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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-06 Daily Xml
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Kangaroo Island Bushfire

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:31): I rise today to talk a bit more about the Kangaroo Island fires of the past 50-odd days and the marvellous work that is being done by so many volunteers, including hundreds of volunteers from the mainland and Kangaroo Island, without excluding anyone else who was involved in this mammoth effort.

I want to talk about the May family of Parndana for a few moments. Terry May heads up the CFS in Parndana and did an amazing job captaining the troops and making sure that every possible effort could be put into fighting the fire, which, as we know, snaked around the western end of Kangaroo Island and burnt 48 per cent of this 4,500 square kilometre island. They had a very tough job and Terry, as always, provided great leadership.

His wife, Cheryl, is a CFS level 3 logistics officer and she also played a key role, as she always has in the community of Parndana. She is a former citizen of the year and I think she has had about 18 years on the progress association. Up until recently, she had been the president of the Parndana Progress Association, as well as being involved in the sports committee and many other organisations in the town of Parndana.

These fires started on 20 December. When I turned up on the 21st to see if I could lend a hand in any way, perhaps making sandwiches or ferrying home tired firefighters who had finished a shift, Cheryl took the time to explain what was happening. It is always hard in our positions as local members: we want to be there and we want to show our support, but we do not want to get in the way. Cheryl was terrific in taking me into the briefing so that I could listen to it and outlining exactly what was happening. She showed great patience and great leadership in the way she went about her job not just that night but for the next 40 or so nights. I met her daughter Kimberley that day.

Kimberley was down from Gladstone for what was meant to be a three-week Christmas holiday. She was put straight to work by Cheryl and was working in the command centre of the incident management centre and ended up staying for four weeks. It was no holiday, I can tell you; she was working as hard as anyone. Terry and Cheryl's other daughter, Rachelle, was also working in the incident control centre as well as being out on the fireground fighting the fire. Their son, Frank, was also fighting the fire.

As Cheryl said, at least they did not have to worry about what was happening at home with dinner because they were all in the same spot pretty much day and night offering a remarkable service to their community, as they always have. This is why we need sometimes to tell the stories of these families because around South Australia, in all our rural communities, we have people who go above and beyond in their service to their local community and to their fellow community members.

When shadow cabinet met in Parndana two weeks ago, I asked what had happened to Terry and Cheryl's business, Keilem Pty Ltd., an agricultural hardware store. They sell generators, plumbing supplies and all sorts of things you might need on a farm. As they had been dedicated pretty much 24/7 to fighting the fire and running logistics, they closed the doors of their store in Parndana for three weeks and economic activity was wound down to zero.

Cheryl explained that when somebody from the community came to the incident control centre to explain that something had broken, Cheryl would throw them the keys to the store, they would go into the store, take whatever they needed and write it in the book. That is a sign of a very trustworthy and secure local community where people can coexist in this trustful way. So to Cheryl, to Terry, to the entire May family: thank you very much for what you did for Parndana as it was evacuated three times in the past seven weeks. You have done an extraordinary job, and the people of Kangaroo Island are very grateful for your service.

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