HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-11-26 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Motions

Bushfires and Emergency Services

The Hon. S.S. MARSHALL (Dunstan—Premier) (11:09): I move:

That the house expresses its sincere thanks to South Australia's emergency services personnel and the community organisations which support our emergency services for their efforts to protect life, property and the environment on 20 November 2019 and subsequent days when much of the state was facing catastrophic fire conditions.

In anticipation of the forecasted conditions for Wednesday 20 November, the CFS Chief Officer took the unusual step of establishing a statewide fire ban to deter unsafe acts and behaviours. All the state's 15 fire ban districts had total fire bans already declared. Seven of the 15 districts had the highest level of fire danger rating applied: catastrophic. Catastrophic means that they had a fire danger index of greater than 100, effectively going off the charts.

Sixty-nine fires started on the day, which were responded to by the CFS and MFS, along with significantly more responses to other callouts, including everything from trees being knocked down to car crashes. At the peak of activity on Wednesday 20 November, the CFS had 600 personnel and 150 fire trucks committed across our state. Significant fires started on the day: Beaufort, near Port Wakefield; Price; Appila; Angaston; Finniss; and, of course, Yorketown. There were also two urban fires on the day, which were attended by the MFS: a wine distribution centre at Hilton and a large rubbish/waste fire at Wingfield.

At 3.20pm on 20 November 2019, the first crews were dispatched to the Yorketown fire. Given the conditions, crews were unable to halt the forward rate of spread of the fire under the prevailing conditions, and the flanks of the fire continued to expand. Strike teams were progressively called in from other parts of the state to assist the local crews. The fire burnt its way south to the ocean near Troubridge Point, where it could burn no further.

The CFS knew that a wind change was expected and that what was the eastern flank of the fire could become the new head of the fire. It worked to put in an eight-metre containment line and extinguish any hotspots near that edge of the fire before the wind change was expected. Unfortunately, in the early hours of the 21st, the wind change came and was much stronger than expected. The worst happened: an ember jumped the containment line and a new fire started in the worst possible location, starting a fire which was heading straight for Edithburgh.

Crews were tasked with asset protection and asked to work in horrendous conditions. Seventy kilometres away in Adelaide, everyone will remember the strong smell of smoke when they woke up that morning. Just imagine how bad it was being right there. The wind pushed the smoke right into the town, and CFS crews were left with almost zero visibility as they fought this fire. Through their efforts, many of the houses and sheds in the town and just out of it were saved, a testament to the professionalism of many of our volunteers.

In total, the fire burnt 5,000 hectares of land—much of it agricultural—destroyed 11 houses and left 33 people with minor injuries. I visited Yorketown the following day, on 22 November, with the Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services. Together, we visited the Yorketown CFS brigade and were briefed by the incident management team at the Southern Yorke incident control centre. We met with many of the local community who were providing catering to community members impacted by the fires. We met up with the head of SA Ambulance Service. We visited the emergency assistance centre in Stansbury, where people can go to apply for financial assistance.

So far, a total of $13,440 has been granted through 18 personal hardship emergency grants to the community, jointly funded through the commonwealth-state Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. The grants of up to $700 per family are for immediate temporary relief for South Australians directly affected by the Yorketown fire and are intended to pay for essential items, such as food, toiletries and clothing. A local recovery coordinator has been appointed to assist those affected by the Yorketown fire. We also visited the fire ground south of Yorketown and on the outskirts of Edithburgh, where we met with many locals and fire crews.

This house owes our emergency services volunteers and staff our thanks. All the agencies in South Australia can be proud of their actions over those days. To the CFS, the MFS, the SES, SAPOL, the SA Ambulance Service and National Parks South Australia, I say thank you. They have demonstrated professionalism and managed to protect life, property and the environment in the most trying of circumstances. To the support agencies, including the Salvation Army, which provided catering support, and St John, which provided medical support, I also say thank you.

It was an incredible situation. For the first time in the history of this state, seven districts in South Australia were given catastrophic fire ratings, and 69 fires were burning. Although there were reported injuries, it is a miracle that there was no loss of life. The only reason for this was because of the incredible bravery and preparedness of South Australian firefighters and emergency service workers.

I sincerely want to thank every single volunteer who assisted in this effort. Volunteers do not just turn up when a fire occurs; in fact, they have to put in a huge number of hours to make sure that they are prepared for a situation such as this. Many volunteers attend their local brigade weekly to ensure that their equipment is in good condition, to undergo professional development and to understand exactly and precisely the types of conditions they will encounter should they be needed.

In South Australia, it was not only the local brigades that engaged with the firefighting efforts. As I said, brigades from right across the state were activated on the Wednesday, and then on the Thursday a huge number were on Yorke Peninsula to support the efforts of the CFS, SES, SAPOL and the South Australian Ambulance Service. In fact, when I was driving over there that morning, it was wonderful to see utility after utility heading back to Adelaide. We saw the names on the sides of the vehicles that were returning and could see that they came from right across the state.

Fires do not know state boundaries. In fact, South Australian volunteer and professional firefighters also recently attended fires in New South Wales. More than 200 firefighters headed over to support our friends in New South Wales during the incredible bushfires that have been burning for many weeks.

We were fortunate; yes, there was an incredible loss of property, crops, livestock and sheds, but there was no loss of life. This is an important reminder of the difficult conditions in which we live, especially with the drought conditions across much of our state at the moment. My strong message to the people of South Australia is: please be aware and alert at all times, please make sure that your bushfire preparation is in place and please make sure that your evacuation plan is in place.

We were fortunate on this day that there was no loss of life, but that does not mean we will be fortunate in the future. When I spoke to the CFS chief, he told me how amazed he was at the great level of preparation of so many people across the state. When I spoke with other officers who have been in the CFS for many years, they told me that there had been a significant increase in the preparedness right across the state. I can only presume that this has come as a response to the very significant fires that we have had in South Australia in recent times.

One of the other things that really hit me as part of my visit was, in talking to the various groups, they all reflected upon how coordinated the approach to this fire was. This does not always occur in every jurisdiction, but I think that it is something we can be very proud of in South Australia. SAPOL, CFS, MFS, members of the Department for Environment and Water in South Australia, the South Australian Ambulance Service and many, many community organisations all work together, not trying to elbow each other out of the way but in a coordinated approach, and I think this is something that we can be very proud of.

I would like to thank the Minister for Emergency Services, who travelled over there on the evening of the day of the Yorketown fire. He met with all the groups there and for that I am very grateful. It is still pretty raw over there. It is fair to say that many people are still in shock at the situation that unfolded. Of course, they are all very grateful that there was no loss of life, but many people confronted a situation that they were never expecting to confront.

I am very grateful to the local member for Narungga for hosting me on my visit and for introducing me to groups, including the local school. Even the local school played their part by writing out cards and thanks to the volunteers who supported our firefighters. This was a great moment of an entire community coming together, and we often see this at times of great tragedy.

It provides a wonderful opportunity for us to demonstrate what is so good about living in a country like Australia, what is so good about living in a state like South Australia, when community comes to the fore and people put their own interests aside to act in the best interests of all people in the community. That is exactly and precisely what we saw with the Yorketown fire and the fires across the state. Again, a very grateful thanks to our volunteers. We will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Yorke Peninsula community and, of course, with our CFS volunteers.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (11:22): I rise to support the motion moved by the Premier and thank the Premier for his articulate description of the events on and around 20 November, early to mid last week. Often in this place, we each in our own way reflect upon how proud we are to represent our respective local communities. I think every member in this place would probably profess that they represent the best local community in the state.

But I think it is true to say—and I say this as someone who is a boy from the burbs, who grew up in the suburbs—that when you travel around regional South Australia you get a sense of a higher calling towards community amongst those people in our state who reside in the more isolated locations outside metropolitan Adelaide. It is not a sense of community that occurs only during the course of a tragedy or a would-be significant event. It is a sense of community that is all pervasive throughout the entirety of regional South Australia in a way that uplifts people and makes us all incredibly proud.

But we do see it come to the fore and we do see it being put on show during the course of a difficult set of circumstances when people voluntarily elect to put themselves in harm's way in the service of other people. In these jobs, it is also true to say that we all get to meet a lot of people, and I can say with a very high degree of confidence that, more often than not, the happiest people I meet are volunteers—people who decide to go out of their way to live up to the creed of looking after others more than they look after themselves. They always strike me as the happiest people I meet.

