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

On indulgence, Mr Speaker: the member for McEwen’s leadership, courage and compassion has made us all proud to be members of this place. Those of us who have seen Fran’s presence in her community could not fail to be moved. She has been a rock of compassion to a community which has been devastated. Her leadership has personified the ideals that all of us should aim to achieve as members of parliament representing our constituents. I thank you, Fran, for what you have done in McEwen and for your remarks here today.

I do not believe that the Prime Minister and I differ very much on any of these issues relating to the bushfires, if at all. He has invited me to raise matters directly with him or with the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. I thank the minister for the opportunity of having a very constructive discussion only on Friday about the vital importance of providing counselling to address what are and will remain significant issues of mental health in those ravaged communities.

We had a very productive and thoughtful meeting with the Hon. Jeff Kennett, whose organisation beyondblue has special and specific expertise in dealing with these issues, and I am delighted that he and the minister are engaging directly. One of the points that Mr Kennett made, which I have passed on and I believe makes great good sense, is that it is important to front-end the investment in these counselling services so that when counsellors are working with people months and perhaps years into the future they will know that those counsellors were with them right at the start when they needed them and have not just shown up later in the day.

We have proposed constructively to the government a number of things on which we wait a response. Firstly, we recommended that the reconstruction authority should have bipartisan parliamentary representation, and we have proposed that the member for McEwen should be appointed to that authority. We all share a concern about the prompt processing of insurance claims. I know the government has had the Assistant Treasurer speak about this, and we have proposed that a special commissioner for disaster insurance should be appointed. We commend that to the government as a special measure. In addition, we have recommended that there be established a joint select committee to review these tragic events and, especially, to take into account the findings of the other recent inquiries. The Prime Minister and I are absolutely at one in recognising that so many valuable recommendations that have been made by inquiries in the past have not been acted upon. Both sides of politics have failed to act on these recommendations. We believe that it is important that, in addition to the Victorian royal commission set up under Mr Bernard Teague, there be a joint select committee of this parliament to investigate these matters and have regard to those many recommendations. We look forward to receiving a response from the government on those recommendations.

I close by saying how pleased I was to see the great attendance, and the warmth, the compassion and the sympathy that was extended, at the service of mourning in Melbourne on Sunday. It was a very moving tribute and it was beautifully done. The Victorian government did well to make that opportunity available for the nation’s grief to be recognised and shared.