Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Matters of public importance

Emergency services

The SPEAKER (16:01): I have accepted a statement from the member for Hawthorn proposing the following matter of public importance for discussion:

That this house, despite the tireless commitment of emergency service workers and volunteers during the recent severe weather event, expresses deep concern at the Labor government’s inability to manage Victoria’s emergency services, including failure to ensure power supply across the state, failure to rapidly respond to Victorians calling 000 for emergency assistance, and failure to financially support affected businesses and households.

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn – Leader of the Opposition) (16:01): This is a great pleasure to be able to speak on this matter of public importance today, given the devastation that so many hundreds of thousands of Victorians wrestled with last week, and so many thousands of whom continue to wrestle with today. The storms last week on a number of measures were the worst we have seen in living memory. I know that for the people of Pomonal who lost 45 homes, with one at Dadswells Bridge, our hearts go out to those communities, and I want to acknowledge the member for Lowan, who I know has worked incredibly hard with that community as it wrestles with the future before it. I want to acknowledge also the great work of our emergency services workers, principal among them our CFA and other firefighters who put themselves in harm’s way for our benefit.

Following the fires and pretty much at the same time, we know that Victoria was hit by very severe storms. They were not unexpected. We knew something was coming. We had been told about it the day before, but nevertheless, for those who have been affected, again, our hearts go out to them, and on behalf of the opposition I want to formally acknowledge our thoughts and best wishes for all of those families, households and businesses. Indeed I had the pleasure of speaking to many of them.

On Thursday I met with the member for Berwick in this place and visited a number of businesses in Upper Beaconsfield. We met Pramod and his family. Pramod runs the FoodWorks in Upper Beaconsfield, and it was heart-wrenching to walk around the supermarket as we did, my colleague and I, talking to Pramod about all of the produce he was going to have to throw out. These are real consequences for real people.

We then later visited Rachel and James, who run Blanc Bakery, a young couple who have the world before them and who have suffered enormous financial losses, not to mention the stresses of working their way throughout damaging power outages which saw them lose a lot of produce and suffer a great deal of financial impacts as well. Residents were affected throughout the area. It was also important and moving to speak to so many who were wrestling with this, many of whom have been affected previously by floods and other natural disasters.

On Friday I had the great pleasure of joining the member for Gippsland South and members Renee Heath and Melina Bath in the other place to visit the good people of Mirboo North. Driving and walking through Mirboo North was like walking through a post-apocalyptic movie. I do not think anybody could imagine just how destructive the winds were. I have said elsewhere and I will say here that to see trees larger than you have ever seen ripped out of the ground like matchsticks and thrown on houses and on cars – as Rick Nugent, our emergency services commissioner, said today – it is something of a miracle that no more life was lost than was lost, and we know tragically we lost one life in Mirboo North.

But again, it was important to get to meet with real people – people like Damien and Jasmine and their daughter Rosie, who were clearly distressed by the damage to their property. We spoke to Brad and his colleagues, who were going from house to house, sawing logs into small pieces so they could be taken away. We spoke to Rowan and Lesley. Rowan told me that the damage on their large property ‍– which I observed directly, along with my colleagues, to be a scene of debris and devastation, with massive trees just lying across the yard – would cost something like $60,000 just to clear. While I was at that property I met with a worker from Saputo. I asked him what he was doing there, and he said he had taken two days leave, at his expense, to help out with the clean-up. If that does not say what it means to be an Australian, what it means to be a Victorian, I do not know what else does.

We met with Libby, Peter and Paul. The interesting thing I remember about that was their stoicism and their resilience. As we were talking to them they seemed so upbeat for the devastation around them, and I remember thinking, ‘We are standing talking to these three people affected by these storms and there is a massive tree sitting on their house.’ It is a miracle they were not killed. We met with Mary Baker, a pioneer and campaigner for the people of Mirboo North, who worked for many years to get the Mirboo North pool up and running; she did that. To see her heartbroken at the damage to the pool and the surrounds was very moving, but I assured her that, working with the government, we are going to make sure that that pool is reinstated.