I think there is a reason for that: as a nation, we pride ourselves on being a country with an egalitarian ideal that always tries to rise to the occasion and care for others. But our volunteers and our emergency services take that virtue and put it into practice. They do not do it for any remuneration. They do not do it for any particular accolade or award. They do it because they believe it is the right thing to do, because they care about others more than they care about themselves, and we saw that on show only last week in a way that we suspect—we do not hope—will continue to be necessary throughout the course of this summer.

As the Premier said, there were 5,000 hectares burnt, 11 properties severely damaged and 69 fires across the state in catastrophic conditions. This is as real and as dangerous as it gets. Our volunteers lived up to that creed but, most importantly, with some of the best equipment that money can buy they put their exquisite training and skills to good use to protect life and property, and they succeeded exceedingly well. They did us all proud and the very least that this parliament can do is pass on our gratitude and our thanks.

The reason why volunteers are the happiest people I meet is that not only are they looking after the property and lives under their immediate care but they are also living up to making this country a better place. We are all better for their service. We thank them on this occasion and we will thank them throughout the entirety of this summer. After a very dry winter, we are bracing ourselves for some of the most challenging conditions that we have seen, not just here in South Australia but throughout the nation. We know that we are in good hands with our emergency services, and we wish them all the very best throughout the course of a dangerous summer.

I echo the Premier's remarks in encouraging people to be ready, be prepared, have their bushfire action plans in place and follow the warnings that are given by their appropriate representatives and our emergency services. We commend the work of our volunteers not just in the CFS but also in the SES. We commend them working with our professional services—SAPOL, SA Ambulance and the MFS—but we do thank our volunteers because they are called to a higher order, they do us all proud and we certainly could not do it without them.

The Hon. C.L. WINGARD (Gibson—Minister for Police, Emergency Services and Correctional Services, Minister for Recreation, Sport and Racing) (11:27): I also rise to echo the sentiments of the Premier and to give:

…sincere thanks to South Australia's emergency services personnel and the community organisations which support our emergency services for their efforts to protect life, property and the environment on 20 November 2019 and subsequent days when much of the state was facing catastrophic fire conditions.

It is a great opportunity to give thanks, gratitude and appreciation for the wonderful work that these people do.

We know that between 19 and 24 November firefighters responded to 219 separate incidents across the state. It is still being finalised and the records are being accumulated, but our state volunteers delivered in excess of 33,000 hours of service across this period. It truly is commendable and all South Australians should be very proud. As we know, on 20 November there were catastrophic conditions in five districts across the state. When the fires came, more than 600 personnel stepped up into action and thousands more were on stand-by preparing to protect their communities. Across the state, 150 fire trucks were called into action and, as we heard the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition say, the results were absolutely outstanding.

The strong northerly winds had a big impact on the conditions of the day, with temperatures up around 40°. Even if you are not a firefighter, if you are just a novice, you would understand that those sorts of conditions with persistent strong winds and high temperatures are always going to make it incredibly difficult. We know that in the lead-up, in preparation, the CFS Chief Officer took an important step in establishing a statewide fire ban to deter unsafe acts and behaviours the day before this catastrophic day—something I am advised has only been enacted a couple of times over the past decade.

As we saw on the day, 69 fires burnt across South Australia. In particular, three of those fires stand out: the one in Angaston, in the member for Schubert's electorate, and two in the member for Narungga's electorate, at Port Wakefield and Yorketown. Initially, the Yorketown fire burnt south towards Troubridge Point on Yorke Peninsula. I am told that this fire was travelling at breakneck speeds. The people in the field told me that it got to the coast in about two hours, which is incredibly fast and a similar sort of speed as we saw with the Pinery fires some four years ago.

The thing about the coast that is advantageous is that it is a natural firebreak because the fire cannot go any further. As the Premier outlined, the fire had run towards the coast for a couple of hours and then, when the wind changed, it gave it a substantial fire front. To the credit of the people on the ground, they put a grader track in place—two grader widths, about eight metres wide—to create a firebreak so that when the wind changed they had a firebreak and crews were there to prevent the fire breaking that line.

Unfortunately, in the early hours of the following morning, the fire jumped that line and, again, the winds were very strong. I was told by people on the ground that the winds were up and high for some 19 hours straight, which is quite unprecedented, and that made it very difficult for them to contain the fire. When fire jumps the lines, the terminology used is that it is a 'finger' of fire. As you look at the map, you can see why that is. A finger of fire jumped the line and was heading towards Edithburgh, which of course was very dangerous.

A number of crews did some outstanding work. They realised they could not catch the fire, so they literally got to the back fences of houses in Edithburgh and fought the fire there, preventing it from hitting houses, properties and the township of Edithburgh. As we know, the people of Edithburgh were ushered to the shore so they would be in a safe place. The police and all the emergency crews did a great job to get those people to the safe zone.

The firefighters also did an outstanding job. I went to the site with the Premier and the member for Narungga, and to see where the fire licked against the corrugated iron fences and the backs of houses was amazing. Tribute must be paid to the firefighters who stopped the fire at that point and prevented Edithburgh from being burnt to the ground.

Whilst the full impact is still being calculated, we hear that 5,000 hectares of land, much of it agricultural, was burnt. Tragically, 11 houses were destroyed and 33 people were left with minor injuries. As has already been said, it is remarkable that no human lives were lost. Our hearts go out to the people who lost their homes. They are in the recovery phase and more work needs to be done. Again, I commend the member for Narungga for the work he has done, along with the agencies, to support the local community in the next steps forward.

In total, 350 volunteers responded to the Yorketown fire. At least 55 brigades came from across South Australia to respond to this fire. As the Premier pointed out, he spoke to the mayor and went to Yorketown Oval, where everyone was set up. It was quite phenomenal to see the oval so well set up. The Salvation Army parked their truck in front of the grandstand and churned out meal after meal and kept the troops fed, kept their tummies full, which is a great thing in a time of crisis, when people are coming to help the local community. It was a great job by the Salvation Army.

The staging operation set up was run exceptionally. The CFS was working with the SES on the gate to make sure that people were getting T carded as they came in and went out. They knew exactly where everyone was. The people working there did a sensational job. Inside the sporting clubrooms, SAAS and St John had set up so that fireys coming off the fire front were having their eyes washed, getting a face wipe to freshen up and getting checked over to make sure they were going okay. So they were getting great support there as well. It was great to have all the agencies working so wonderfully well—SAPOL, the Department for Environment and Water, and I have mentioned St John's, SAAS and the Salvation Army—and then the community all coming together. The MFS as well played their role. It was phenomenal to see.

As the Premier said, I had to go down on the Thursday night because I wanted to say thank you whilst a lot of the crews were there. I mentioned before that, when I was speaking to the mayor, he was fascinated with the trucks, as they were lined up around the oval in a wonderful set-up. It was as though a grand final was being played. There were so many trucks parked around the edge of the oval. The Salvation Army were doing their thing.

The mayor said, 'As I looked around at all these trucks, I saw names on the sides of the trucks from parts of South Australia I did not know existed and they have come here to help our community.' I think that rings true as to how special and great it is in South Australia that we will go out of our way to help one another, and it was depicted here on Yorketown Oval. I know the mayor was truly appreciative and pretty much in awe of what he saw.

As I said, these people were being fed after they had gone out to help in the community; they were coming through in shifts and waves. The CFS volunteers were doing about a 12-hour shift and then they were heading home. The vehicles had been driven over. Extra crews came through to set up strike teams. They were bussed in and then they would do their shift and turn around and be bussed out.

I was speaking to the guys from the Salvation Army who were feeding the troops. From the top of their van, they were seeing smiles on faces as they were handing over the food and it was being devoured. But they would look up into the grandstand and see a grandstand full of yellow—and charcoal, I suppose, because they were covered in soot. They were there in their yellow CFS outfits, sitting in the grandstand and it was chock-a-block. It was great to see how everyone came together to help out in this community.

I will mention a couple of the brigades, but I know I will miss some. The names on the sides of the trucks included Aldinga Beach, Burnside, Dalkeith, Happy Valley, Milang, Bridgewater, Morphett Vale, Stirling, Strathalbyn, Paracombe, Tea Tree Gully. They were all so happy to be there and, even the day after when I went back to the footy oval, Burra had arrived and were lending a helping hand as well. People had come from literally everywhere just to do their bit. When you asked how they had got there, where they had come from, what their story was, they said, 'We know that when it is our time of need, people will help us, so we need to pay it forward and get runs on the board early.'

I mention again all the services and stress again how wonderful they were for the great support they gave. To drive home a point that perhaps the opposition leader was trying to make as well, and I know the Premier loved meeting these people, in the kitchen of the football club we had the organised groups and they did a great job. They are prepared and organised and they know what they are doing.

