction and repair of schools in disaster affected areas, the Australian government will make funds available from the $14.7 billion Building the Education Revolution program. The Victorian government will be able to give priority to construction of school infrastructure in communities affected by bushfires. The Queensland government will also be able to give priority to repairs and upgrades of those schools that have been damaged by flooding in North Queensland.

This is the start of dealing with the tragedy that has unfolded in both of the states. The Australian government stands ready to assist, in any other possible way, our fellow Australians in rebuilding their lives. Given the magnitude of this tragedy, we have deliberately made the decision to place no cap on the Commonwealth’s contribution to the recovery and reconstruction effort. This government will be a partner for the long term in the rebuilding of each of the communities.

As members of the House will be aware, it is important that all facts concerning this extraordinary natural disaster are made known. The government will provide all assistance we can to the royal commission that has been announced by the Victorian Premier. As the House will be aware, the royal commission will be examining all aspects of the Victorian government’s bushfire strategy and, as the Premier has said, everything will be on the table. We must do all that is possible through this commission so that we properly prepare for the future. We await the deliberations of that commission and its subsequent findings.

While the Victorian firestorm has been unleashed on the good people of so many communities in that state, floods have been ravaging towns in the north of our country. As was announced yesterday, the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy, Dr Emerson, has gone to North Queensland to ensure that funds flow quickly to flood victims and to coordinate the Commonwealth’s contribution to the relief effort there. Dr Emerson will be giving all possible support to local staff, who are doing a highly professional job, and ensuring that any necessary decisions can be made quickly.

Yesterday the minister met with Centrelink and the Queensland Department of Communities in Townsville. He was advised that Centrelink payments of $1,000 per eligible adult and $400 per child are flowing to victims. The payments are for people who have been seriously injured or whose home has been destroyed, significantly damaged or inaccessible for more than 48 hours. So far, 600 claims have been received.

This morning the minister was briefed by the Director-General of the Department of Emergency Services, Queensland, and today the minister is meeting with Commonwealth and state officers, relief staff and local residents in Ingham, where the road is now open to four-wheel drive vehicles for the first time in a week. Today 20 Centrelink staff have travelled to Ingham to join those already on the ground. In Ingham, 3,000 homes have been affected, with 90 per cent of businesses still closed. The town of Halifax is still isolated and supplies are getting in by helicopter. The government also continues to closely monitor the unfolding events in North Queensland.

In recent days the nation has observed a legion of heroes at work. The work of our emergency services workers; the CFA, the Country Fire Authority, of Victoria; and all those country fire authorities which have come from across the country to support their brothers and sisters in arms in dealing with their common enemy is testament to the enormous spirit of country fire authorities across Australia. Their courage has been remarked upon in recent days and, having heard some of the stories firsthand, theirs will again be the stuff of legend. Workers with the CFA, the police, the SES, ambulance, those working in hospitals and those with the extraordinary and delicate task of working in the burns units of hospitals all deserve our utmost respect and commendation from this, the parliament of the nation, and so they receive it.

In each of the centres also there is the army of volunteers: the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and others who materialise in a way best known only to God at times like this, helped, I am sure, by extraordinary feats of organisation and by those good ladies—invariably good ladies but not always—and some men as well who are there in an instant to make it work. It is a rolling miracle of the Australian volunteer community and the church and charitable sector that this great army of people immediately comes and is there, without complaint, without request for anything in particular, prepared, sleeves rolled up, quietly, effectively, assiduously doing their job. In each centre I visited yesterday and the day before, in Yea, Whittlesea and Alexandra and also other centres, this army of volunteers was working quietly and effectively.

In one centre I visited I saw literally acres of bedding, provided by local shops and local families, ready to be made available to those who now have nothing. Entire gymnasiums full of clothing, including kids’ clothing, toys, bedding, and anything else that you might need to start up a household, all materialised within a day or two of the ask going out. That is an extraordinary testament to those communities, an extraordinary testament to the church, charitable and community organisations which have made the physical organisation of it possible.

