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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-02-19 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Kangaroo Island Bushfire Response

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:08): It was great to have a premier in this place today who rang and checked in on the people of Kangaroo Island to see how we were going down there. Will Hodgman was a great premier. Until a few weeks ago, he was the premier of Tasmania. He was here today.

Unfortunately, we do not have a good premier in South Australia, and from what I have seen in my local area over the past 61 days every South Australian should be very, very scared that something will go wrong in their local area over the next two years in the remainder of the term of the Marshall government because these are people who have zero empathy, zero generosity and zero care for their fellow South Australians. I have seen it firsthand.

I have heard from the farmers. I have heard from the homeless people over there who have lost their 89 homes on Kangaroo Island since the bushfire disaster started on 20 December last year. I have a letter here that I wrote to the Premier on 23 December, day 4 of this emergency, in which I wrote:

The people of Kangaroo Island need a specialised recovery committee to assist people in rebuilding their lives and infrastructure. There has also been a considerable loss of stock.

The island has its own particular needs because of its isolation and factors like accommodation and transport on and off the island need to be considered due to the time of the year. It's peak season and there are many tourists currently on the island.

The volunteers [here] are doing an exceptional job but are not in a position to work on recovery. There is fatigue in the ranks and more very bad weather to come. We need to bring in people with expertise and knowledge of the area to start rebuilding [and] planning. The earlier we start the better.

I must say I found it very disappointing that we are now at day four of this catastrophic bushfire emergency and I have not been contacted by a single member of your cabinet. I can give you examples of emergencies when as Minister I was on the phone and in cars with your MPs, specifically [the member for Chaffey—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: —the member for Stuart, the member for Flinders and the former member for MacKillop]. The community expects the local MP and Government to work together in a bipartisan way and the behaviour of your cabinet has not met community standards.

I have not had a response to that. That is from day 4 of this bushfire emergency. We are now at day 61. Look out, the rest of South Australia, because if you are in trouble this government will be nowhere to be seen. We had to wait more than 50 days for this government to tell the people of Kangaroo Island that they did not have to pay for the clean-up of the burnt-out, blackened wreckage of their homes.

Can you imagine the damage they are doing to people's mental health. On top of losing everything that you love: the home where you brought up your family, the pets that you had, the stock that you had to put down, for these people not to turn up and for a premier to fly in and fly out and never spend more than a few hours on the ground, I have to say is a disgrace. I have spent so many hours with people who are now homeless. There were 89 homes lost in this fire.

I have spoken to people who lost not only their home but their business and they went out and helped their mates, farmers, shoot sheep. I drove around on that Saturday morning after the big Friday night and we saw so much loss and destruction, and all I heard was the sound of rifle cracks. When you speak to someone like Josh, who tells you about the ewe that nuzzled his knee, basically begging for a bullet to the head to put it out of pain, they are the stories that the Premier of this state needs to go over and hear. If you do not hear these stories, how can you act? The first thing that we have to have as a government, as representatives of the people of this state, is empathy. How can you have empathy for people you do not know? How can you?

Two weeks ago, I came in here with a very measured tone. I said to the Premier then that the standard he has set was not a standard that I was prepared to accept. I said to him that I will draw a line in the sand and let's start this relationship over because that is what the community, any community, expects people to do to work together. Do you think he might have stepped over here and had a look? Have a look at the end of that video. He is looking at his toes. He could not even look me in the eye during my speech which, as I said, was very measured. He has not reached out to me in the two weeks since I made that speech in here and he has not responded to any of the 12 letters that I have written.

If any South Australian, whether you live on Kangaroo Island, you know people on Kangaroo Island, you love Kangaroo Island or you feel for the people of Kangaroo Island, thinks that this Premier has treated the people of Kangaroo Island in a humane way, then I do not know what world you live in. I live in a world where we care for people and where we stand up for people. I am so proud to be on this side because the Labor Party has turned up in numbers and listened to the people of Kangaroo Island.

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