But what really warmed my heart, and it was great to share that moment with the member for Narrunga as well, was when we went into the footy clubrooms and some ladies had just arrived in the kitchen to help out. I was chatting with them and said, 'How did you guys organise yourselves? How did you get here? Are you a CWA group? Are you a member of a club or a group or an organisation?' They said, 'No, we just heard the trucks, word went around town what was happening and we wondered how we could help.' They just came to the football club.

They knew that was the staging area, they went into the kitchen and they just came together and started preparing sandwiches, organising someone to make some cakes, getting people to get food together for dinner, going to the local store and getting produce and products. A lot of stuff was donated by the local community. It was fantastic. Karen was a part of that, as were Pat, Jill and Cindy. It is probably wrong of me to name those four because there were plenty more.

They did note my timing: I rocked up to the kitchen just as the dishes were being finished and asked if I could help. They said there was one plate to go. I said it would be wrong of me just to wash that one plate and say that I had helped. They were all over everything. One lady piped up and said that the oven needed a clean; she thought maybe I could do that. I do not think they had used the oven at that stage, but they thought that I could clean it anyway. They were fantastic. They were great, spirited people and it was a real sign of what that community was about. The call went out: people were needed. They rocked up and they just helped out. Again, that community should be so incredibly proud.

Late that evening, I ducked down to the pub and got a pizza for dinner, which was very nice. A few of the fireys were there and I shared a beer with them as well and thanked them for what they did. I say this and I say it often about our volunteers: one of the great parts of my role, and I am very honoured to be in this position, is meeting our volunteers. We have so many wonderful volunteers across our state who do so much for South Australia. You cannot pay volunteers for the time that they give, but you can say thank you. It was a privilege to be there to thank those volunteers and those people who helped out. The way that that community rallied really is to be commended.

The next day, the Premier came to Yorketown. Together with the member for Narungga, who had been at a couple of community meetings that afternoon and was very much ensconced in his community, it was a pleasure to take the Premier through. The incident management team took him through the role there. Ann Letcher did great job of explaining to the Premier how it all unfolded, what happened and how everyone came together. I want to reiterate the point the Premier made: we have all these different organisations—the MFS, the CFS, the CES and SAAS; SAPOL, of course, plays a really important part—that are structured differently, but, when there is an emergency, everyone comes together like no other state.

I refer back to early on in my time in this job when I went to the Gold Coast when they were hosting the Commonwealth Games. I talked to them about how they came together for a big operation like that. They said that one of the biggest things they had to do was get all their organisations to work together better, because they were not working together as well as they would like. It was such a contrast to the way that all our organisations here in South Australia work so wonderfully well together, so I do commend them all.

We went out and had a look at where the fire travelled and saw the houses that had been destroyed. As we said, there were 11 of them. Again, our hearts go out to those families. As they move into the recovery phase, work is being done to help people through that. It moves out of the emergency service area and into the human service area. PIRSA and the Minister for Primary Industries are heavily involved in making sure we help the farming communities as well as they work their way through this situation.

As we went out and saw where the fire had travelled, it was just so eye-opening for someone who now lives in the city. You see and you hear it. When we woke up here in Adelaide the morning after the fire and saw the smoke and the haze coming across the city, it really drove home the message of what these people were going through and what was happening. I relayed that message to a number of the volunteers who had been out there in the field, working so tirelessly hard fighting the fire and focusing on what was in front of them.

I relayed the message that South Australia, and in the city in particular, was very aware of what they were going through, very aware of the difficulties they were confronting and very thankful for what they were doing. What we do know and what we do see with the CFS when you meet them on the ground is that they are wonderful people. They are wonderful people who give so much of themselves, so much of their time, without any fanfare, without any accolades.

As I said, they truck themselves in, they do a shift and they truck themselves home. They do not ask for too much other than a small thankyou. That is the least that we can do. They do it without looking for pats on the back, accolades and those sorts of things, but it is important that we take the time to thank them for what they do because it is such important work. As I have said many times in this place, we cannot pay them for what they do, but we can thank them.

When we see the CFS logo, the CFS brand, the red and yellow chequered pattern—and I am talking about CFS specifically here, but this fits with all the other emergency services—we know them and we trust them. There is potentially an element that within the city we do take them for granted when there is an emergency or something happens. The CFS just turns up. How does it keep happening? Arguably, people in the city do not really know and appreciate it, but the way that it happens is by having great people—great people helping out in their communities, making sure they do not let their communities down.

In any volunteer organisation, some people do more than others; we understand that, but anyone who puts on the uniform, anyone who goes to training, anyone who is willing to play a role when it comes to fighting fires needs to be truly commended for what they do. To all the CFS volunteers out there, I want them to know that they are not taken for granted. We thoroughly appreciate what they do.

It is at times like these, when it comes to the forefront, that we understand how valuable a resource it is to have emergency services workers like the CFS, SES and St John as well. The paid operators, SAPOL and the MFS, have that same in-built caring, nurturing nature about them. Invariably, many of the MFS people volunteer in a CFS brigade somewhere or a surf lifesaving club, or they coach in a local sporting group. We know that many SAPOL and MFS people have that in-built nature of giving back to their communities, and we must be forever grateful.

As I mentioned, we now move into recovery mode and we know that that is a harder time. Again, the member for Narungga will be dealing with this within his community for weeks, months and, in some cases, potentially years because it takes a long time to work through that process. Our thoughts, concerns and cares are with those people as they go through that with the appropriate agencies.

I would like to take these final moments to make sure that we drive home this point because we are early in the season: this happened on 20 November and we are not yet into the heart of our bushfire season. We know that things get even tougher in January and February. Hopefully, we can take some learnings from this and make sure that we are even better prepared as we go forward. That said, I remind everyone to make sure that they are prepared.

If you live in the regions, you know the threat of bushfire, and I implore you to make sure that you have your bushfire survival action plan ready and that you know what you are going to do on a catastrophic day. Whether you are going to leave or whether you are going to defend, make sure that you have cleared around your house and that you have all the resources and utensils ready to go. You do not want to leave it too late to evacuate, if that is what you decide to do. It is best to get out early, if that is what you are going to do, but make sure that you are prepared.

For people in the city, it is important to note this as well. You might think, 'I don't live in a bushfire area, so it doesn't impact me.' Well, it does. You must be conscious of bushfire areas and aware if you are travelling into such areas. Make sure that you follow the media, the social media and the websites. Listen to the radio. Make sure that you understand where you are going, where you are travelling, what the conditions are like and what they could be like. Make sure that you have your own plan ready to go so that you can be as prepared as possible to keep yourself and your family as safe as possible. You might just be travelling through, but you might get caught in a situation where you also need to implement your action plan. It is vitally important.

In closing, I would like to again thank all the emergency service workers involved in this operation. They did an outstanding job. They did South Australia proud. South Australia should be incredibly proud of what these people do. They are our unsung heroes, but they must be acknowledged. To the community, our hearts are with you. We know that you will bounce back. We know that you are resilient like all country communities, and we look forward to working with you through that process.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:47): I rise to support the motion brought here by the Premier and spoken to so ably by the Leader of the Opposition and, indeed, by the Minister for Emergency Services. I will be brief in my comments. Most of what needs to be said has been said. We all know the volunteers in our own community. As the minister said, one of the things about this job is that you have access to volunteers. You learn things from them and you learn about their values.

In a previous life, I had occasion to work with some of the volunteers we are talking about. In the peri-urban areas around Gawler, Hillbank and Sampson Flat—all those places that were then part of the Elizabeth Police LSA—as the minister and other speakers have mentioned, there is a lot of crossover between the paid services (SAPOL and the MFS) and the CFS. It is the volunteers who are not paid. They are not at the station or on patrol. They get up out of bed and really do the hard yards. They do it for nothing other than the satisfaction of serving their community—and it is about service.

As terrible as last Wednesday was, it could have been much worse. Previous speakers have made the observation about the preparedness of the emergency services. It was an excellent idea to declare the Tuesday before a total fire ban day and to limit those types of activities that would cause fires. That was an excellent move. As has been said, that is a move not often made, but it has been made several times in the last decade, and I want to commend the leadership of the CFS for that excellent initiative. Who knows how much more damage could have been done and who knows what lives were saved by that simple move?

Sadly, of course, conditions are going to get worse; I do not think there is any doubt about that. We have always had fires in Australia, particularly in South Australia, but at certain points we notice that things are getting worse. The Ash Wednesday bushfires back in 1983 of course were a significant wake-up, as were fires around the same time across Australia. They should have been a significant wake-up to climate change. They were certainly a significant wake-up to emergency services and the way they responded to fires and natural disasters.

