Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently we had terrible storms in South Australia, with some 80,000 lightning strikes and severe blackouts. I was in my house in the Barossa Valley on that night and it was like being thrown back in time, back to candles and the combustion heater. It was very serious weather outside. My thoughts, and those of my South Australian colleagues, go to those who experienced serious incidents during this storm, who lost livestock and pets, and who had property damage. We were very lucky that there was limited damage to people.

I am very grateful to the volunteers and emergency services personnel, particularly the utility workers of SA Power Networks and ElectraNet, who were out there in the middle of the storm, putting back together—in record time and with record efficiency—an electricity network that had gone down. We have to think about the utility workers and we have to think about the State Emergency Service and the Country Fire Service, including the brigade that I am a member of, the Dalkeith brigade. I helped them do some sandbags a couple of days after the storms, while we were waiting for the floods. I have to thank 7 RAR, particularly Bravo Company, and the 1st Combat Service Support Division of the 1st Brigade of the Army, as well as RAAF personnel, A Squadron, No. 3 Security Forces Squadron, at the headquarters. I also thank police officers and ambulance officers, and all those who were out there doing their bit, in a very stoic way, to support the South Australian community in, what was an extreme weather event.

If I have one observation to make, it is that when we have extreme weather events that cause severe disruption to the community then politicians of all shapes and sizes should resist the temptation to jump to conclusions; to engage in partisan debate; and to run out to a Canberra news studio, as some politicians do, to pronounce the cause of these extreme weather events. I think that was entirely regrettable that we were having a debate about these things while the state was, in essence, in a crisis that needed to be managed.

Thank you to all the volunteers and thank you to all those who performed so stoically in the face of what were extreme weather events. And it is a lesson learned for some politicians too.