We are left speechless at the thought and the possibility that some of these fires may have been deliberately lit. Every member of this House cannot comprehend how anyone could ever do that. Something which the nation must now attend to, as a matter of grave urgency, is the problem of arson: where it happens, why it happens and what more can be done about it. There is no excuse for this—none at all. This, as I said yesterday, is simply murder on a grand scale. Let us attend to this unfinished business of the nation and come to grips with this evil thing.

The fires continue and, as we assemble here in the nation’s parliament today to reflect on what has happened in days past and on the acts of heroism and the experience of tragedy, let each one of us remember that they are all still in the field today in so many different parts of Australia—in Victoria, in New South Wales and elsewhere—fighting the great elements of nature which bear down on communities. We salute each one of them.

We also, as we gather here today, reflect on the lives and families which are now permanently shattered. This is an unspeakable horror for those families. The ability to recover from events of such extraordinary trauma will be sorely tested in the days, weeks and years ahead. One of the things that Jenny Macklin, the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, has been determined to do is to ensure that we have a sufficient availability of counsellors in the field now—counsellors for the families who are now bereaved, counsellors for those whose friends and neighbours have perished or have seen their friends and neighbours perish. The trauma of scarred and blackened vehicles along the road to Marysville, which I saw yesterday, the trauma also of Country Fire Authority personnel who have confronted this firsthand and the police and emergency services personnel dealing with the aftermath: the physicality and the emotional scar of trauma reaches deep into people. This is a much-needed and necessary area of work to be done, and done as well as possible, in the days ahead.

We do not know what lies ahead. What I have outlined to the House today is our response to date. Let us all work with governments at all levels and with all communities and community organisations of goodwill to deal with each challenge as it presents itself. I say to the country at large that, whatever community you are from, if it has been rendered to ashes, if it has been destroyed, together we will rebuild each of these communities—hear this from the government and the parliament of the nation. This will take time. It will take effort.

Yesterday I sat in the community hall at Alexandra and spoke with a lady of a certain age who was the town’s local historian—the town in question being Marysville. She asked this question of me: ‘What is it to be the town historian of a town that is no more?’ She said that this year the town was about to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its historical society—would there be a 50th? I told her on behalf of the government and, I believe, the parliament that there would be—that this town and others like it would be rebuilt, brick by brick, school by school, community hall by community hall. That must underpin our long-term resolve as a government, as a parliament and as a nation—to be there with these communities not just in the trying and difficult days and weeks which lie ahead but in the arduous task of the months and years that lie ahead until, one day, we can look back before too much time has gone and say, ‘These towns, these communities, have been reborn.’

I have read the contributions to this debate yesterday from many members on both sides of the House. I thank them for those contributions. I acknowledge the contribution of individual members of parliament, some of whom—understandably—are still not with us today but are attending to their local communities. I sought to speak to a number of those members during the course of yesterday.

We have a large task ahead of us and it will be uneven in the recovery—that is the nature of things. But let us resolve clearly, in full witness of the nation at large, that this will be our common resolve: to rebuild each of these communities so that these communities can live again.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members—Hear, hear!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, Mr Speaker: on behalf of the opposition, I thank the Prime Minister for his remarks and commend both the Australian and Victorian governments on their immediate response. We welcome the establishment of the royal commission and the new federal-state reconstruction authority. We restate our commitment to do whatever it takes to put these communities back on their feet and we encourage the government to address the relief of these communities in specific legislation separate from other measures.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, Mr Speaker.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member has every right to speak to this motion. The member for McMillan has our support.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to identify, of course, with the remarks of the Prime Minister and thank him for his call of concern to my electorate, through me; it was passed on to my electorate. Prime Minister, I believe you were where you should have been these last two days—you were at the front in Victoria with the Premier and with Ted Baillieu, doing what we would have expected of you, and I thank you for that.