In more recent times, another change we saw in the Pinery and Sampson Flat fires is the changing nature of fire, which I contend is largely to do with climate change and our lack of action on climate change. Just this morning, in fact, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization released another report saying that CO₂ and greenhouse gas levels are at a new high, that we have reached new record highs. Perhaps more concerning is that they say there is no sign of a slowdown let alone a decline despite moves, in some nations at least, towards the Paris Agreement.

Despite the views of some—and it is concerning that some of those people occupy high office in the federal government particularly—we know that climate change is having a significant effect on the conditions which create fires and the conditions which face our volunteers and the people we are celebrating in this motion, the people we are talking about. They are at ground zero of the climate emergency. They are the ones who have to face these conditions, and they will have to face worse and worse conditions. I will not repeat all the stats from Yorketown, but I think it is a sign of things to come.

As the minister said, in January and February we can expect more and more and worse and worse conditions, and year upon year, as the climate emergency rolls on largely unaddressed by certain sections of the community, we are going to see worse and worse conditions. While our firefighters, our volunteers, deserve our respect and our thanks and our admiration—and no-one respects and admires them more than I do—they also deserve to be well resourced and to have a more coherent application of measures to mitigate climate change. We need to see this reversed; we need to see it reversed, certainly in my lifetime. The UN this morning says we see no sign of that happening, and all the time we are putting our volunteers and firefighters at risk.

I do thank our volunteers and I admire all the work they did, particularly in the member for Narungga's electorate. I have a bit of a history in Stansbury. I have stayed a lot in Stansbury. My parents had a caravan in Stansbury, so I know that community quite well, and Edithburgh and Yorketown as well. I do not pretend to know it as well as the member for Narungga, and I cannot imagine what those communities are going through right now. While I do thank them and admire them, they also need our support, our resourcing, and they also need the challenges of climate change to be adequately addressed, as they will only make the conditions they face worse.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (11:52): I rise to indicate my support for the motion and thank the Premier for bringing this matter to the parliament so that we may place on the record our concerns about and appreciation for what occurred in the events of 20 November. I also acknowledge all other speakers in relation to their contributions.

This is not the first major fire South Australia has had this season and it will not be the last. However, the events of 20 November, whether they were at Angaston or Port Wakefield, or the Yorketown fire, as it is being described, which culminated in significant distress and damage at Edithburgh, are a sobering reminder to us of what will occur and what we need to do about it. I also thank the Premier and the Minister for Emergency Services for attending the area in Yorketown and Edithburgh particularly on this occasion. That is not to diminish the suffering and loss in other parts of the state, where I think close to 70 fires progressed on that day, with varying levels of damage. It is a lightning bolt spot that gives us these reminders.

It is important that the Premier and the minister visited not only to indicate their appreciation directly but also to view the damage, listen to the people of the area and understand and learn from it, as we must. It is also a good opportunity when anyone who has the privilege of a leadership position leaves the city to see other areas that are in need in our country, and I am sure that they travelled on some roads that need some improvement. These are aspects that are always good to learn from.

The acknowledgement has been made today of the work of the volunteers in our emergency services—unsurprisingly, that is the Country Fire Service and police, particularly, who are obviously at the front of the fire—making a contribution that places themselves in danger so that they might protect persons and assets across the state. The losses in this area, of course, were massive in respect of livestock and the general extent of the fire damage across agricultural land. It is important to recognise those who were protecting these assets via the CFS volunteers and the general volunteers in the community who assisted—people who are neighbours, friends and relatives who come out on these occasions to assist.

The extra support was given by other CFS brigades across the state. I would like to acknowledge those who attended from Burnside, in my own electorate, led by David Wilson and supported by his son, Tim Wilson; Rory Martin; Paul Stickland; Sophia Sadri; Cameron Langley; and Andrew Hughes, who were there over this period to provide their direct assistance in the fire. I am advised that Andrew Bray also travelled up there to drive back the new truck from Burnside, which was six days old and had its baptism by fire, literally. It obviously has not only assisted in the fires that we are referring to today but is now back at Burnside, dusted off and ready to go for the rest of the fire season.

I especially acknowledge and thank the Minister for Emergency Services for ensuring that our brigade had that truck before we deal with what will inevitably be significant events over the forthcoming season, and that will be well into February, March and April. We have to recognise that this is only the warm-up and that we have a lot of work to do. These brave persons not only protect our own areas but travel across the state. I know many of our people from Burnside have travelled interstate and provided support when asked.

I would also like to acknowledge the extra support from other ministers who are involved in the recovery, such as the Hon. Michelle Lensink. Our ministers for health, transport, education and environment obviously play a role on the ground, to the extent that they are leading the people who are going the extra mile. That might be nurses who are working in the Yorketown hospital to deal with those who might be injured or it might be ambulance service providers.

It might be teachers in schools who need to assist with the supervision of children, particularly where attendance at school continues but even if they are to be kept at home and schools are closed. Often on catastrophic days, which have occurred across the board, they need to be involved. The environment workers are frequently not only members who work for parks, etc. and who have a clean-up role but they are also members of our own CFS brigades, and so they have a dual role.

Can I acknowledge the Minister for Energy, who has a role in terms of energy and electricity being transmitted as significant parts of the West Coast were closed down during this catastrophic period. His agency needs to work. I also recognise the Minister for Primary Industries, whose department is very much involved in advice and support to regional areas to ensure that there is much preparation done, which has been acknowledged today, but also in the recovery and clean-up.

Fences need to be rebuilt, damaged property needs to be removed, livestock carcasses need to be disposed of. These are the ugly consequences of fire. It is expensive and traumatic, and it needs to be understood that it will take a long time. Our message, and our care, to the people who have been most severely affected is that we understand this and that we are with you to support you during this period. It will be expensive, it will be exhausting, it will be time consuming and it will go on for a very long time, but we understand that and we will support you.

Finally, I wish to echo the sentiments of being prepared and of having a plan, as the minister has outlined. I am proud of my own family ensuring that we have a newly updated bushfire plan for interests we have on Kangaroo Island. I expect my family to know how to change a car tyre, to know where they need to go, what to pack, what to do, and to have the firefighting equipment ready to deal with an emergency. The older members of the family will need to lead that, but knowing where to go and what to do is important, and everyone has a role in that.

If a circumstance is identified where someone is going to be at risk, if there is a fire in the district, they need to be alert to that. If you are visiting those areas—even if it is for a holiday in our regional areas—please make sure that you have an understanding of where your local police station is, what numbers are available for the local CFS and the like and that you have some understanding of what the fire plan is to vacate a property in the event that you need to evacuate. Frequently, this is not done because people go for a holiday and it is the last thing they think about. They think about unpacking the towels and getting the kids to the beach, rather than actually just checking what the fire plan arrangements are in those circumstances.

It is a very real and pressing danger in regional communities and it is incumbent on us as either infrequent visitors or holiday-makers to parts of our state to ensure that we minimise the risk to our local CFS people and emergency people on the ground by being incumbent, as in a burden in those circumstances, in not knowing what to do. I urge everyone to really be prepared, whether you are in a peri-urban or a regional part of South Australia. If you are visiting those areas, make sure that you understand what the plan is and get the hell out of there if you are not prepared.

Ms STINSON (Badcoe) (12:02): I rise to join those in this parliament in praising the incredible work of our volunteer and paid workforce who have been working on fires both here and interstate and, of course, to sincerely thank them. I would like to thank the Country Fire Service, the Metropolitan Fire Service, the South Australian Ambulance Service and National Parks SA through the Department for Environment and Water, as well as those in the health system and everyone who supports them.

Over recent weeks, when the news came across the radio of fires breaking out near Port Lincoln and then in Yorketown and around the Edithburgh area, certainly lots of memories of my time reporting on fires flooded back to me. Every time, every fire season, those memories come back to me of different fire fields that I have worked in. There have been some pretty big ones over the years in South Australia. I do consider it a privilege, actually, to be able to cover those natural disasters.

As difficult as it is—and it is some of the most testing work that reporters can do, and some of the most dangerous work that they can do as well—it is a privilege to be in those communities, to meet people and to see the human spirit that really does triumph in times of tragedy. Certainly, some memories came flooding back while hearing over the media about the recent fires across South Australia.

Having worked in those fire fields, I know just how furious and fast the flames can be, particularly in places like Port Lincoln, where it just rips across the earth. It can happen so incredibly quickly, and journalists and others have to be incredibly well trained and alert the whole time they are reporting on these matters, which can be really hard because often the one reporter or crew is reporting on these fires for extended periods of time.

