Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too join my Senate colleagues and colleagues in the other place in offering my condolences to every Australian who has been impacted by the bushfires in recent months. This morning, I attended the ecumenical service to commemorate the commencement of parliament for the year 2020, and we prayed for those grieving loved ones and those whose lives have been turned upside down. To those who have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their businesses and their possessions: I am deeply sad that you have been forced to live through this awful experience and I do hope that your recovery is swift.

Watching the devastation sweep through across the southern and eastern parts of Australia and hearing the stories of terror from those who have experienced the raging flames firsthand has been nothing short of heartbreaking. For many weeks, our news has been filled with horrifying descriptions of the fires. On Monday 30 December in East Gippsland, locals stopped to take pictures of a tower of smoke rising 12 kilometres into the sky—a black, acrid bloom that had the power to generate its own weather system. The next day, a ferocious blaze whipped through Mallacoota on Victoria's eastern coast. One eyewitness account described 30-metre flames. There were sounds of explosions. Homes were alight. Flaming red skies were followed by the dark of night in the middle of the day. Families were taking shelter—eyes stinging, throats burning. It was a struggle simply to breathe.

When those who had evacuated eventually returned, they found that their windows had melted and formed hardened puddles of glass, cutlery had been welded together and garden rocks had split from the heat. One television news report showed a silvery snake of aluminium and steel that had made its way from a vehicle parked metres away and was dripping down the side of a gentle slope and re-forming as a shiny, hard trickle.

We have heard the disturbing reports of wildlife loss—millions upon millions of helpless animals unable to flee their habitats fast enough to escape the flames. There have been koalas so desperately thirsty that these shy and sleepy creatures were willingly drinking from human hands. But our news reports have also been filled with remarkable stories of the human spirit, of the Australian spirit.

The staff of our emergency services continue to inspire us with their bravery and fortitude. They have been joined in their work to make the community as safe as possible by thousands of volunteer firefighters. They have been battling bushfires for months now in Victoria, over the border in New South Wales and in South Australia. I recognise them for their extraordinary service.

Community organisations—such as Lions, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Rotary and countless others—have established and staffed evacuation and relief centres. I want to recognise and thank every single volunteer who has made a contribution. But there are a number of remarkable stories that have not made it into the news quite so widely, and I'd like to share a few of them today. Very early on in January, a group of former service men and women from the Hawthorn Returned Services League and a handful of other sub-branches formed Operation Veteran Assist, a community based and veteran led response to the bushfire crisis. They commenced work in Gippsland in my home state of Victoria. It was born out of an email sent on New Year's Day from a veteran to a few mates saying, 'We have to do something.' Seven days later, Operation Veteran Assist was ready to go, with gear and personnel. By the 11th day of January, 125 veterans were in Bruthen and helping to clear the properties of fellow veterans who had lost everything in the bushfires.

During their work the volunteers in the operation assisted serving Defence Force personnel, helping the Royal Australian Navy conduct evacuations, the Royal Australian Air Force to get much-needed supplies to bushfire affected communities and the Australian Army with a range of tasks that it had been undertaking in Gippsland. They helped a local brewery to clean up and get back in production. They assisted a dairy farmer, felling trees and clearing up around his land. In one case a team from the operation helped a CFA volunteer firefighter who'd lost his home, clearing up his property.

Although they came from as far afield as Darwin, Cairns and Tamworth, these veterans and community volunteers were not paid. They were often not supplied with food or equipment. Mostly, they brought their own. They got stuck into work using their own resources, finding their own meals and sleeping arrangements and paying for their own fuel, water and even toilet paper in some instances. Donations from the RSL Victoria and others helped make their work possible. On social media, countless individuals shared their experience with the team, it having delivered 4,000 litres of water, 1,000 litres of diesel and a load of livestock feed to the communities past Bairnsdale. One individual summed up this Australian spirit. He said: 'We can do a lot of good for our mates and locals who are just as affected. Roll up your sleeves, lads, and let's get a little dirt under our fingernails to help this community out.'