When Ivan Smith’s face came on my television on Saturday afternoon—he was my district group officer during the Ash Wednesday bushfire—I knew we were in trouble. He is a very experienced incident controller. I knew that the fire was out of the Bunyip Ridge state forests and on the move. I was immediately drawn back to that day at Beaconsfield when my team was pulled from the fire 15 minutes before the crews that went in before us died. I was immediately reminded of the next day, heading with my crew and my truck up to Upper Pakenham. I had the best driver I knew in the town, Greg Atkins, a great team and a good truck, but I was wondering one thing: will I bring these people home? I know that goes through the minds of the Ivan Smiths and the Peter Schmidts—Peter Schmidt gave us a briefing yesterday—and the Brian Petries. They are all over this great southland, these people. Their names you do not know—they are just men and women who do their jobs extremely well.

It was hard coming in here yesterday, when the call came out from Churchill in Darren Chester’s electorate. We had fires last week near there and we had fires coming through there last night. The word was that it was too late to leave. The fear rips you when you know that one of the communities in your electorate—it was in my electorate; it is now in Darren’s electorate—has a fire fronting the homes. These are urban country areas where a fire is drifting through and then coming on at a rate about which the CFA is saying that it is too late to leave. When I was at Warragul on Sunday at the refuge centre, my friend Gary Blackwood, the member for Narracan, said, ‘I have just spoken to my mate. They stayed to defend the house. They expected the ember attack and then the fire front to go through. But instead of that, two lines of flame came at them, straight out of the scrub. They hit the shed wall and went straight up the shed wall, across the shed roof, down to the floor, across the ground and into the house, and the house blew up.’ This was in a matter of seconds. They were ready for everything, and they were mentally prepared too. The awesome fury of the fire coming out of the Bunyip state forest just before it broke into open ground ripped out a 200-foot mountain ash, threw it into the air and dropped it on the ground as if it were a twig. The awesome fury of this fire cannot be comprehended by the thinking of any reasonable person.

I say to the Deputy Prime Minister: thank you for your address yesterday. It may be looked back on as one of the most important addresses you have ever made to this House. To the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition: you identified with the broken-hearted, with the wounded spirits, with the loss, the grieving and the terrible unprecedented trauma that is being experienced right now. I know there are people who will wake every morning believing that it was all a dream; that it did not happen. And then they will realise it was not a dream and they will cry and they will cry again. Deputy Prime Minister, you identified with every man and woman right across Australia. More importantly, as I stood in my kitchen listening while you stood together as one in this House on behalf of all of those people, that was a proud moment for me because you all identified with what the others had just said. The people of Australia knew that each one of you stood as one with them. It is not just about David Hawker, John Forrest, Sophie Mirabella, Tony Smith, Jason Wood, Darren Cheeseman, Steve Gibbons—and Fran Bailey: I do not know how that woman is standing on her feet. I have known her since 1984 and she is tough as guts, and I know she is out there now doing what she can in her area, which has been so badly affected. Not just those I mentioned but all of you—many from New South Wales—have people who will be investing in the work that will need to be done over time. The six degrees of separation is a lot closer in Australia. I also do not want to leave out mentioning the Treasurer and his remarks yesterday in regard to these fires.

The Bunyip Ridge fire was an incendiary device sitting for four days waiting for the north wind. To give a bit of an outline for those who do not know where McMillan is, we are in Gippsland. If you imagine Melbourne and East Gippsland, it is around the centre, near the Great Dividing Range, Mount Baw Baw—that area. Bunyip Ridge is closer to Melbourne, sitting up there. I will not say how the fire started, but four fires went up at the one time on the one road way back in the forest. That fire sat there against as much effort as the DSE could put into it for that time, and we knew about it and we had a plan for it. We have fought many fires in that area. It was going to come out of the forest and it was going to come out on Saturday. We knew about what time it was going to come out, we knew where it was going to go and we knew what the worst case scenario was.