I have spent some time talking about these people because they are real, they are the face of the devastation we saw last week. They are us; they are who we would like to be if we had the great misfortune of going through what they have been through – stoic, resilient and determined to come through this crisis. I also mentioned them specifically, and I want their names on the record as I have put, because they are owed more by their government and their agencies and their leaders across this state. They are owed emergency services that are properly funded. They are owed emergency services with the assets necessary to ensure that when fires occur like those last week, we will have adequately resourced brigades, with volunteers in particular who know we have their back. I think they have every reason to wonder whether we do have their back.

We have raised an issue today about a broken promise by this government. In 2020 this government promised 48 new heavy CFA tankers. The government promised that those tankers would be in place by the end of last year. Only 20 have been delivered. That is a broken promise, but it is not just a broken promise on the face of it, it is a failure to back up the people we need to protect us, and that is not fair to them. We know, because we raised it in question time today, that there are 130 emergency services vehicles that are over 30 years old and 193 – that is nearly 200 – that are nearly over 30 years old. Now, are we backing our CFA volunteers and our SES volunteers when we are supplying them with outdated equipment? This is equipment we are talking about – new equipment that is equipped with electronic monitoring, simple things like electronic rewinding of hose reels and other GPS and satellite technology that helps them protect us – and we fail them when we do not act on the promises we make to them. That is not fair to them, and it is not fair to the people I mentioned earlier and indeed all Victorians who depend on our emergency services.

But more than that, we know that last week, because of the failure to invest in our energy system, our transmission network and our distribution networks were too vulnerable to things that we knew we could make that system withstand. We know that the government has had at least four reports in the last four years – from AusNet, from Energy Safe Victoria and from the government’s own expert panel in 2022. The government has been told what it needs to do to make our transmission network more resilient. The towers that collapsed last week were towers that could and should have been repaired or replaced. We know that 12 per cent of the 13,000 transmission towers are rusty. We know that. That is not a guess. That has been assessed and determined, and the government could fix it, and it could fix it by either directly investing in it or making sure the transmission network providers do it themselves. It is the government’s responsibility to do that. How many warnings does the government need? In the last six years 1.9 million households and businesses have suffered from blackouts. That is just in the last six years. We know that last week’s blackouts, which continue for so many thousands today, were the worst in over a decade, and that is not fair to them. What has the government done about it? We know that the government has commissioned report after report, but what sort of real investment is there? Having heard the Premier in question time today, let us talk about real investments. The government has only put $7.5 million into resilience investment in our transmission and distribution network. That frankly is pathetic, and that is letting down the people of this state.

We often say on this side of the house that it is important first of all as a government to manage the finance of our state in a prudent and responsible way, and that is no better demonstrated than when we look at whether governments have the capacity to invest in the primary things people need. People need power, they need decent roads, they need decent hospitals, they need decent schools and they need decent services, and they are not getting it. So when we say Victoria is broke, Labor cannot manage money and Victorians are paying the price, look to emergency services. When we say this state is broke, Labor cannot manage money and Victorians are paying the price, look at its failure to invest in our transmission network. When we say Victoria is broke, Labor cannot manage money and Victorians are paying the price, look at the debacle that is Victoria’s energy policy under the minister at the table, the Minister for Energy and Resources. I will come to that in a moment.

We have called, in light of last week’s devastating events, for an independent inquiry. The people of Victoria deserve it. Let us have the tough questions asked about what needs to happen in terms of transmission lines, how they are structured and where they are placed to best futureproof the system against storms. But what has this government done? True to form this government wants to implement a sham inquiry – a sham inquiry run by its mates with a predetermined outcome to pretend that the truth has been unearthed. Well, it will not have been. And although the government might well have its way on its inquiry, I want the Victorian people to know that they deserve better. They deserve the truth. Remember this is only the tip of the iceberg. Our transmission system, as I have said, and our distribution networks are in a state of disrepair. They are vulnerable to future storms, and Victorians will continue to pay the price.

But the government’s broader approach to energy is a debacle, as I have said. Its offshore wind policy is a mess. They knew years ago that they would have difficulty seeking federal approval for the Ramsar wetlands at the Port of Hastings. They ignored them. The Premier did not even know that the Minister for Planning had initiated an environment effects review of that very project. Mr Dimopoulos in this place did not even know that federal minister Plibersek had issued detailed reasons for the decision. Offshore wind – a mess. And what is going to happen because of this government’s incompetence? I will tell you what is going to happen. A lot of the global capital, and it is mostly global capital, will start going up the eastern seaboard and throughout Asia because we have not done our homework. That is what is going to happen.