It really is true that from little things big things grow. From one veteran to hundreds of volunteers on the ground, Operation Veteran Assist really did grow into a remarkable veteran led community organisation in a matter of days. I'm honoured to place on the record of the Australian Senate my grateful thanks to this organisation and the many volunteers and veterans who made this program possible. In particular, special acknowledgement must go to Operation Veteran Assist's leader and organiser, Dave Petersen, for initiating the program and to Hawthorn RSL, led by their president, Lucas Moon, for supporting Dave and his team.

As we all know, the Defence Force was deployed to Mallacoota to assist those who were unable to evacuate before the first fires hit. Those personnel did a fine job and should be acknowledged for their calm and well-coordinated evacuation of Mallacoota and its residents. However, what is not known is the role that the merchant seafarers played in assisting the people of Mallacoota prior to the arrival of Defence assets. Australian and New Zealander seafarers on the merchant ship Far Saracen were the first to arrive in Mallacoota. They went out of their way to provide support to the local police and to the community. Importantly, with them they also brought many supplies. The diesel they delivered helped power generators and kept CFA trucks and vehicles moving. The food and water that they delivered was received by the crowd of people stranded on the beach, taking shelter under woollen blankets to protect them from embers and wondering where their next meal would be coming from.

The merchant seafarers, along with the civilian seafarers onboard the Navy training vessel MV Sycamore, supply ship Far Senator and numerous others, deserve formal recognition for the role that they played in assisting a community of people who were stranded, cut off from the rest of the country and in urgent need of relief. Australian seafarers delivered 17 tonnes of water in just three hours, one pallet at a time—an absolutely extraordinary effort. They join a long and distinguished line of seafarers who have made significant contributions to our nation in times of war, peace and crisis.

I also want to place on the record my thanks to the many timber workers in Victoria who have helped to combat fires in a very practical way. They've put their lives on the line to support firefighters in country Victoria. Timber workers have been out there with their tractors and equipment clearing containment lines in shockingly dangerous conditions, surrounded by thick, black smoke and smouldering trees still glowing red from the recent fires. In the aftermath, these timber workers have again used their equipment and expertise to professionally remove dangerous trees and items to make sure that local residents can be safe in their communities and homes. The Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning sent these workers from Morwell to Tallangatta to help open up local roads—a potentially dangerous project, given the steep country, that could last several months, not to mention the amount of trees that have fallen on many of these roads. And some of them have even been delivering food and feed to many farmers and stock in East Gippsland, giving up time with their families to do so. It is right that this Senate recognise and thank these workers for the contributions that they are making to the firefighting and recovery effort in Victoria. They have supported us, so we should support them.

I am pleased to see that the Commonwealth government has established a royal commission into the bushfires in Australia. It is clear to me and many others in this place that there are significant issues in both addressing and preventing disastrous bushfire events like what we have seen in recent months. It is deeply concerning to look back and know that dozens of experienced fire experts have been trying to share their knowledge and warnings. It may be that now is the time for our government to consider formalising the processes and many arrangements around disasters to ensure that communities can continue to rely on their governments at both a federal and state level, as well as local, so that they are able to have that comfort knowing that all levels of government are working together in times of crisis.

Our community requires strong national coordination around disasters. For example, national coordination could involve establishing one national fire map. This season, many Australians, especially those travelling interstate or living near a state border, as was the case with many of my friends, have had to rely on separate state maps or apps with different symbols and warnings to indicate the level of danger near them. A national map would provide a single source of reliable, up-to-date and easily understood information when people need it most. Fires don't discriminate between state borders.

We also need strong action on the environment. Experts have made it very clear that changes in the environment are a major contributing factor to bushfires, and I expect that the royal commission will look carefully at this matter.

Before I finish, I'd like to quickly commend the work of Destination Gippsland, who have quickly shifted into gear and are running a fantastic Visit Gippsland campaign. The east of Victoria is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia, but the local economies of Gippsland heavily rely on tourism to survive. Part of the bushfire recovery effort will be supporting the many wonderful local businesses, cafes, wineries, tour operators, hotels and local guides, and they definitely do need many people to come and visit. So please donate to the recovery effort and, the next time you have a chance in Melbourne or Victoria, take a drive out to Gippsland and do your bit to help local communities recover.