I paint that picture for you of where Bunyip is. Just to the east of that, you then have Noojee and Walhalla, where there are five fires burning. Way to the east, we have the Dargo fire. Behind us, we have the Churchill fire, which is just coming up again through increased wind right across Victoria. I paint that picture because there is also the Healesville fire closer to the north of Melbourne. What we are looking at is a fire that we are in and managing today, and each one of us in this room who has identified with the Australian community are all in this fire in Victoria today. And the worst case scenario is that if we do not have rain, those fires will join together. The Bunyip Ridge fire has a 21-kilometre front at the moment. That is going north by one kilometre. In the worst case, the Healesville fire will join the Bunyip Ridge fire and the Noojee fires. I dare say, Prime Minister, that you have had the same briefing that I have. Therefore, if a northerly wind changes, we are then threatened all the way to the south from that fire. Those of you who have experienced the weather patterns that have been going on in Victoria recently will know that there have been hot days and then cool changes which hit hard and will go for an hour. That is how the great damage of Ash Wednesday and the incredible damage of yesterday was done. That is the situation we face today.

There are things we can do, but I want to pay tribute to the ABC: to Gerard Callinan and his team at the ABC at Gippsland. For those of you who were listening to channel 774 and getting all the information that you needed, how important are they to us and how important are they to every individual? I heard one man say how important it was: ‘Just to hear a voice in my house. I have nothing else. I am staying here to protect.’ I know how people felt on Saturday afternoon. I changed into my boots, my woollen socks, my cotton jeans and my pure cotton top, and I got my overalls ready and went outside and picked up the hose that was going to protect us. I turned it on and it blew straight back over my head and I knew then that what I was facing was nothing that we could normally do something about in our household. So I put it down and went back inside and said to Bronwyn, ‘Get the dog, get the bucket, put it in the car. The moment we see anything go up to our north, we move.’ There are many working in our community today who are still traumatised by what happened on Ash Wednesday. We are going to need every resource that this government and this parliament together can muster to respond to what has happened, what is happening and what is ahead of us. I know that you will do that as one.

Our firemen have been terrific and they are tired, but there are those who work in the back room. If you are a person anywhere in Australia who has experience in logistics, resource management or fire planning and you have not come forward yet, please come forward. And if you are someone who in the future might like to be trained in that area, these are the men and the women who have been working behind the scenes: in administration, catering—normal things that are not on the front page of the paper. But they are equally important as those who are on the fire front.

To those who pray, I say: pray now; do not leave it until next Sunday. To those who fight, I say: all strength to your arm; stay safe. To those who serve, I say: we in this parliament stand with you as one. There was a note from somebody else today that I read in all the information that comes through, but I added to it. In times such as these of unprecedented trauma when faced with an inescapable disaster from a near indestructible force, all we can rely on is each other. Sadly, as the Prime Minister has described today, there are so many who cannot even do that.

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a Victorian member of this House who represents that part of outer eastern Melbourne and the Yarra Valley that adjoins the McEwen electorate of Fran Bailey, I want to associate myself with all of the speakers on the motion moved by the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, with the words of the Prime Minister, with all those who spoke yesterday and with the moving words we have just heard from the member for McMillan.

We are united in our sorrow for the families who are grieving. We are shocked at the scale of the tragedy. We are, as previous speakers have said, in total awe of the volunteers and the emergency service workers. We are proud of the community spirit that we are seeing and that we have seen in tragedies in the past. As the Prime Minister indicated and the member for McMillan reiterated, we are still coming to terms with a horror that is growing and a nightmare that is not over.

I thank all of the CFAs from across Casey and McEwen. As you can imagine, they work very closely together and, as we speak and meet here in this House, they are fighting the fires in and around Yarra Glen and Healesville. I thank all of the CFAs from across Victoria and the volunteer firefighters from right around Australia. Together with the police and emergency services, as the Prime Minister indicated, even the most hardened and experienced of police and emergency service workers are seeing things they have never seen in their careers. I thank the staff of the Shire of Yarra Ranges, led by the mayor, Len Cox, and the chief executive officer, Glenn Patterson, who are working around the clock.