It is hard to stay alert and it is a dangerous situation, but they do a remarkable job out there bringing the news to us about what is happening with our friends and family away from where we might live. I pass on my sincere thanks to all the emergency services workers who have been working on the 69 fires we have seen right across South Australia. They have been doing a remarkable job, as they always do, and they deserve our praise.

I would like to spend some time talking about a very intensely personal experience I had this month in relation to the fires, and that is of course the New South Wales fires that have been burning for quite some time now. As many in this place would probably know, from when I was about eight or nine years old until I was 17 I lived in Port Macquarie and in different places on the midnorth coast of New South Wales. It was incredibly shocking to go back there to spend time with friends and family and to see that basically the place that I grew up in was on fire.

I really want to thank the South Australian contingent who went to help in New South Wales: they are nothing short of heroes in my view. They have given up weeks and sometimes months away from their own families to protect other families, families of people they have never even met, and that includes families like mine. They were working in the vicinity of Port Macquarie and Thrumster, where a lot of my friends have recently bought homes, as well as around the Crowdy Bay National Park, Lake Innes Nature Reserve and many areas surrounding there.

There is also a large expanse of land further inland from the mid north coast that even now is on fire. It was around the 8th of this month that I flew into Port Macquarie. I came from Brisbane and we were flying down. As we got closer to Port Macquarie, looking out the window of this small plane we could see the sky filling up with smoke, and it was getting thicker and thicker and darker and darker, and we could not tell how far away we were from landing. You really have no sense of where you are in that environment. We flew in and, just as we were about to hit the tarmac, we could see the lines of the fire front sweeping towards the back of the airport.

You are in this thick smoke and suddenly the realisation hits you that this is an active fire ground and that this commercial plane is landing right into an airport surrounded by fire. If that was not enough, looking out the window we saw bombers come in right next to us and drop that red fire retardant right next to the plane as we were landing on the fire front. That particular fire front has been burning for quite some time—about two months—and it is a peat fire, so it is burning slowly and with a lot of smoke, and that has been going on for ages.

Friends and family had told me that the fires were bad there and that they had been going for quite some time, but when you are landing in it with bombers dumping retardant right next to you and you can see the lines of fire as you sweep into the airport, it is quite frightening and a rush of fear went right across all of us who were flying into what is usually a really picturesque, beautiful and quite serene place on the coast of New South Wales.

My grandad picked me up and, as we were driving into Port Macquarie, there was a violent, orangey-red sky all around. It was incredibly ominous and the wind was still and hot. As we drove into Port Macquarie, closer into the main part of town, the streets were swarming with volunteers, particularly the Country Fire Service. We went past the CWA, and we could see that it was a hive of activity as everyone was getting together and trying to make preparations to support the firefighters, who had been out there already for quite some time. Little did we know that this Friday and the following day, the Saturday, would really be the peak of the fires for that part of New South Wales.

I was there to see my grandparents, my mother and my friends and for what was meant to be a school reunion, which was a little bit derailed by the whole emergency. I grew up in places like Byabarra, which is right out the back of Kendall, and Lake Cathie, with my grandparents—that was when my grandparents were looking after my sisters and me and bringing us up. I went to primary school at Kendall. Later, we lived in the timber mill town of Herons Creek and, finally, I went to Port Macquarie high school. My grandparents on my dad's side lived at Johns River and Passionfruit Creek, so I spent a lot of time particularly around Johns River.

My grandfather and I decided to go and have a look around and see what was happening in some of those places where I used to live—a bit of a trip down memory lane. As we drove around, being safe, of course, not crossing any boundaries, we saw the signs thanking the CFS. There were big, illuminated signs that people had put up, or others they had just scrawled on cardboard and put out the front of their properties, thanking the volunteers for saving their homes.

The bush was absolutely blackened, particularly between Port Macquarie, Lake Cathie and Bonny Hills, and there was this red sky. It was only about midday, and it was an absolutely frightening scene. It really felt like about 6 o'clock in the evening, even though it was the middle of the day. We went to the home at Lake Cathie, and the bush had burnt right up to the back fence. Really scarily, there was this huge gum tree that was completely burnt out that was actually leaning over my grandparents' home, but somehow the fireys had managed to save it. Some of those fireys would have been people from South Australia who were in that area at the time.

So we had our school reunion, although the numbers were rather depleted because of course lots of people were defending their own properties and evacuating their own properties, including their little children. They were trying to pack up their things and go to a safer place. They ended up in hotels and with friends and family, mostly in Port Macquarie or Wauchope. Also, people could not get to the reunion because the roads were just impassable that night, including the highway, which is the main thoroughfare for people along the mid north coast.

We did have a good night, but we of course had ABC radio on all the time, listening for alerts, and it did cast a shadow over the celebrations. But I hope the night provided for people a moment of relief amidst the tension they had been experiencing the last few days. The next day, many of us again went out to assist our friends and families at their properties, helping them to evacuate or prepare properties, to douse down roofs. While you were up on the roof, you could actually see from my friend's property the fire front coming towards you. To be right in the midst of it is to understand just the extent, the threat and what ended up being the horror of those fires.

It is certainly one thing to report on these things, but it is a very different thing to be there. No matter if you have covered the Cherryville fires or the Sampson Flat fires or the fires across Port Lincoln, or even when I started out covering some quite bad fires that were out the back of Coffs Harbour at the time, which was 15, almost 20, years ago, it was really nothing compared with these fires. They are just so expansive and take up so much land on that mid north coast that it is hard to describe until you are actually over there.

The things that I found really helped us included the Fires Near Me app, which I have on my phone even now (I was just checking it out a moment ago) because you really can see where the fires are and zoom in on maps and see where all the fire warnings are. I look forward to this delay being overcome in the app that South Australia will have. I understand that the Fires Near Me app is the one the state government is now looking at. I hope that it is implemented as soon as possible because it really is incredibly helpful when you are trying to get around in your community—you can figure out what the safest way is—and also when you are keeping an eye on loved ones who may live several kilometres away from you.

ABC radio was the other thing that was really, really useful. As I mentioned, the media are absolutely critical, but I think the ABC has a special place in people's hearts, particularly in emergencies. I know that Ita Buttrose was here in South Australia only a few days ago, and she was talking about the huge expense that the ABC have incurred in covering the fires. We are so glad that they do, and we hope they get all the funding they need so that they can continue to communicate with communities that so desperately need that information to keep themselves safe and to have some peace of mind about their relatives.

It was pretty stressful to see places I grew up in burnt to cinders. It was a weird experience, as well, to be at the RSL—where I had my school formal—and see it transformed into a fire evacuation centre. It was pretty stressful worrying about my grandparents, who are now in their 80s and who live right on the edge of bushland. However, it was heartbreaking to hear about the deaths at Johns River and Kempsey, where 63-year-old Julie Fletcher lost her life.

She lived not far from my grandparents at their farm at Passionfruit Creek. Neighbours described her as a quality person who would help anyone in need, and she certainly was. She was found in her own home. She did not manage to get away, just like 58-year-old Barry Parsons from Kempsey, who was found in his shed. Incredibly sadly, he posted on Facebook not long before he died that outside it was 'apocalyptic' and that he did not know how close the fires were.

To lose those two people from your own community is absolutely devastating. For me, it really brings home how important those volunteers and the paid staff are who went over from South Australia, and from all parts of Australia, who gave up their time to help other people so that those losses were not much greater and to try to protect people's lives, not to mention property and the environment.

After all that, I have to say it was pretty distressing to arrive back here late at night and come back into parliament, to be sitting here in these seats for question time, and hear the Minister for Emergency Services state that this side of the house may not care about the fires. Clearly, I do care. Clearly, it is my family and my friends who are over there in those fires, as well as many more South Australians who have had to withstand this in our own state.

I know it is the minister's usual practice to be flippant and to start almost every speech by saying, 'Oh, well, the opposition doesn't care about this,' but I hope he does reflect on those comments and maybe changes that speaking style because I do feel offended by that. I did feel really hurt that someone would say, 'Oh, you don't care,' when you have been through that experience and you have seen your loved ones struggle, and when you are still really worried about their safety. I hope that he does reflect on that and that he retracts those statements and offers an apology.

I would also like to thank my colleagues for their support over the last little while in asking after the safety of my friends and family. That has meant a lot to me. There have been a lot of uplifting moments, certainly seeing my aunty and my cousin who I could not reach when I was over there. I ran into them at the shops at Port Central, and it was awesome to be able to see them in person and know that they were okay. It was pretty good to be able to be there and help my friends and family at a time when they needed all the support they could get.

