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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-06-22 Daily Xml
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Adjournment Debate

Kangaroo Island Bushfire Response

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson) (16:13): I would like to make a contribution on behalf of the people of Kangaroo Island, particularly those people affected by those deadly fires of 2019-20 that destroyed so much of the island; 211,000 hectares were destroyed, as were 87 dwellings, 332 outbuildings and 322 vehicles, and the fires killed 59,730 stock animals.

The pain and suffering for the people of Kangaroo Island continues because those people who lost so much and those people who were out there fighting the fires, either as members of the CFS or in farm fire units, saw things that went wrong. From the start of the fire through the fighting of the fire, which was not declared safe until early February—and let's remember these fires started in mid-December 2019—they think that they should have been heard and that lessons should have been learned from what they have had to say.

But, as to the review that was done, during question time the minister said, 'We were the first government to get a review underway.' But they demanded that the review report back by the end of June, so it was signed off by Mick Keelty in mid-June. It did not allow the review to talk to people and have the town hall meetings that the people running the review wanted to do because of COVID. They did an online survey through YourSAy to get people to go online to tell their experiences of the fire. There are several government departments that the reviewer was critical of because they did not make submissions about their role in the bushfires. I want to know what has happened to those government departments and why they did not put anything forward.

The hurt, the PTSD and the other mental health issues are real for the people of Kangaroo Island. When I came in here in question time and asked the minister whether he thought those people had been listened to, he reeled off a whole bunch of things that the Liberal government has spent money on. The people over there do not want to hear that. The people over there do not want this to be a Liberal versus Labor thing.

People just want to be heard, minister. They really want to have their views heard of what happened in the fire, about those things they say went wrong and what could have been done differently to save lives to ensure the fire did not spread as far as it did as quickly as it did. They want to make sure that they are heard in all this because we will see bushfires come again. They invariably do. The regrowth on the western end of the island, which was largely blackened in those 2019-20 bushfires, has grown back. There has been huge regrowth down that end of the island, plus we still have the eastern end of the island that people fear will be burnt.

People are critical of the fact that people came over to the island, without the knowledge of the vegetation and the climatic conditions and other things, and they did not actually know how to fight the fire. They have big questions about that that they feel have not been heard, and they definitely have not been answered in this review that was back in by 30 June. It is a little bit like saying, 'We were the first to put a cake in the oven.' If you have not put all the ingredients in the cake and you have not let it cook for long enough, when you take it out it is going to be a pretty ordinary cake.

This is no reflection on Mick Keelty because he had to go by the parameters that he was set, but perhaps the review time should have been extended, or do the review and it is tabled as it is on 30 June—he signed off on it on 16 June last year—and then say, 'But because of COVID we didn't get to have the town hall meetings, so we're going to have the town hall meetings now.'

I do not want to do anything that is going to further damage the fragile mental state of so many people who are now dear friends of mine. Some were before the fires and some have become my dear friends during and since the fires. I do not want to do anything to upset them, but the more I speak to them the more they want some sort of avenue, some sort of ability, to tell the world and the public what they think should have happened.

It is beholden on the government, perhaps it is beholden on this parliament, to ensure that those people who have lost so much do not go through this again next summer or the summer after. They just want to be heard, they just want things to go better next time around and they feel that their voices and their views have been totally ignored.

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