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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2542 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I congratulate everybody from the ACT who was at Thredbo working on this disaster - workers from a range of services such as ambulance, fire and emergency services as well as people performing a counselling role and offering support of other kinds. The contribution that they make in times such as this, when there are disasters - sometimes it is heavy rain; sometimes it is very strong winds; sometimes it is a major fire - rarely gets the same sort of attention as we saw at Thredbo, with the concentration of television on one person whose rescue changed the tone of events. It is a good opportunity for us to stand here and say, "That was a great job. We appreciate what you are doing. As elected representatives of the community, it is appropriate that we in the Assembly recognise not just the contribution you made at Thredbo but the constant assistance and support you provide to the community". I am very pleased to join with other members in recognising that contribution.

MS TUCKER (4.05): I would also like to say a few words. Obviously, we all feel great sympathy for those people who lost loved ones at Thredbo. The people who were dealing with the actual rescue operation deserve great respect from us all. I went to a church service for Missing Persons Week. The priest there spoke about Thredbo and how it had affected him because he had gone there to help support the people who were working on the rescue. He was very thoughtful in his sermon and he said that many people were asking him, "Where is God when you see these kinds of accidents?".

Mr Moore: A good question.

MS TUCKER: Mr Moore says, "A good question". It is, and that is why I thought it was a very thoughtful sermon. I was impressed to hear a priest addressing that question. It is the question that people always ask when there is a tragedy. I was interested to hear a religious person address that question. He said that he believed he saw God in the faces and the demeanour of the people who worked on that site, in the endurance and the perseverance that they showed. He was really stretching the definition of God to include the strength that we all have within us and that can come out in certain circumstances. He was saying how truly great it was and how we can be very inspired when we see it.

I talked to the priest later. He also has the ministry for the police in the ACT. He made me aware that, while this particular incident was the focus of our attention, in fact police are dealing with this kind of trauma on a regular basis. They are constantly having to deal with such trauma and receive counselling and support from people such as Peter Guy. That made me think further about incidents like Thredbo, which really shock us in Australia, where as a society we are pretty secure most of the time. However, there are individuals in our society who are not safe, who do not feel safe and who are experiencing trauma.

Every night on television we see tragedies in various countries around the world. Last night on SBS we saw children starving to death on the streets in Russia. A social worker said that every morning he goes back to the streets and he wonders which child has been murdered, raped, assaulted or whatever. When these things happen, it is an opportunity for us to see our responsibilities as citizens of the world.

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