David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to say thank you to the Wingham BlazeAid team, who, last week, closed camp. I need to give special mention to the camp coordinators, John and Christine Male and Ian Hoy, who've been there since the beginning, on 18 November 2019. The camp remained open for 378 days and saw 965 volunteers give their time to mend fences and carry out associated works across 522 properties. Across the Manning Valley, 262 kilometres of fencing was installed. Surprisingly, the average age of the volunteers at the Wingham camp was 44 years, in contrast with previous fires and BlazeAid camps when it was 20 years older, and that was a result of changes that the government made to backpacker conditions. John, Chris and Ian experienced a major influx of keen and eager young backpackers who left the city to come and help in the bush. They were provided with shelter, breakfast and a two-course dinner each day.

The team was inspired by the resilience of our primary producers, pretty much all of whom are pastoralists. Fencing is important and much of it was damaged by the bushfires, which left a huge scar through the Manning and Hastings valleys in late November 2019. So BlazeAid were really amazing. Christine has asked that I give special mention to the Wingham business community, who welcomed them to their area.