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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-02-12 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

KANGAROO ISLAND FIRES

Mr PENGILLY (Finniss) (17:13): On the afternoon and evening—

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson interjecting:

Mr PENGILLY: —you might learn something from this, Attorney—of 6 December 2007, thousands of lightning strikes started a serious number of fires on Kangaroo Island, with tragic consequences—no more so than the death of Joel Riley of Kingscote, who was burnt in his vehicle on the South Coast Road. Joel, who was a quiet, unassuming Kangaroo Island lad, lost his life extremely tragically, and I will come back to that. However, I would like to place on the record (and I am sure that the Riley family would never expect to have their name mentioned in this place) and extend heartfelt sympathy to Wayne and Rosemary and their other children, Lisa, Joel's fiancée, and other family members. It never should have happened.

Along with Joel, a number of farmers adjacent to Vivonne Bay on Harriett Road suffered substantial property damage, lost hundreds of head of stock and many kilometres of fencing and, quite frankly, they have been working since that day trying to get their properties back into some semblance of order. It was a disaster in the making, and it has had a serious impact on the tourism industry and the farming community of Kangaroo Island. That is something that I wish to pick up later in another motion on another day.

With respect to the management of the fire, I give thanks to the acting premier at the time, Mr Kevin Foley, for the frank and regular conversations and discussions that we had on the phone, in a very bipartisan way, about the management of the fire. Kevin was always there whenever I needed him, and I thank him very much for the interchange that we had at the time. I would also like to place on the record my congratulations and my great thanks to the Mayor of Kangaroo Island, Jayne Bates, for her efforts. She put her life on hold, along with a lot of other people, to assist with respect to the situation that occurred over those couple of weeks—and the first week, in particular. Jayne's efforts should be recognised, along with those of a lot of other people.

In addition, I wish to pay tribute to the hundreds of volunteers who fought those fires on the island and, in particular, the Kangaroo Island volunteers and the multitude of emergency service members and CFS volunteers who were out there for days on end. I also wish to pay tribute to those people in farm utes, who were largely unacknowledged, through no particular fault. For days and days, farmers in their utes and trucks just mopped up and went around and did an enormous amount of good, and those people should not be forgotten. They maintained the structural integrity of many of those fires by doing the necessary jobs.

A lot of things could not be done, in the scheme of things, because there were just too many big conflagrations around the place and it was a dreadful time for Kangaroo Island. However, the people of Kangaroo Island and those who came to assist them performed absolutely magnificently, and I pay tribute to them. I would also like to place on the record my thanks to the Chief Officer of the Country Fire Service, Mr Euan Ferguson, who has taken a lot of flak on various issues. He has my absolute 110 per cent support. Euan Ferguson is an extremely good man, and South Australia is very lucky to have him. I think he is unfairly criticised.

What has probably upset me about this more than anything else is the absolute mismanagement of our national parks and various areas on the island, and more so across South Australia. The size of these fires never should have been allowed to get to what it was. The fact that the parks have been mismanaged, in my view—

The SPEAKER: Order! I am sorry to interrupt him, but the member for Finniss in his speech needs to be careful not to pre-empt debate on the motion about which he gave notice earlier today.

Mr PENGILLY: Point taken, Mr Speaker; I appreciate your ruling. Getting back to the thrust of where I commenced today, I am deeply grateful to everyone who did everything they could in those fires. I am not so grateful for the bad news stories that were perpetrated in areas of the media which did no good to anyone and which sought to demoralise and seriously damage the tourism industry on Kangaroo Island to the extent that there was a plaintive plea for assistance to try to sort that out. That has happened.

Time expired.

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