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A month has gone by in a smoking blur. On Australia Day I was in Mirboo North. I was there, as were many other members in their respective electorates, sharing the wonder of the nation in which we live. It was a gathering of 150 to 200 people in the local hall and a joyous occasion. On Wednesday, 28 January, only two days later, the first of the fires, which are still burning in Gippsland, broke out -- we think deliberately lit -- at Darlimurla just north of Mirboo North, and then over the succeeding couple of days it spread to Boolarra. Gippsland still burns.
By Saturday, 31 January, I was back in Mirboo North attending town briefings being hosted by the DSE (Department of Sustainability and Environment). Later that day I went across to Churchill for another town briefing. As we now know, 29 houses and 72 outbuildings were lost in that area. Over the course of that week we were all holding our breath at the prospect of what the next Saturday would bring.
Saturday, 7 February, is now known as Black Saturday. On that day I was driving to Melbourne with my wife, Trish, on a trip that had to be made for various reasons and to fulfil an obligation to which I had committed. We got to Rosedale where I found out that the Princes Highway had been cut because of the Bunyip fires. I explained patiently to my wife how I could circumvent the problem by going up the Strzelecki Highway and rejoining the Princes Highway at Trafalgar. Trish told me to turn the car around and go home -- and I did.
At home for the rest of that day, like so many others, I was glued to the ABC. As the day progressed phone calls started coming in and I made phone calls. One of the calls I received was from the Minister for Police and Emergency Services. The horror was gradually revealed as the day progressed, and by that evening the awful reality struck of deaths having occurred in Victoria -- some in Gippsland and some in other parts of the state -- but none of us knew that night the extent of the horror which would eventually be revealed.
As is the case for so many of the members of this place, the subsequent days have also been a blur of relief centres, staging points, fire grounds, innumerable town briefings, listening to exhausted firefighters and other volunteers, listening to the stories of those who have been directly impacted upon by this horror -- crouching, standing, kneeling, sitting and listening. We ply a trade in here which involves much yapping.
This has been a task of listening, and it is one of the great contributions that we have been able to make to these terrible events: listening to people who have been shocked and who are distraught about what has happened to them, people who have the thousand-yard stare; listening to the remarkable experiences of so many of them and listening to some of the extraordinarily close encounters. At the relief centre in Traralgon a young lady showed me a mobile phone photo of the back rim of the family four-wheel drive. The rim was all that was left because the tyre had melted off as they had made it down the driveway to get out.
At Boolarra one of the firefighters described the awful moment of attempting to protect a house which was about to burn. Having apparently lost the battle, he heard the whirr of rotor blades above him and looked up to see Elvis flying at an impossible angle, laying a curtain of water across the building and over some of the firefighters. Then the fire was out, Elvis was gone and the house was saved -- absolutely remarkable.
The people who fly those aircraft are aeronautical magicians. They are nothing less than astounding.
I visited Mudgegonga with the member for Benalla just last Monday and spoke with a lady who, like other members of the community, had suffered the loss of two of their number at a house just down the way. She had started that day by shooting 34 of her stock. There are these stories and so many others, of 1001 narrow escapes and heroics that in many instances will never ever be told. Then there are moments of remarkable humanity and levity -- that immortal photograph of Dave Tree from Mirboo North giving his water bottle to a koala which had been injured in the fires. 'Tree saves koala' was surely a headline missed. The ultimate tragedy was the death of so many Victorians and of Dave Balfour, the firefighter from Canberra.
I remember going through Marysville last Friday in the company of the Leader of the Opposition and three others who were travelling with us. Being driven around the town by a police officer, with another police officer giving us a quiet commentary as to the tragedy of events that had unfolded, and I might say conducting ourselves in a way entirely respectful of the local residents who even until now have not been able to return, we saw how that beautiful town was laid waste by these awful events, including all those famous landmarks, some of which the Premier has referred to. I remember the many occasions that I had stayed with my family in that beautiful location. At Callignee, Traralgon South, Hazelwood, Kinglake and Strathewen are similar scenes of devastation.
We went through Bendigo with a member for Northern Victoria Region in the Council, Damian Drum, talking to people who had lost their houses. This was a singularly alarming event if only for the fact that one of the great regional cities of Victoria came perilously close to being burnt even more severely than was already the case.