I spoke to Fran Bailey earlier. She asked me, in speaking today, to pass on her thanks to all of you who have left messages for her. She has passed the messages on to her constituents on behalf of all 150 of us here in this House, who represent each corner of Australia. As you know, Fran’s office and her home are in Healesville, which today has fire close by on the doorstep, and so that she can keep working she has moved herself and her office down to my office, a little further down on the Maroondah Highway in Chirnside Park.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke yesterday of the accounts he had heard on the ground about the sheer speed and ferocity of the fire. My wife and I and our young sons live right on the gateway to the Yarra Valley, up on a hill on the edge of Chirnside Park and Lilydale. For so many Melburnians, when we saw the mushroom cloud of black and grey erupting over Kinglake on Saturday afternoon, then the wind change and gale force winds, followed by a deadly symphony of fires starting off along the Melba Highway at Dixons Creek and Steels Creek and into Yarra Glen, followed by spot fires and fires started by lightning, the sheer scale of it was beyond comprehension.

As a Victorian member I know—and other Victorian members would agree—that most Melburnians can see the Yarra Valley mountains and the Dandenong Ranges from where they work and live, and when smoke rose from the Yarra Valley late on Saturday afternoon most feared what it might mean. Most instinctively thought of Ash Wednesday—our worst reference point. That we have awoken to and, as we need to keep reminding ourselves, are still in the midst of something more horrific naturally strains our human capacity to comprehend.

Many Victorian members know well the country towns we have been reading and talking about—towns like Marysville, Kinglake and Flowerdale—because we have been to them on school camps or day trips. We have driven along the roads that became death traps. We have played footy or cricket there. All of us in this House and all Australians know these towns and these people, because the community spirit which built them, which has sustained them and which will rebuild them is alive in every Australian in every town.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking in support of this motion, I am very, very saddened in lots of ways but I am heartened by the deep sense of subduedness amongst the 150 of us here. I say to each and every one of you: we must use the energy that has been generated amongst us these last two days to finally do something constructive about preventing disasters like the one which confronts Victoria. Although with nowhere near the same death toll, this has happened before.

The electorate of Mallee is not unfamiliar with bushfire. The two distinct regions of the electorate are the north, which is the regional area of Mallee itself, and the south, which is the Wimmera. Much of the electorate is bush and national park. Bushfire watch starts usually around late October, mid-November in those national parks, with fire spotters in the air. Fires are started mostly by lightning but occasionally by arson. In the Wimmera are the Little Desert and Big Desert regions, which are often threatened, but never before have we had the threat in the suburbs.

There was a fire in Horsham but my electorate has not had the fatalities that my colleagues have had and spoken of right across Victoria—although one member of the public was badly burned while attempting to help his neighbour release stock locked into a paddock—so in a way we can say we have been spared. But eight families have lost their dwellings, a commercial trucking company has lost its entire industrial building—although thankfully it managed to save its fleet of trucks—and the prestigious Horsham Golf Club is in ruins. Horsham Golf Club involved massive investment and was mostly community funded. It was a building that the community was proud of and that hosted international events, but it now looks like an atomic blast has gone through it. Other members have spoken about the terror that people have endured across Victoria. I was impressed with the explanation of the member for Bendigo yesterday, relayed in terms of what his constituents have been reporting to him as the sheer terror of the Australian bushfire.

There is a part of this debate that is bothering me, being trained as an engineer. I remember from engineering school at university that there is no engineering solution to confronting a eucalyptus-fuelled Australian bushfire. Seemingly nature has created this wonderful environment, which other members have spoken of, that is designed to burn occasionally. It is an enigma, isn’t it? Eucalyptus oil is a volatile oil. It does not just start to burn when the intensity of the fire reaches 600 degrees but rather ignites and explodes like a bomb. People who have had the frightening experience of being near an Australian bushfire explain that it comes like a speeding train. It comes at temperatures that are unbearable to the human body. The body of the fire itself can reach temperatures in excess of 900 to 1,000 degrees—temperatures that melt the aluminium alloys in the gearboxes of motor cars. Others have said there must be an engineering solution to building buildings that can withstand such a terror but, other than a concrete nuclear bunker, there is not.