This government has a plan that power stations like Yallourn will come offline in 2028, Loy Yang A in 2035 and probably Loy Yang B at the same time. What are they going to replace them with? They do not have a plan. They have banned gas. Victorians know that they, the government, banned gas. They are banning it all. They are banning it everywhere, and I will tell you why. Not only are they banning it in new homes, but by doing so they are telling markets that there is no point investing in gas. Do not just take our word for it, because we are not alone. AEMO, the ACCC – everybody is saying we will need gas going into the future, not just as a transition fuel but as a peaking fuel, a feeding stock for industry. Does the government even have any idea how many households and businesses were able to survive through last week because they had access to gas? Let us have a commonsense approach to gas that is not driven by these ideological preoccupations. Let us make sure that the transition to more renewables is done in an orderly way and that we actually have a plan for what is going to happen.

In terms of onshore wind, we do not know what the government’s plan is for transmission networks, whether it is VNI West or the Western Renewables Link. Whatever it is, this government does not seem to have any idea how to deliver, whether it is its own targets or its glossy brochures talking about the transition to renewables. We support it, but only on this side do we know how you can do that in an orderly way, because at the end of the day you need an orderly approach that protects all Victorian households and businesses.

As for their SEC, let me just put this on the record: this mob over there thought it was a good idea to spend $245 million of taxpayer money on a project that had already passed final investment decision. Yes, the battery project in Melton. You know what we got for it? A 38 per cent share, so not even a controlling interest. But what did they do? This government used taxpayer dollars to effectively underwrite a project that was already going ahead, and they did it for free. Think about that.

This government does not have a plan for our energy future. Victorian families and households will continue to suffer. That is because this state is broke. This Labor government does not know how to manage money, and Victorians are paying the price.

Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (16:16): I am very keen to rise to make a contribution to this matter of public importance. I will say that there were a number of hysterical claims and assertions that were made at a very hysterical level by the Leader of the Opposition on a whole range of things. I suppose you can say things hysterically and you can say hysterical things, but it does not mean that they are any truer just because you say them in a hysterical way.

I want to reflect on the devastation that last Tuesday’s catastrophic weather event and storms wreaked on Victorians. I want to acknowledge and pay my respect to communities who suffered greatly from the bushfires that impacted Pomonal and surrounds. We know that more than 46 homes were destroyed, and certainly we know that people are still in recovery mode. Our government, our emergency services, our first responders and our recovery teams are at maximum level out there in the community, on the ground, providing whatever support is needed for those communities. I do want to say that they are very much our heroes.

The more extreme weather events that we are seeing because of climate change, the harder the challenges become. We are in a situation where one extreme weather event causes floods, bushfires or indeed massive storms and we recover and then within a matter of months we are in another catastrophic event or extreme weather event and again there is damage. Resilience is a really important factor in all of this.

We saw at the height of the massive power outages that occurred last Tuesday 530,000 homes and businesses lost power, and we know that that was a historic figure. The damage caused to our poles and wires, our electricity network, was also at historic levels. It was one of the largest single outage events in the state’s history, even surpassing the one that we saw in the October 2021 storm event, and that event itself was a historic event in terms of the number of people that lost supply because of the physical destruction of the poles and wires that take electricity from where it is made to where it is needed.

Certainly we can say that last Tuesday’s event was not because there was an insufficient amount of electricity supply. In fact there was ample electricity supply. The problem is of course that the poles and wires and transmission lines that need to take it from where it is produced to where it is needed failed, and that is what we are contending with. But the heroes – the first responders, the crews, the energy crews and a whole range of other emergency services – responded very, very quickly, and within four days 95 per cent of all of the outages were restored. Currently we have about 99.7 per cent of people that lost power that Tuesday back on power, but we know of course we still have, as of this morning, 1269 homes without power. Those maintenance crews remain onsite, working around the clock to get those remaining people back on supply. That is where our focus ought to be and that is where the focus has been.

