Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak this morning on the last sitting day prior to the first anniversary of the horrific Victorian bushfires. On 7 February last year all of us were shocked at the scale of the devastation. I was born in Melbourne, have lived all my life in Melbourne and now live with my family on the edge of the Yarra Valley, and when we saw mushroom clouds of smoke late in the afternoon we all knew that it could only mean one thing. Immediate thoughts went to Ash Wednesday, the last worst reference point for a bushfire. Of course, as difficult as it is to compare, in so many ways it was worse.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you know from the region you represent, in times like this we are shocked at the tragedy, feel sorrow for those devastated by it and are united in our grief but simultaneously we are in awe of the community spirit that is on display in every corner of our community. It is fashionable in some quarters of the media and amongst some commentators to despair at the decline of the community spirit in Australia over recent decades, but sad events like this prove that that is a pessimistic outlook and that the sense of community that has built our local towns and this great country is indeed alive and well, and you see it on display in bucketloads, as we did almost a year ago during those fires.

As all of us in this House said at that time, the rebuilding will take many, many years. We are almost a year on and there is so much to do, but I pay tribute to the spirit of those who worked so hard during the fire and to the spirit of those who have been so affected.