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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-02-03 Daily Xml
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HEATWAVE

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:17): I rise to congratulate the people of South Australia. The strength of a society is judged on how well it performs in adverse times, and during the past week we have faced some fairly difficult times, with record maximum and minimum temperatures, as we have worked our way through a heatwave that, hopefully, will end this weekend. I would like to congratulate the many volunteers from Metro Home Link, Domiciliary Care, the Red Cross, St Vincent de Paul, the Hutt Street Day Centre, Westcare Day Centre, the Royal District Nursing Service of South Australia and many other organisations for checking up on elderly people to make sure they are okay and also for going to visit these people to ensure that they were keeping cool and keeping up their fluid intake.

I also congratulate the many public servants in so many different departments—the ones that I have come across in the past few days as we have worked through the heatwave. The people in Primary Industries have worked around the clock over the weekend to try to get information and counselling to people in McLaren Vale who were, unfortunately, seeing their grapes shrivel on the vines in many cases because of the heat. The people in the transport department have worked as record heat buckled the lines and delayed our train and tram services. They were out there advising people of the delays and handing out free bottles of water. Our emergency services workers, who do such a great job—

Ms CHAPMAN: Madam Deputy Speaker, I take a point of order. As much as this is a very important and meritorious subject matter, the reason why I raise this point of order is that one of the members of the house (I think yourself) has presented a motion to the house, which is to be dealt with, I think, this week, congratulating volunteers on the work that they have contributed during this heatwave period. Therefore that is subject matter before the house and therefore it is out of order for it to be raised in a grieve—

Mr Pengilly: It was a notice of motion.

Ms CHAPMAN: Yes, as a notice of motion, before the house—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I understand the honourable member's point of order.

Ms CHAPMAN: —so perhaps the honourable member could move onto something else.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Yes, it is. It was moved today.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Mawson may continue his remarks provided they do not anticipate debate on the motion moved by the member for Reynell.

Mr BIGNELL: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I ask that the clock be reset so that I can have my allocated time—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It has been.

Mr BIGNELL: —after that interruption from the member for Bragg, who, unfortunately, comes in here and knocks everything about this state. When someone does say some positive things on our side of the chamber she wants to knock it again. She is part of a whinging, whining and carping opposition, and we saw the result in Frome. Keep up that attitude and you will lose even more seats! The people in this state have done a fantastic job during unprecedented hot weather.

Mr PENGILLY: I rise on a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Attorney is not in a seat to speak, and I believe that the member for Mawson is debating the issue rather than making a grieve.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The Attorney has returned to his seat, and there was no point of order regarding the second matter. The member for Mawson's time has been restored.

Mr BIGNELL: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have spoken to a lot of people in the electorate of Mawson during the past couple of days. I want to thank Kerry and Tim in my office because, together, we have rung more than 640 people who are over the age of 70 in the seat of Mawson. The feeling amongst these people is that things have worked fairly well. They are experiencing hot weather. They have air conditioners and they are not afraid to use them.

They said that a lot of areas had the rolling blackouts last week. They said that they could cope with a half an hour blackout. They would not want much longer but they understand why that is a necessary thing. I commend the people of Mawson for their stoic attitude during these difficult times, not only for the way a lot of them have hibernated and stayed cool with their air conditioners but also because they are checking on other people. Some fantastic systems are in place whereby people are checking up on other elderly neighbours and other elderly family members. I spoke to several people aged in their 70s who are looking after their parents aged in their 90s and making sure they are all right.

I spoke to an 81 year old woman yesterday who told me that she lost her twin sister in the 1930 heatwave in South Australia. There are some remarkable stories of people who have survived heatwaves in the past and who are again getting through this one by staying cool and by looking after themselves, their neighbours and other family members. We spoke to a 92 year old woman who was having trouble with her air conditioner. I sent Tim from my office down to try to fix it and, when he could not, he contacted an electrician. Another gentleman in his late 80s had not eaten for four days because he had a throat infection and it was too hot to go to the doctor. We rang his doctor for him who was only too pleased to go around and pay a home visit and get him back into good health.

People are willing to help the elderly and help people in our society, which is a tremendous thing to see. I was worried to see over the weekend that so many South Australians had died or become seriously ill because of the heat and that their health had deteriorated. I thought that, as a local member, it was a good thing to get on the phone and ring as many people as possible. We will continue to do that during this week to make sure that, if anyone out there is suffering, we are able to help out people in some way and get them some advice so that they can keep cool and, indeed, survive these terrible conditions.

Time expired.

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