I have to say that I was more nervous when I left, especially when we flew out straight into that thick smoke again. Apart from just the very top of Bulahdelah Mountain as we were flying down to Sydney, we did not see land again, due to the thickness of the smoke, until we actually landed in Sydney. That gives an idea of just how huge these fires were in New South Wales—that the sky over basically all New South Wales was completely thick with smoke and you could barely see the land.

The emergency over there continues, and experts are saying that it will not be over until there is serious rain right across New South Wales. We have gone from 150 to 200 fire fronts down to 80 active fires now, and there are still 50 that are out of control as of this morning. Five of those are around Port Macquarie at Lindfield Park, Crestwood Road (which is pretty suburban), Bills Crossing at Crowdy, Gum Scrub and Upper Rollands Plains. Also today, Coffs Harbour has an alert on the air quality, which is at a dangerous level.

I want to express my deep gratitude for the emergency services workers across New South Wales and, in particular, the 200-odd emergency services personnel who went over from South Australia. About 40 of them are in the vicinity of Port Macquarie. As I said, they really are lifesavers. They are absolute heroes to the communities over there, just as they are heroes to us here in South Australia. There is absolutely no doubt that they helped save the lives of my family, my oldest friends and their families and children, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (12:20): I rise to support the motion from the Premier that rightly and justifiably acknowledges the incredible efforts of the firefighters who took on the catastrophic blazes across the state and particularly on my patch on Yorke Peninsula last Wednesday. As we know, they had to control quite a considerable number of fires on the day. In doing so, they managed to prevent any loss of life, as we have already heard in the chamber today. It was a particularly amazing effort at Yorketown. We congratulate them and thank them sincerely for that.

As I said, I would like to pay particular respect to the firefighters who fought blazes in the electorate of Narungga on Wednesday. The largest was at Yorketown and eventually ended up on the doorstep of Edithburgh, with its 61-kilometre perimeter. It is also worth acknowledging that there were considerable fires near Price, just north of Ardrossan, and also at Port Wakefield, which I think has been termed the Beaufort fire.

The fire near Yorketown and Edithburgh destroyed 11 homes, injured 33 people and burnt out in excess of 5,000 hectares of land, mainly crops. Contrary to how it is going in the rest of the country and in some parts of this state, they were bumper crops. It was an exceptional year down at the southern end of Yorke Peninsula. There were some wonderful crops just waiting to be reaped but, unfortunately, that was not meant to be. The fire ripped through quite a considerable amount. There was also an extensive loss of livestock, machinery, sheds and vehicles, the full extent of which will only be realised in the coming days and weeks as the full stocktake of what has been lost is undertaken.

Having been in the fire area on Thursday, again on Friday with the Premier and the minister and again yesterday, I know that it remains absolutely incredible that nobody was killed, such was the ferocity and speed of the fire, particularly at Edithburgh. It erupted when the wind change came through late on Wednesday or early on Thursday morning. There are incredible stories of families jumping into vehicles and driving through the flames to escape, residents evacuating to the town tidal pool in the dead of night to shelter from the smoke and heat and property owners recalling how the fire lapped at their home yard fence only for the CFS or farmers with water units managing to stop the fire's passage just in time.

At one of the sites I visited with the minister and the Premier, it was extraordinary to see how the paddock immediately adjacent to the house had been completely burnt out, with only the charred remains of the wheat crop left on the ground. The fence itself was tinged with darkness from the burning of the fire that had approached. Somehow, in some way, the CFS volunteers had managed to stop the passage of that fire literally at the fence of the property. It was absolutely incredible to see, such is the amazing work they do in preventing those fires.

There were also stories of flames jumping roads. We have already heard about how it jumped the containment line in the dead of night and in the early hours of the morning when the wind shifted. I have mentioned that it killed livestock, and we saw tractors engulfed in flames. There is a wonderful story and wonderful footage of the community and the collective cheer that went up when a massive Boeing 737 traversed overhead and dropped 15,000 litres of fire retardant to protect the Yorketown township. It is a huge plane, and it did two runs: it dropped half the 15,000 litres going one way then came back and did another run with the rest of its load, and the community was literally cheering as it went over.

On Thursday, I drove through the area where the Boeing had dropped its load. You can still see where the crops are stained with the pink or red retardant. There is a house they saved that is covered with pink or red retardant. The crop on the other side of the road is completely burnt out, but that house was saved and I suspect it was thanks to the Boeing plane that came all the way from New South Wales. It did its job and it was wonderful to see, really uplifting for the community in a tough time. One Edithburgh resident is quoted as saying:

They came from all over to help save our little town. At 5.30 in the morning, I'm standing on the jetty and I'm watching flames licking the top and I'm getting rained on by ash and I'm thinking, 'What's going to happen to our dear town.'

Such was the threat posed by the fire. As I said, crews from all over the region had fought fires all day and must have been exhausted and well ready for respite when the cool change came through with the change of wind direction. Of course, that was when the fire flared up, jumped the containment lines and became its worst, with the wind change sweeping through and swinging the fire towards Edithburgh. The CFS crews and farmers, who literally risked life and limb to help others, are genuine heroes, in my view—genuine heroes.

No words can fully convey how grateful and inspired multiple communities are across Yorke Peninsula, so amazing was the effort and skill on display by them. A number of firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion and other injuries. It is really impressive when these people volunteer—and most of them are volunteers; I acknowledge that some are professionals who came down to help, but the vast majority who helped out in Yorketown were volunteers—to put themselves in harm's way to fight dangerous fires and keep people and property safe.

Residents were evacuated at Yorketown, Edithburgh and Wool Bay, as well as Coobowie and Price, and headed for the coastline. At Port Wakefield, at one point 150 workers at Primo were in shutdown and forced to wait for the path to clear before being able to head home to assist their families and friends. Soon, relief centres were opened at Stansbury Bowling Club and Edithburgh RSL and Bowling Club, where more volunteers gathered to help those in need, feed the fireys and offer clothing and emergency supplies for the hundreds in the area who had fled their homes with just the clothes on their back and their pets.

It was really pleasing to stop by Yorketown Oval. It has already been mentioned in the minister's speech, but the level of community support there was outstanding. There were CFS volunteers having a break and Salvos from Kadina who had come up with a truckload full of food and water. There was every other charitable organisation you could think of, as well as the laypersons, as the minister said, who had, of their own accord and of their own volition, just come along to help. They were there, cooking, feeding and doing their best. There were also the ambos, who were washing out the eyes of the fireys who had come back from the front line, so to speak. They had their stations set up and were treating people to make sure that they could have a well-earned break, have a rest and then get back out there to help.

Yesterday, a local recovery coordinator was appointed: Ms Deb Richardson. She was tasked with working with the Yorketown community to identify what assistance is needed where, moving forward. The relief centre that has until now been at Stansbury will today move to the Yorketown Town Hall and is open from 8am to 6pm for people seeking information about immediate support that has been made available.

So far, a total of $13½ thousand has been granted to the community through 18 Personal Hardship Emergency Grants, jointly funded through the Commonwealth State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. As many people continue to sift through layers of black soot in their once homes, in regions of charred trees and fence posts and where farmers face machinery losses that alone are set to run into millions of dollars, the community remains supportive and ready to rebuild.

There is help from groups such as BlazeAid, which was present at a community meeting held yesterday morning; PIRSA, which is assisting with livestock recovery; rapid response teams; Rural Financial Counselling Service; Lions Australia, which is accepting donations for the cause; and members of the Weavers Ag bureau. There are also locals who have, of their own volition, commenced fundraising again, among them Wendy Ault—I stopped in and saw her yesterday morning—who has set up the Yorketown Fire Relief Fund and coordinated with the Yorketown branch of the Police Credit Union bank for people to make donations and run the tally up on that account. Hopefully, they will get a sizeable amount to contribute where it is needed.

I also want to make special mention of a seven-year-old girl, who is the neighbour of my parents, who saw the terrible happenings on the news and became really emotionally invested and was driven to do something. With the help of her parents, she has set up a GoFundMe page. It has been really pleasing to see the community come together. I have made a donation to Amahli Ziersch's fundraising page and I look forward to helping her direct that money to where it is needed to go. Hopefully, she can also contribute a sizeable amount. Congratulations to seven-year-old Amahli Ziersch for her efforts in fundraising to help the recovery.

