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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-11-17 Daily Xml
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COUNTRY FIRE SERVICE VOLUNTEERS

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:47): I rise today to congratulate, pay tribute to and thank our 15,000 or so CFS volunteers throughout the state, who do an absolutely amazing job. Given the growth we have had this past winter and the incredibly hot conditions we have experienced in the past week, there is no doubt that this will be a very dangerous bushfire season for everyone in South Australia, and I really want to thank the CFS volunteers for the great work they do in the bushfire season, all the training they do throughout the year week in, week out, and all the road crashes and other incidents that they attend. We could never do it without them and we owe them a great deal of gratitude.

Two weeks ago, I attended a community information night at the Mawson CFS brigade. The member for Reynell, the member for Kaurna and I sent out invitations to people in our electorates who live in bushfire prone areas. It is not only those in the rural areas, it is also those who border large tracts of vegetation. For example, the Onkaparinga gorge goes pretty much through the seat of Mawson, and there are about 6,000 houses in the Woodcroft area that could suffer the same fate as that suffered by many people in Canberra a few years ago during the deadly Canberra bushfires. So, the three members of parliament wrote to about 8,000 people and invited them along to make sure that they knew how to prepare their property to ensure that it was bushfire ready and that they had a plan they had rehearsed and written out to work out what they would do if their home and property was under threat from bushfire.

Unfortunately, only about 80 people turned up. Those 80 people were treated to a very informative night, and there were lots of questions and answers as well as a lot of information being received. That puts it at about 1 per cent of people who were invited actually turning up. I really hope that that other 99 per cent are not being complacent. I am sure they do not know all there is to know about being bushfire ready, and I really do hope that, before things get too much hotter and drier, people find out what they need to do to prepare their homes.

I thank in particular Michelle, who did the briefing that night at the Mawson brigade. Last week I went to the Willunga CFS, where they had a similar evening to educate people about bushfire readiness and also about the new level of alerts, including the catastrophic alert, and Natasha from the CFS bushfire education area came down and did a very professional job there, showing a DVD and slide presentation.

I also pay tribute to someone who is not from South Australia but who does a very great job of promoting South Australia and in particular South Australian wines. Matthew Jukes, as one of the eminent wine writers in the UK, has a huge following, not only of his weekly column but also on his blog site, and each year he does a top 100 Australian wines, which is very keenly followed by many people in the UK.

Yesterday Matthew was here, along with his fellow taster and wine expert Tyson Stelzer, who comes from Brisbane, and they did the great Australian red wine tasting in the Balcony Room here in Parliament House. It was the first time it had been done in South Australia. Given that South Australia is the capital of the Australian wine industry and we do produce the very best wines in Australia, it was probably inappropriate that it had been in Brisbane for the first three years, so I mentioned to Matthew that it might be a good idea to have it down here. I thank them for taking up the offer and the five or six judges they brought with them from the local industry.

I also thank Creon, James and Biddy from the parliamentary catering section who did such a great job in making sure it was a very successful day. I see the member for Schubert over there. I think there is some good news in the results for him and for me, and I think the member for Hammond will not be too disappointed when the gold medals are eventually announced. South Australian wines did very well. They were the top four wines, and the wines were judged from across Australia. They are great results. I will not get in too early and pre-empt the results.

I also congratulate Sharon Romeo and David Swain, who have the Fino Restaurant at Willunga, named the best restaurant in South Australia last night, and Doug Govan at the Victory Hotel, a fantastic pub, which is the south-west peg of the electorate of Mawson. It is where the boundary is. Last year when he did the extensions I told Doug, 'Don't go out too far or you'll end up in Finniss or Kaurna.' He was judged to have the best wine list in South Australia, and he does. He does a great job supporting the McLaren Vale wine industry, as do David and Sharon, and we are very proud of these people.

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