Seventy-eight towns across Victoria have been impacted upon by these fires, many of them by death, and yet across those different communities there is a gradual awakening from this awful nightmare. It is gradual, but it is certain nevertheless. At Kinglake, where we were last Monday, there was a sense of bustling intensity around the town. Children are out and about and people are moving; they are looking forward.
At his invitation we went to the house of a gentleman whose house had miraculously survived. He was not even home to defend it. We went down the side street to see that the other side of the street had been laid waste. It was an awful sight: burnt out cars with police tape on them, carrying the implied message, and yet on his side of the street, although every other house was gone, there still sits his little green weatherboard almost covered in vegetation. His garage burnt down, but the house still stands with its verdant green backyard. We sat out in that backyard for an hour or more talking about the future of Kinglake and what he and his friends see the future holding -- the colours of life on a very black canvas. But people are gradually emerging from this.
Therein lies our essential challenge. The concept has been spoken of here today, as it was on Sunday during that wonderful event, and that hope is the cornerstone for the future of these people. The 88 of us are the collective voice of Victorians.
Our first obligation I believe is to give these people hope. The investigations of what happened are important, of course, and they will occur in their various forms. It is vital to accommodate the urgent needs of our citizens who have suffered such appalling losses. Recovery and planning are crucial, and the way in which they eventuate are absolutely imperative, but the first obligation we have as a Parliament is to give these people hope. As a commitment made by all of us, I am sure those who have suffered from these appalling tragedies can count on it. We give them hope for the future.
We gather today in the context of the motion that has been moved by the Premier. I thank the volunteers. God bless the Country Fire Authority. Where would we be without the CFA? Its members have stood the line, displayed courage under fire yet again and demonstrated the utmost professionalism. To them and to their colleagues who have come here from interstate and overseas to fight this monster, we are so very grateful.
They stand of course with the other volunteers: the State Emergency Service, the Red Cross, St John's Ambulance, the Country Women's Association, the faith affiliates -- be it Vinnies or the Salvos -- and so many others, including the service clubs, the neighbours and the individuals who have done such heroic things in the names of their friends and families. There are stories that we will never hear about. There are also the agencies that have stood with them. The Department of Sustainability and Environment has also done a magnificent job, as have those who wear the blue, our police officers. I was there with the Leader of the Opposition to hear an officer describe the appalling, terrible circumstances that occurred in Marysville just before the town was burnt so recently. Interestingly, at the end of that conversation, which I am sure both the Leader of the Opposition and I will always remember, his final words to us were, 'I am sorry I did not save more', when of course, as we said to him, he and his colleagues saved literally hundreds of lives.
As I have said to many of the senior ranks of the police and to the other agencies, it is going to be so important that these people who have done such wondrous things are able to talk to those who can help them and that those who had that capacity to take the stories from these people are equally able to make that contribution. The debriefing exercise will be enormous.
I thank all the other emergency services and the contributions they have made, as well as the ABC. In Gippsland the ABC became our only means of contact. We had no television except for Channel 10 -- and I refuse to watch The Simpsons. All other means of communication in terms of television were lost to us when the towers went down at Mount Tassie. The ABC has been absolutely magnificent throughout. Gerard Callinan particularly and the team who work with him have done a wonderful job in keeping us informed. The same applies across the state. I believe the ABC has done an absolutely remarkable job for all of us.
The fires have shown the generosity of Australians. We have heard that something of the order of $190 million has been donated. That of course flows over to other nations and communities who have also made their contribution. They are heroes all.
We are here today to mourn the dead. I offer my condolences to the families of those who are lost. I offer my sympathy for the injured, particularly for the burns victims in the Alfred hospital, for whom it will be perhaps a long and difficult future but who, thank God, are still with us. We have seen some of the consequences of this tragedy. We will never see a lot of them, but they will be generational in form and they will be lifelong for many. It is our role as a Parliament to support all the people who have suffered as a consequence of this disaster.
Standing across all of this like a colossus is the strength of human spirit. We have seen it again and again. The stories have been told in part today and they will be told more in the balance of today and, more particularly, beyond the walls of this place. We have seen the darkest, but we have also seen the finest.
Victorians can be assured that we as a Parliament will do what we conceivably can to rebuild these great communities which are so much of the tapestry of the wonderful state of which we are part.