As I said, there is the Police Credit Union, and there have also been farm machinery dealers—I think Vater Machinery have offered a tractor for short-term loan. Rosewarnes Kadina have offered a couple of utes to people who have lost their cars in the fire. So there is plenty of community spirit going on there and plenty of support for those people who need it right at this very moment.

I would also like to touch briefly on the Pinery fire. Monday was the four-year anniversary of the Pinery fire that tore through some 85,000 hectares, had some 1,700 firefighters, 90 injuries with two lives lost, $40 million worth of unharvested crop that was burnt and insurance losses in the area of some $75 million. That was a fire amongst conditions that have not been seen since until perhaps what we saw on Wednesday. It does not seem like four years ago, but it is. On Sunday, we joined the minister at the opening of the memorial near the Grace Plains church, which is no longer in use, that will immortalise the memories of that fire and the terrible tragedy that it was and that resulted in two losses of life.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the organising committee of Peter March, Derek Tiller and Roger Davies, who did a wonderful job getting all the photos and information organised and converting what was a burnt-out tennis shed into a memorial or museum of all the happenings that went on during the Pinery fire. Some harrowing stories were told by the speakers. Belinda Cay, who lost her family home, gave a talk at the memorial opening, and John Lush gave a talk about the difficult circumstances they faced.

Representatives of the families of the two people who lost their lives in that fire also spoke. That was incredibly emotional. There was a crowd of what I estimated to be about 500 people in attendance, such is the community support and nostalgia that linger for that particular tragedy. They heard incredible stories from the families who lost loved ones in that fire. Hearing those stories drove quite a few people to tears.

It was pleasing to see such a wonderful turnout to express strong community support for those still suffering the side-effects of that fire four years on. The fire burned down some 91 homes, and it has taken quite some time to rebuild, but the community is starting to rally together. It was pleasing to see that that event went off with such aplomb, and it was a terrific event to be a part of. I am pleased that they saw fit to invite me, and I look forward to visiting that community and that memorial when it is not so busy so I can have a proper interrogation of the memorial panels.

Yesterday morning we had a meeting organised in Yorketown by the Weavers Ag Bureau, when representatives from the Pinery community, near Owen and Hamley Bridge, came to share their experiences of the fire with local farmers so that they know what to expect going forward. They are not flying blind; they have some people with lived experience, who have lived through fires in this situation before, who can come down and give them a bit of a plan, put their priorities in order and help them understand what they will need to do, what they should be doing first and what they should be prioritising.

I thank Adrian McCabe and Ben Marshman for coming to Yorketown yesterday morning. They are in the middle of their harvest and they had to stop harvesting and give up their time to come down. Again, it was a packed room; there was standing room only, such is the ongoing community support for those people who are suffering at Yorketown. Thank you to Adrian and Ben for coming and sharing your experiences with fire; it is really appreciated. I talked to quite a number of farmers on the way out who found it an invaluable experience.

Also, well done to the Weavers Ag Bureau, who with their chair, Marty Collins, are doing a mountain of work in organising and facilitating sponsorship, charity and donations. There will be a lot of work for them to do in the future, trying to support farmers who have lost their crops and face losing their topsoil with sand drift and that sort of stuff. They are in a good position. They are a wonderful community. Well done to Adrian, Ben and also Marty for organising all of that.

I would like to convey, on behalf of the Narungga constituents, a massive thankyou to all our volunteer firefighters and State Emergency Service workers, our SAPOL officers, council personnel and everybody in the community who helped out and who is continuing to help out as we move forward. Reportedly, last week some 600 CFS volunteers fought 65 fires across the state, including 350 locally on Yorke Peninsula, during the catastrophic conditions. If it were not for all of you, the devastation last Wednesday would have been far worse for so many more people. Thank you on behalf of all the people in Narungga. I commend the motion to the house.

Ms COOK (Hurtle Vale) (12:33): I wish to contribute to the motion moved by the Premier and offer my support and sympathies to the people who have been affected by the recent fires on Yorke Peninsula, and broadening that to the Port Lincoln area in your own electorate, Mr Deputy Speaker, and also to people interstate who have been recently very much affected by a whole range of dreadful bushfires.

When I was watching some of the vision of the fires, it took my mind back to Pinery, which has been mentioned today. On the day of the Pinery bushfires, the Parliamentary Committee on Occupational Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation was heading to the Riverland. We were advised that we would need to find an alternative route because of the Pinery fires, as we could not head through the northern region. It was for that reason that the member for Schubert could not attend those committee hearings, as he was quite rightly supporting his community.

Within hours, the smoke was so thick over the Riverland that we were thinking about how close the fires must be. However, watching the vision on satellite, we could see it was hundreds of kilometres away from where we were. With those winds pushing the smoke so far to the east, it was quite unnerving, so I can only imagine what it must have been like for farmers and people living in small regional communities to experience that and to see the glow on the horizon.

I was watching with interest what was happening last week and thinking about how traumatic and stressful that must be for families and vulnerable people in their homes. I commend the volunteers, the community services, the emergency services and health services in the region, the local councils that came out in force, and generally decent people. In the main, emergencies such as this bring out the best in everybody, and we as a community stand together to thank those people.

I also want to refer to staff within the emergency recovery unit of the Department of Human Services, who have responded, under the guidance of their management team and the minister, to provide grants to families and individuals who need immediate and urgent support and also on-the-ground support. I have seen this support firsthand during times of flood in my electorate, and I thank them for their responsive action and for the support and care that they offer.

Some volunteer groups also responded on the ground. I know the Salvation Army was activated, as was St John. If I try to name everybody, I am sure I will miss some out, not knowing the local area, so I will commend the volunteer services. They look after not just people but also the animals, livestock, fences, the buildings and the repairs that will go on for many months after the incident. I thank all those people in the community—those who are registered and also the off-the-cuff, decent people who put up their hand to help their neighbours and people in neighbouring towns.

I offer my hand if people need support or a callout for any assistance. I am very happy to assist in that regard. Many locals have contacted me and offered to donate and collect a range of items. I am offering the same advice to everyone: it is a wonderful thought to collect various things in distant locations in an emergency, but often the cost of freight and sorting becomes a bigger problem than the initial show of goodwill. I recommend that people head to redcross.org.au and support them through donations. They will then divvy the money to areas of need with some degree of governance and triage. So that is where I recommend people go.

In summing up, my electorate of Hurtle Vale lies partly within the Mount Lofty fire district, so we are always on edge during periods of bushfire risk. We also lie within the Mawson catchment area, and I would like to thank the Mawson CFS for helping to coordinate the operations around these volunteer firefighting teams.

I know there have been many crews and members who have headed off from our electorate, specifically from Happy Valley and Morphett Vale, and also from Clarendon and Cherry Gardens, which are not far away. Other units within Mawson, such as Blewitt Springs, Kangarilla, McLaren Flat and Seaford, have also provided help, so I wish to thank all those people. In fact, Cherry Gardens lies just outside Mawson, but I am well connected with them as they were in the seat of Fisher before Hurtle Vale and I have maintained that relationship.

I look forward to seeing my brigades very soon as I do my annual visits to all our CFS brigades. Thank you to everybody in the community for joining together. Thank you to all those across this house who have and will speak on the motion. It is very important and I commend it.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (12:40): I, too, rise to support this motion moved by the Premier and seconded by the Leader of the Opposition, and I do so on behalf of the people of Stuart. The people of Stuart have been, I suggest, affected by more fires in the last 9½ years that I have been an MP than any other single electorate, but the reality is that the impact of any one fire on any one family or one farm or one home or one business is as great for that home, farm, family, business, etc. as it is for anyone anywhere else, and one is more than enough for anybody.

The people in Yorketown were in a terrible situation but, as we know from previous speakers, they were not the only ones under great threat that day. Since first looking at the map when the fire was going, I have thought fairly constantly of the positive of the fact that it was heading towards the gulf and that, without a late wind change, it was going to hit the coast and burn out. That was a plus but, on the negative side, it was going straight at the town of Edithburgh. Essentially, the people there were fighting this fire that was going to come to them and pass them by, but they needed to save as much as they possibly could in the way. That is the perspective of the people in the town, of course.

The people on the farms in the open country were doing everything they could to protect their homes, stock and other assets, whether it was sheds, hay, crops, etc., but they were not doing it alone. As we know from all other speakers here today, they were not doing it alone. They were doing it with the extraordinarily important volunteer service and a paid section of the Country Fire Service. Overwhelmingly, it was the volunteer CFS service and of course the unsung brigade of farm firefighting units, which in recent years have become more and more organised and more and more important. They deserve as much praise as anyone else.

