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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 8 Hansard (20 August) . . Page.. 2894 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

When the government tabled its second appropriation bill yesterday I looked forward to seeing additional funding for counselling and the sorts of community services that are necessary to make sure that Canberrans do get over this adequately, but I cannot seem to find it. I am happy for the government to correct me, but I can find nothing about extra counselling and extra services for bushfire victims.

That brings me to the third part of the motion, Mr Speaker. I believe that by the close of business tomorrow the government should show us their assessment of the future needs of those affected by the bushfires in regard to counselling and other services. I think the government has done well in the physical clean-up. I think everybody would say that has gone exceedingly well because of the committee that was set up and the leadership of Sandy Hollway. So, well done in that regard. But there is a greater need that, according to the constituents, is seemingly being ignored and, according to the experts, this is at a critical time when more effort must be made to look after those in the community who are drastically affected.

So what this motion does is ask for the government to table, by the close of business tomorrow, their assessment of the needs into the future-for the next 12 months and hopefully beyond that-so that we as an Assembly will know that the government is putting in place the sorts of services and the funding to provide those services that are absolutely necessary if people are to recover and get over the incidents of 18 January and the days after.

Mr Speaker, the fourth part of the motion is about recognition. It is about recognition for volunteers-for volunteer bushfire fighters, the emergency services personnel, the urban fire brigade and obviously the AFP. Indeed, the list should include public servants and other community groups who performed so well during those very hard days.

In the follow-up to the 2001 fire there was a parade in Civic that the then minister, Mr Quinlan, organised. Members were given a small lapel badge that they could wear to show that they had been on duty on that Christmas Eve and the following days. A patch was later issued and a thank-you barbecue was organised. So a whole lot was done to say to the volunteers, "Well done."There are many out there in the community who feel that not enough has been done in the case of the most recent bushfires. They feel that little has been done in the case of a disaster of much larger magnitude.

A constituent has been writing to all MLAs asking them what they thought should be done to recognise volunteers, and on Monday he sent us all an email of the responses. To his credit, Mr Corbell responded quite quickly. He is the only member of the government to respond. Mr McMullan, the federal member, responded and said that he would pass it on to Mr Stanhope. But there has been no response from other ministers or, indeed, the Chief Minister. Four out of the six members of the Liberal Party responded, saying we believe recognition should occur. But, unfortunately, nothing has happened at this stage.

It is interesting that recommendation 102 of the government's response to the fires of 2001 proposed the "development of strategies to better recognise volunteers". But as yet we have not seen anything. Indeed, in some of the brigades there is great deal of

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