We need to consider that even amongst these remaining 1269 homes and businesses that are still without power the energy crews that are getting in still need to contend with remoteness, partial trees that have been uprooted and some vulnerability of existing trees that may still be there. Where they can of course they have been removing those trees and clearing them, but we also know that we have got another significant event that is coming through parts of our state tomorrow. That is what we need to always remember here – what the facts are and what we are doing to support people immediately and beyond that. Certainly I do want to commend all of those people that have done a wonderful job in very, very trying situations, often with their own homes off power and some having lost their own homes in fires, stepping in and stepping up to assist others in need.

Just in terms of the scale of the damage, whilst two transmission lines were brought down for about an hour at the most, a number of people were off supply. AEMO, and do I thank them, were able to reroute those transmission lines so that the disruption from those towers that collapsed under that very extreme rare weather event, or wind pattern, was able to be rerouted within an hour. But the reality is the rest of the storm event and all of the mini tornadoes – tornado-like conditions – took down tens of thousands of kilometres of powerlines down people’s streets. The low-voltage distribution poles and wires were brought down, and that is what we need to remember here. It is about those poles and wires ‍– thousands of kilometres – that came down.

What is really important here is that no time was wasted for the Premier, the Minister for Emergency Services, the Minister for Education, me and other ministers and other members of Parliament, some of whom were personally affected by these storm events and bushfires. And I do acknowledge those on the opposite side that were also in very challenging circumstances. Being on the ground was so vital to provide the support, to listen, to hear and to absorb the sheer anxiety and frustration and to do something with that, because that is what communities expect of us. Lots of questions have been asked by communities of all of us, and it is our obligation to take those questions and get the answers so that we can mitigate and ensure that in the event of future catastrophic events we can do better – and we will do better. That is what they deserve – no less than that – and that is our commitment.

Certainly we need to contend with the reality that – with such a catastrophic event – we are going to see these coming through more frequently and with greater devastating impacts. We need to be ready for that in terms of the operational arrangements of the energy companies. With respect to the areas of my ministerial responsibility, we established an independent expert-led panel when we had the first two major extreme events back in 2021 and of course established a supplementary review so we could look into the issues that were with us from last Tuesday and subsequent to that.

What communities have said to us on response times is they have got questions about that in terms of the energy companies – the promptness of communication, the failure of SMS messages and links and websites crashing – and we need to interrogate and give those communities who have asked those questions the answers that they are seeking. The independent expert panel that will undertake this review will not have a bunch of politicians on it, because we know what they think, don’t we? We really do know what they think, and I do not think we would get to the bottom of the questions or get the answers that those community members want. We would get a whole bunch of other things coming from that.

This review will have a similar approach to what occurred as a result of the 2021 outages, and in particular it will examine the operational arrangements and preparedness of these electricity powerline companies and their response to that event. That will include the individual operating models of the powerline companies and the timely and effective restoration of power. It will investigate if there were any other material opportunities that could have enabled a more rapid reconnection of customers, such as the availability or indeed the redeployment of field crews and technical expertise through the use of mutual aid agreements and resource sharing within Victoria or from interstate resources. This is really critical, because we know that Victorians could certainly have had a better immediate response from the services that these essential service energy businesses should have provided. That is why this expert panel will be able to request information and assistance from the Australian Energy Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Operator and Energy Safe Victoria. Each one of them I have spoken with, and they are absolutely ready and willing to participate and provide whatever information and assistance they can to the expert panel. Of course some of these agencies are already undertaking their own independent reviews, so together, collectively, we will have a very strong picture and the answers that communities want from us. That is our endeavour and our commitment.

I want to talk about a number of really more important issues than the ones that those opposite would rather talk about, because they really miss the whole point of what is before us right now – that is, the facts. The facts do matter. The facts do matter about what happened. The facts do matter about the reality of people’s lives, which have been impacted. It did not take long, sadly. Whilst we were still at the height of the fallout from last Tuesday’s event, they were already going on Sky News and making a whole bunch of assertions about what caused this. What caused this? Remember the experts that wanted to have their own inquiry – the experts that said, ‘Absolutely, nuclear is the solution’? Goodness me! Go ahead, build nuclear. If you have got a powerline that cannot carry the power, fat lot of good it will do you.

Members interjecting.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: That’s going to fix it, is it?

Members interjecting.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: Oh, jeez, you are such a clever person! Offering a technology that is decades away, if ever it will be available, that is a solution for today or tomorrow? It is the most expensive form of new energy that you can create. That will do people well with their energy bills, won’t it? That will do really well. And by the way, that is the frolic, because they know they will never deliver that. It is a distraction. It is purposely designed through Sky News and dealing with their mates in Canberra who are still talking about nuclear. They have got their mates wanting to use uranium and the rest of that. I am wondering where the donations are coming from sometimes, but I will not go there.

But this is the reality: we have got to deal with the facts. We have got to offer real solutions to Victorians, and that is what we are doing. For example, the last time they were in government and the Hazelwood mine caught fire, the energy minister took a week to find his way to Morwell – a week. I did not say that. The minister was nowhere to be seen. Under their last term of government the Latrobe Valley Express ran a headline ‘Energy minister, where have you been?’ Indeed. I will tell you what, it takes a Labor government to introduce prolonged power outage payments, because you never did any of that when you were last in government. We are providing support to the most vulnerable in our community. I want you to go and tell those community members who are going to receive that payment that you would not have done it, because you never did it in the past.

The SPEAKER: Order! Through the Chair.

Lily D’AMBROSIO: We are about making the system better, not worse. Not once did they invest in any transmission infrastructure. By the way, they sold it off to their mates, making $20 billion of profit since, but they still want government to put money into it. That is what they are saying. Not one new transmission line did they build. Not one new renewable energy project did they build – not one. All they did was have a backward look in the mirror to say, ‘Oh, there’s a coal generator over there. We’re going to rely on that until it goes kaput.’ Eventually it will reach its end of engineering life with nothing to replace it. That was their approach. Those opposite can say a whole lot of things, but frankly this is what Mr Pesutto said – that we cannot afford to rule out nuclear energy: ‘We’re certainly open to it.’ That was his response when he was appeared on Sky News on 14 February, at the height of the catastrophic incident that happened last week. (Time expired)

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (16:32): I am greatly appreciative that I can acknowledge and run through the events that took place last week after the catastrophic fire day and the horrific fires which impacted on my electorate of Lowan, in the west of the state. The day before we had alerts right across the news that it was going to be a catastrophic fire day. As part of that half of the schools were closed in Horsham and half of them were still open. There was a feeling in the community of, ‘Well, what’s this all about? Why are we shut down? It doesn’t feel that different.’

As the weather picked up, we had a thunderstorm roll through where two lightning strikes ignited fires in the Grampians National Park. One was near Mount Stapylton, which would eventually burn towards the community of Dadswells Bridge, which was fortunately saved. I believe Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) did an enormous amount of work to try and avoid that fire going through the community. A lightning strike near Bellfield, up on the ridge near Mount William, was caught by the wind and took out the majority of the community of Pomonal. It was a horrific day, absolutely horrific.

Many people have not yet seen the impact of the fires on the community of Pomonal, and I would ask people to pay attention to that part of the state. It is a small, very tight-knit community of people who live there. Forty-five homes have been lost, but there is not one single person who has not been impacted by the trauma on their community. That is because for many, many reasons this has been a drawn-out response. But it was necessary, and I do respect that.

Just give some insight into how the weather conditions turned on that day, at 2:29 in the afternoon I sent a text message to friends of mine who have a house in Pomonal. I said I hoped everything was okay with the fires at Pomonal and told them to look after themselves. At 7:08 that evening I got a sombre text message saying, ‘Hello Emma, sadly our house is lost.’ I am not sure many people in this place can understand what it feels like to get notice that within a couple of hours – 5 hours – you have gone from feeling positive and safe to knowing that you have lost absolutely everything. I went into the emergency recovery centre at Stawell the following day, on the Wednesday. To speak to people who have just lost their homes is very, very difficult. To speak to people who did not know if their homes were lost or not was difficult, but then there were little pieces of joy that came with guilt.

When I was there, Marc Sleeman, who heads up Grampians Tourism, got some photos through that showed that his house had survived, but you could see how close the fire had got to impacting his home; the boat was burnt out, and the shed next to the home was burnt out. It just shows how close a call that this actually was for him. But it is so hard for that community. I will not mention any names, because I think the community still desperately want privacy through this period of time, but for somebody who has got a burnt home on one side of their property and a burnt home on the other side of their property and then to have their house still standing for no apparent reason between the two, their question was: ‘Why? Why me? Why wasn’t my house taken? Mine is just a little old shack. Why didn’t that burn?’ The guilt that people are carrying because they have retained their property is absolutely immense.

There was a real delay sometimes in families knowing whether their home had burnt down or not, and often it was the local CFA volunteers who had been on the ground who were too timid to tell someone whether their house was still standing or not. I spoke to Russ Kellett, who is a good volunteer down that way and a very good advocate for the local men’s shed as well. He said, ‘Emma, I knew it was standing the night before, but I wasn’t game enough to tell them because the fires keep on picking up and I didn’t want to disappoint them because we’ve been out there the next morning and the house has burnt to the ground.’ It was incredibly hard in that initial response. Everyone did their very best. There was an intent that when the community finally was able to come back into the town, the counsellors would be placed at Pomonal hall. But of course the first thing that people wanted to do was go and just check, ‘Is my house standing or not?’ The counsellors were not allowed to leave the hall to accompany people to their property. It was fixed relatively quickly, but it is those sort of initial mental health responses that can help to alleviate trauma down the track.

The police barriers are still in place. I think the police have done an amazing job in keeping those in place. I am going to mention in a very negative way Channel 7’s Sunrise. They tried to break through the police lines at 3 in the morning on the Wednesday to get the first photos of burnt homes. I think that is disgraceful. Public interest never comes before someone’s private interest and respect. They deserve to know if their home has burnt down before everybody else learns that.

I would like to thank an enormous number of people who have worked together. It has been said so many times by different people within emergency management: this has to be the most positive community that they have ever worked with, but also from the other side it has been the most supportive team of people around them. I will go through this relatively quickly, and no doubt I will get caught up in some of them. Firstly, Mark Gunning, who was the incident controller – from the time that he stepped in to take control of these two fires and have it out of one centre, everything worked like clockwork. Thank you so much, Gunners. You are a good man, and thank you for all the work that you and your team did. The CFA volunteers: I have got to mention Matt Venn in Pomonal and of course Jacko – Peter Jackman – at Dadswells Bridge. They both did not an amazing job. They just keep a cool head and get out there and do their job and coordinate the crews so exceptionally well. I will mention that at the Dadswells Bridge fire there was one home lost, hundreds of kilometres of fence line and about 200 head of stock, and the stories that are coming out of there are absolutely phenomenal as well. They are very fortunate in that they did not have the significant loss of residential infrastructure they had at Pomonal.

I would also like to acknowledge that – and I do not think people understand this – of the 45 homes that were lost in Pomonal, seven of the homes lost were residences of CFA volunteers. Seven CFA volunteers who were on trucks fighting the fires lost their homes in this fire. We need to support them. It is going to be very difficult and challenging time for them going forward. As I said, FFMV were fabulous. I will mention the CFA volunteers from right across my region, because they were coming from far and wide to my electorate to help support the fire effort, and they have continued to be there over the recent days. There were also all the private appliances that turned out, and Victoria Police, who have been fabulous. They have been very good at keeping people out of the Pomonal community as they get their heads around what has happened to their community.

There were also: SES, Ambulance Victoria, Agriculture Victoria, and of course the vet crews which go out to help deal with the wildlife and the impact on the livestock. It is not an easy job; in fact it is an incredibly difficult job, but they do an amazing job. There is Parks Victoria and Powercor. Richard at Powercor did an amazing job getting his crews to reconnect powerlines as quickly as he possibly could. Mark Williams at Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water got a water tanker there for drinking water asap. Steve Tinker at Telstra – they immediately put out the disaster relief package. I think this was mentioned this morning on 3AW – we knew that the wi-fi mobile device would be taken out earlier this week. He got Starlink into Pomonal yesterday and Dadswells Bridge today. Thank you so much. We got additional data as well through Optus.