I want to talk very briefly about the impact of fire. I am not talking about the homes lost or, as in Pinery, the two deaths that occurred, or, as in the fire at Southern Flinders, Wirrabara Forest, a few years ago, the six or eight houses that were lost. One of the things that struck me as a CFS member—although I was far more active a few years go than I am at the moment—and also as an MP, is the impact that fire has on people decades afterwards. I have had a lot of contact with people who were near a fire in recent years, but they were also very dangerously exposed to fire in some cases 20 or 25 years previously.

The second occasion when they were not really in any great danger but fire was a danger to their district brought back memories, feelings, fear and anxiety from decades earlier, and this was not something I was aware of or exposed to until about six years ago. It is real. It is palpable. It is very genuine how terrified people are, in large part because the feelings of a couple of decades ago, when they were actually in danger, had come back to them. What really struck me was what can we do to try to help people who have very recently been at risk due to fire so that they do not have this locked up or bottled up inside them for the next 10, 20 or 30 years and how we can try to avoid that.

After thanking everybody who has worked so hard in South Australia and outside South Australia—I suspect we all know CFS volunteers who have volunteered in recent weeks and who in previous times have gone interstate to help others, putting themselves in very grave danger—my desire in this speech is to call on this house, through our collective capacity and presumably mostly through our government's capacity, to see what we can do now, shortly after the Arthurton/Edithburgh fire, and perhaps more effectively at the end of this fire season, to help people who have this year and maybe last year been affected by fire.

I know from my experience over the last five, six or seven years that the less obvious trauma and the less obvious impacts exist, so what can we do to try to lessen that impact for people so that as much as possible we can contain the impact of the fire on the community to the more physical, and that extends through to loss of crops and stock that are very emotionally confronting? How can we try to contain it to those things and try to remove or diminish the impact that lingers for decades? If we can do that work as well as the immediate firefighting work, which of course on any day is more pressing, then we will take a massive step forward in what we broadly call fighting bushfires.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (12:46): I rise to support the Premier's motion, supported by the opposition leader and I think everyone in this chamber, to thank those who did such an amazing job last week not only on Yorke Peninsula, where so much was lost, but also in other parts of the state that were also under threat. Everyone will remember that last Wednesday, following on from all the warnings we had had over the previous days, we awoke to one of those really nasty days we occasionally get in South Australia, with high temperatures above 40° and those fierce northerlies.

I think that all of us, whether in a metropolitan or a rural seat, were bracing ourselves for what could have been truly catastrophic results on a catastrophic fire day. As the day progressed, we followed media reports of what was happening. We knew that the fire was burning fiercely on Yorke Peninsula, and there were some very hazy reports of what had been lost. We also had fires threatening around the Port Wakefield area, the Barossa and other parts of the state.

I want to thank all those emergency service volunteers and staff, who did an incredible job on that day. To see people from my part of the woods on the Fleurieu Peninsula getting in their firefighting vehicles and heading off to help their fellow South Australians was a tremendous thing. It is something we have seen over the past few decades, with South Australians chipping in to help each other out and, of course, also going interstate to help those unfortunate people battling fires in other parts of Australia.

I want to go back to the Wangary Black Tuesday fire of January 2005, obviously something very dear to you, Deputy Speaker. Your dad, Brian Treloar, was the then chairman of the Lower Eyre Peninsula council. I want to extend this thanks out to the broader community if I could and to leaders like your father. Yorke Peninsula mayor, Darren Braund, was on radio last week in a leadership role providing advice to the people in the area, as well as working with the government of the day to ensure that things that need to get fixed get fixed as quickly as possible.

Once the fire goes through, we quickly move into recovery mode. That is when community leaders step up again. We always see hundreds and hundreds of public servants get to work to try to make a difference for those people on the ground. With the Wangary fires, we fixed things like this in no time at all. Mike Rann was the premier at the time. I was put over there for six weeks, basically as the chief of staff to whichever visiting minister was in town.

Every day for six weeks, we had a minister on the ground in Port Lincoln and they had the power of cabinet. They did not have to take things back to cabinet to get things resolved. At that time, there were trees still standing, but the roots were burnt out, and John Hill, the environment minister at the time, said that the most important thing was human life, not trees, so get the trees chopped down. It is funny how a bushfire brings everyone together, but it also helps us to see things much more clearly and to do things in a much quicker way.

The Pinery fires, four years ago this week, were also devastating. Again, we saw people across all areas of the Public Service come together to work with local people. As the minister for agriculture, we had 12 primary industry teams out there putting down animals that had suffered injuries during the fire and helping bury stock that were killed. It is a team effort, but one that we do not ever like to see because it means that it has followed on from a devastating bushfire. So many South Australians—our firefighters, our emergency service responders, the police and ambulance officers—do such an incredible job, and we also see the fabric of the region come together with the support of the whole state, by and large.

For people who have lost stock and lost their homes and for others who have suffered the anguish of having to survive a deadly bushfire, the trauma that follows on from that is real and goes on for months, years and, in some cases, never leaves them. So one really important thing we need to do now that the fire has passed is to be around those people, not only in a governmental sense but also in terms of mental health delivery, and also for family and friends to be aware to keep an eye out for people.

After the Pinery fire, the minister for energy and I attended a barbecue in a big shed at the Schusters. It was about three weeks after the fire and it was a barbecue to bring the community out. The mental health teams had already been out there organising community meetings in bowls clubs and town halls around the fireground, and a large percentage of women tended to come to them and the men would stay at home.

I come from a farm and had a dad who was practically dead before he went to the doctor because he did not look after his own health, so I know that we need to look after everyone in our community, but particularly the men who may not be so good at talking about it. That barbecue that the minister for energy and I went to was a barbecue, it was a get-together, but there were people in the room wandering around looking for signs from people who might not have been travelling so well.

After the Wangary fire, there was at least one suicide. It is a real thing and quite often people do not want to talk about mental health. In 2019, I think we are much more mature than we were even a decade ago and so people are talking about it. We just need to keep an eye out because, long after the fire has gone through a town or a region, the damage is still real.

Once again, I commend all the emergency services volunteers and personnel from Yorke Peninsula and all those from other parts of the state who went to their aid on their efforts last week. I thank them and everyone else who is going to be involved in the recovery to get these people back on their feet as soon as possible.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (12:54): It is my privilege to stand to make some brief remarks in support of the Premier's motion to the parliament today and I do so as the member for Heysen representing an area that is smack bang in the middle of the Mount Lofty Ranges district. It is an area that is usually looked to as a primary point of danger, and indeed, on 20 November last Wednesday, the Mount Lofty district was one of those seven districts that was rated in the catastrophic category.

Notwithstanding that, I could not be more proud than to report that brigades from all corners of Heysen, and indeed throughout the Mount Lofty Ranges, attended at Yorketown. I am advised that those brigades included Bridgewater, Kangarilla, Stirling and Strathalbyn—as I have said, brigades from all corners of Heysen and throughout the Mount Lofty Ranges. I stress that these brigades came from one area of catastrophic conditions to go to assist at another area of catastrophic conditions, that being the fire at Yorketown and surrounds. It was a day, as we know, during which many of the schools throughout the state were closed, and they included many schools in Heysen.

So, in recognising those volunteers who responded to those emergency conditions, I particularly single them out. That is also against a background—and reference has been made to the circumstances nationally that have been experienced over recent weeks—where, as I am further advised, over those recent weeks, brigades including Bridgewater, Clarendon, Macclesfield, Strathalbyn, Upper Sturt and Woodchester within Heysen have volunteered to assist in New South Wales in those horrendous conditions that we have all heard a great deal about. I want to particularly recognise that extraordinary commitment to volunteer for community assistance that has been so well demonstrated by those brigades in particular from my area.

I will take the chance as well to note that, if there is a benefit that may have come from this particularly difficult time in this last week, it is that I can report a very strong interest in the community more broadly to be prepared as we commence this fire season ahead. We know that it is likely to be a particularly challenging one and we do all we can to encourage the community to be prepared and ready.

As recently as last Friday evening, Jackie Horton, who is a community engagement officer with the CFS, wrote to me to report that workshops that she is planning for the Strathalbyn area have had a very strong expression of interest. For a session that she says might attract a dozen people, she is having to find another venue in order to accommodate expressions of interest in the many tens. She is reporting that it is very encouraging to see this uptake of interest. It is something that the minister raises with me on a regular basis at this time to ensure that we do all we can to be prepared. With those remarks, I commend the motion.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pederick.

Sitting suspended from 12:59 to 14:00.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT