Grievance Debate

Pinery Bushfires

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (15:34): Parliament is quite a boisterous place, but today has been rather sombre on many occasions when we have talked about what is the tragedy now known as the Pinery fires. I wish to recognise the words put onto the record by government members and I certainly offer my appreciation to them for the assistance provided to the community in ensuring that efforts are being made.

As the member for Goyder, which covers the Mallala, Pinery, Owen, Hamley Bridge and Barabba communities—not quite Stockport but close to that—I went through the fire scene on Thursday, and it nearly renders you speechless, I must say. In driving through, it is near impossible to believe or to respect what the ferocity of the fire must have been because the impact of it is so pronounced. There is not a stalk remaining. It is 85,000 hectares of area and there is not a stalk. It is as though nothing has ever grown upon that land.

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr GRIFFITHS: A 'moonscape' is the example used, and that adequately describes it. When I drive around and look at an individual property and see everything is burnt around it but through some miracle the home has been saved, it just goes to demonstrate to me that the response was significant from volunteers, paid staff, but importantly from farm units too, and it must have literally been hundreds. In talking to a Mallala resident on Thursday evening after visiting other parts that I had not seen in the morning, he recounted the story to me that, when he went to the Pinery area and was involved with other farm units in trying to support and save a home, the people there first were from Paskeville.

It is as though people from 100 kilometres away recognised how dangerous it was from about midday on Wednesday, and they responded no matter where they were to come over and help, and there are so many examples. This chap gave me the same example of a home being under attack, and that is how they described it, and the collection of people who were there fighting the fire had nearly given up. The smoke was pronounced, they could barely see, it was impossible to transport you around, and all of a sudden a plane comes down through the smoke and drops the gel onto the house and saves it.

It is a level of coordination that is near impossible not to get emotional about because you see the sacrifices that people make, often on occasions where they do not know who owns the property—that is just it—but they wanted to come over and help. It leaves a lasting impression with you that as a society we have a responsibility to help others.

I am pleased that the Premier has made the announcement of support for the Pinery fundraising efforts that are going on, and I commend him on that. I am pleased for the individual responses that have been received from the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Social Housing, Communities and Social Inclusion, and the Minister for Emergency Services. I know that the Minister for Emergency Services has been a contact opportunity for me, so based on what I am being told by people, if something needs to happen, I contact the minister and he is helping to create a change straightaway, so I want to put on the record my appreciation of that.

Last Wednesday was the most challenging of days. Those who have lived there all their lives told me they have never seen anything like it. It whipped itself up, it sucked all the oxygen in to generate what it needed to burn, and it left literally nothing behind. Not only is the broadacre farming area completely denuded but there are so many areas along fence lines, and obviously they are down and the trees are burnt.

When I went through on Thursday morning many roads were still closed but there was a frenzied effort being made by anybody who had anything that looked like a heavy machine that still operated to clear the roads. CFS trucks were still there. I believe there were 80 units on the fire ground at one stage, eight planes were in the air, it must have literally been hundreds of farm units, which is a bit scary when you think of it, because many of those operate with a fairly limited supply of water. They might only have between 500 litres up to 1,500 if they have a bigger rig, but they went there and did what they could.

In this place—and we get a bit loud sometimes—there has been universal support provided by all in the chamber in recognition of those who made sacrifices. The tragedies of death and injury will live with those who are family and friends of those people forever. I did not know Janet Hughes from Hamley Bridge. Minister Bettison and I spoke about her because minister Bettison informs me that Janet was an employee of the department that she runs.

I do know Mr Allan Tiller, and I know his wife, Jenny. I contacted Jenny on Thursday after I had been told late on Wednesday evening about the tragedy. He is an exceptional man who leaves behind some lasting legacies of what he has done in the community. He is the salt of the earth and, if we were all like him, we would live in a much better place.

For those people who have been seriously injured and are being treated, I offer my deepest sympathies. I have heard that varying degrees of injuries were sustained, and that is horrendous. For those people who lived through the dilemma of the fire, and who no doubt will have nightmares about what they suffered occupy their dark and lonely nights, I only hope that the community support continues. A lot of coordination is occurring to try and get people back on their feet. There will be those around them who continue to support them but as a parliament we owe it to all those people who suffered terribly, and 85,000 hectares, to do all that we can for them.