As tough as it is for the families in my constituency who have lost their homes, they are ringing my office wanting to help somewhere else in Victoria, which is a credit to their incredible Australianness. Receiving calls like that makes us feel good about being Aussies, with that wonderful spirit of common humanity. The Prime Minister rang me on Sunday morning, and I really valued that call and made the Mayor of the Horsham Rural City Council, Councillor Bernard Gross, aware of it. It provided a great deal of reassurance and, through the Speaker, I thank you, Prime Minister, for it. When people have called me they have asked for suggestions about what could be done to assist. I think I was still in some level of shock when responding, but I said that there is the immediate term and then there is the long-term reconstruction and that, in the immediate term, we need to get social support in there as quickly as we can. Another thing that I said was that we must find a way to express our appreciation to the Australian volunteers who put their own lives at risk and stick their necks out for their fellow Australians. My own baby brother has just joined a Sunraysia CFA task force. They were in Kinglake last night and over the next few days may well front the maelstrom that the member for McMillan described to us.

Another thing that this crisis has made me realise is how small a community we are as Australians. There might be only 20-odd million of us, but everybody knows somebody affected by what has happened in the last three or four days—a friend of a friend, a relative—and people have tried to support those who still do not know where their loved ones are, and there is a long list of those people.

Getting back to the engineering, I need to correct the record in regard to the Horsham fire. The member for Wannon generously embraced my constituents in his remarks yesterday. Both he and I had been advised that the Horsham fire was a result of arson. The fire forensics have subsequently identified that, while that was suspected, that was not the case. The Horsham fire commenced at a faulty power pole. For decades this has been an issue. I can remember that as a young child there were helicopters that flew over power lines and that occasionally would spray the dust off an insulator before moving on to the next pole as they conducted inspections. There are things that stick in your mind and stay with you forever. My late father had an Irish friend who said, ‘What a terrible waste of good alcohol.’ He made that assumption because alcohol is used to defrost insulators in alpine areas. But it is a silicon solution that is used to dedust transmission lines in dusty regions. In a faulty insulator an arc can form and, when it has a wooden cross arm, it feeds a fire. The sparks fall to the ground. Time and time again this has been identified as a source of these terrible fires. Colleagues and friends, we must find a way to energise ourselves and use the strong sense of humanity that we have been feeling in this place in the last two days to do something about it. We have to provide assistance to power authorities to replace those timber cross arms with steel. It is a readily available engineering solution. Sure, there is a cost involved, but we need to find the resources to achieve that.

My other anxiety is about what those families who have survived must be going through, especially those who still have not been able to locate loved ones. What must they be going through? Many members have stood and offered their prayers and thoughts. We do this as human beings; we offer our prayerful support. For some of us, that thought and sentiment comes out of our common humanity. Sometimes it comes out of a strong position of faith. My prayer since Saturday has been that somehow those persons concerned can find the strength to address the deep cavity that they feel in their hearts having lost a precious loved one and their property. My prayer is that somehow they will find the courage to build again. My other prayer is that they will be inspired to do that by the overwhelming support that is coming from their Australian friends right across the nation.

I was pleased, Prime Minister, that you have announced some level of coordination of the voluntary aid effort. My office has now moved on to receiving calls from people who want to offer a truck to cart some blankets down. All they are asking is for perhaps the fuel to be picked up. Others are offering hay. I am not really sure what the demand is for stock and fodder in the east of Victoria, but I would like an opportunity to be able to direct those people to a central point. I ask you to take that on board.

I will just finished by reinforcing the remarks made yesterday and today, especially for those who do not know where their loved ones have ended up. The brutal reality is that, with the temperature of these fires, they may never know.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mark of respect, I invite honourable members to rise in their places.

Honourable members having stood in their places—

I thank the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.