Page 17 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 11 February 2020
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has shown that, in the face of diversity, we continue to be one of the safest cities in the world to live in.
Visitors
MADAM SPEAKER: On behalf of the Assembly, I would like to acknowledge and welcome the ambassador and delegates from the UAE and thank you for your help and assistance over our bushfire season. I am sure the entire city of Canberra thanks you with a very deep heart. Welcome to Canberra.
Bushfire and storm season
MRS JONES (Murrumbidgee) (10.56): In 1908 Dorothea Mackellar wrote her famous poem My Country, in which she describes Australia as a land of “droughts and flooding rains”. She referred to “her beauty and her terror, the wide brown land for me”. This summer, we have experienced the mighty force of nature, and the mighty force of our country’s terror when it comes. The season is not over, and it will not surprise me if the rain continues and we see more of the flooding rains before the season is done.
However it comes to pass, and however good we are at preparing for such events, there is one thing we can rely on in this country, and it is the brave and dedicated work of our frontline service personnel and the people of the ACT who put on a uniform and head towards danger, putting themselves forward to fight as the natural beasts of fire, flood and storms come to our homes and to our region. After the hailstorm just weeks ago, a friend of mine commented that we might be seeing locusts next, as the diverse difficulties seemed unending as January unfolded.
On a sombre note, a fantastic couple who I have bought meat from over the years lost their brother and nephew in the Cobargo blaze, and lost a great deal of their property and animals. They are fifth-generation farmers. Their property is west of Cobargo, in the beautiful Wandella Valley. They lost 150 head of cattle, 80 sheep, two houses, one shearers’ shed, one machinery shed, three hay sheds full of hay, two sets of stockyards and 25 kilometres of fencing.
Just yesterday they told me that the grass is green and they had had 150 millimetres of rain. They said that the place was looking much better, but still they have a great deal of work to do to put their lives back together. They are still in the process of clearing the burnt sites so that they can start the long and slow process to rebuild what has been their family’s life for generations.
The toughest part of all is that Warren’s brother Robert and his son Patrick died in the Cobargo fires. They were looking after their property. It helps us to remember how serious the decision is as to whether to stay or whether to go. It is something that Canberrans have grappled with a great deal over the last few weeks. I am sure they will support each other and make the sacrifice of so many worth the future that they will build. I am sure they will build that over the next few years.
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