Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I join with all senators and, indeed, with all Australians in expressing deepest sympathy and condolences with everybody who is suffering from one of the greatest natural disasters in this nation’s history. Our national poet spoke about the beauty and the terror of this wide brown land. Over the few days since this Senate last sat, the terror has visited those people in Victoria in dimensions that we can scarcely imagine. We know that indescribable horror, terror, loss and human fear have been involved in the events that overtook the people in those small towns and those areas in recent days and that may yet overtake more.

It is in these situations where the greatest aid comes from the humanity and the compassion of this wonderful nation of 21 million people. We back our government and governments at all levels, including the Victorian government, in their ability to deliver aid wherever it is needed as fast as possible. We congratulate and are right behind all those people who are trying to fight and ameliorate the horror of these fires wherever they are in Australia. We are also right behind those who are dealing with the gruesome and horrible job of sifting through the ashes to try to identify people and get news out to loved ones. We are right behind those who are bringing medical aid and assistance to help those who have survived so that, hopefully, they can get their lives back together with our aid as best as humanity can provide. As a nation, we will put everything we can into aiding the people who are now suffering. I know that there is frustration right across the country—everybody wants to help but not everybody can. But we can dig deep into our pockets. We can express our condolences. We can contact those people who do not know what has happened to their loved ones. That is what we are doing here today as best we can.

I support, with all senators, this move to suspend our national parliament as a mark of respect and to put an arm around those who are suffering, even from such a great distance, and to share their suffering in the horrible period they are going through. We will do everything we can as a parliament and as a nation to get aid where it is needed as quickly and for as long as possible, through whatever barriers there may be in our way. I join in support of this motion and will continue to assure the government of every support it needs in going to the aid of the people who have suffered in this tragedy.