At Grampians Community Health there were the only two people who have been providing counselling down there. For goodness sake, government, can you please provide the funding for extra mental health support for this community? It is $120,000 times eight for eight counsellors for a year. Find the money and give them this support. Every day these people do not get supported is another day that PTSD is more likely, which increases the risk of family violence and alcohol and other drug misuse. It is not a lot of money. Put your hand in your pocket and support the mental health of these people.

I thank Ararat Rural City Council, Northern Grampians Shire Council, Horsham Rural City Council, the CEOs and the mayors. Nadya Miller at Pomonal store, you are a superstar, and I am never hugging you again, Nadya, because you will just make me cry. Colin and Susie Macaffer at Barney’s, you are superstars and so generous. I thank Jill Miller, who is formerly of Grampians Community Health, who has been an amazing support for that community; Jocelyn and the rest of the team at the Pomonal resilience group; and at Pomonal Primary School, Belinda and the parents who have worked so hard to get that school ready to reopen for Monday. Let us hope we get the kids back into their normal routines as soon as we can. People who shared their stories about their homes that have been lost, thank you for entrusting that with me and sharing your experience. I thank people who have donated housing, fuel, food, clothing vouchers, pharmacy vouchers, hardware, cash – thousands of dollars have been donated to this from people who you would least expect – and so many businesses in Stawell too. Alli Roberts, you are a superstar. I thank Simon Risson, Morrow motors and the Animal Rescue Cooperative of South Australia, who contacted us to donate pet food. We even had counsellors offer their time. There is still a lot to do to rebuild Pomonal and Dadswells Bridge. I really hope that the government step up with the counselling support in particular. But please, whatever you can do, support these communities in their recovery.

Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (16:42): I thank the member for Hawthorn for raising this. Whilst I may not agree with the words in all of the matter of importance, there is no doubt that what happened last week for a lot of our communities is probably the most important thing we may discuss this week. I also thank the member for Lowan for her contribution and the member for Gippsland South here as well. Obviously your communities have been devastated by the tragedies of last week. And I place on record the loss of Bruce Manintveld as well. I will make most of my contribution about my local area, but I obviously want to register the heartfelt seriousness of how this is affecting all of our communities.

In my community, I had a meeting at home with a builder to talk about renovations in the afternoon. So I came home from work, Bec and I met the builder, and just as that finished Bec went to pick up Sammy from school. It was blue skies – it was not really that bad outside – and all of a sudden it hit. Many others have said and our SES said it was tornado-like. I do not think I have ever seen anything that short and sharp in my life that I can remember. And it hit.

I need to give thanks to someone whose surname I do not know – I would happily say it if I did. So Bec went off to go to school and pick up Sammy, and everything hit the fan, and I was at home and was going to go to work but I thought driving in that was probably not a good idea, so I was waiting. Then I got a call from an unknown number. I think a lot of us in this chamber if we get a call from an unknown number probably do not answer it in a hurry, so I did not answer it. So then there was another call from the same number, and I thought, ‘Oh, well, hello. Here we go.’ Then I got a text message straight after, and the text message – I cannot find it – basically said, ‘Hi. It’s Clare. Sam’s with me. He’s scared and crying.’ Now, I thought that was strange. So basically what had happened is Sam had got out of school at 3:30 when the bell rings, and because there will be days where I pick him up and I might not necessarily be on time – naughty Dad – he goes to where I usually stand to pick up him up, and then he runs down to the car park to see if I am there. If I am not there, he then runs to the phone booth and calls me and goes, ‘Dad, where are you?’ Now, on this day he did not see Bec, so he runs out – wind is howling, rain is going sideways – he does not see Bec, and he gets missed. I want to put a thanks on the record to Clare, not just because this is my son and this is his story, but it was school pick-up time when this happened. The bell had gone. Some of the teachers were keeping kids in because they could see it happening. The bell had gone and they had left; the kids were already out. They did an amazing job. Sam was fine.

The event was unexpected, even thought we knew the weather was going to be bad. We had been told the weather was going to be bad; we knew things were not going to be great. But the weather itself surprised me and surprised everyone. In my patch at Monash our SES had the highest number of calls, as we said in the house yesterday – 1015 calls to the SES Monash guys. A huge shout-out to George Haitidis and his team down there, who do a fantastic job. They worked from the moment it happened. I think they got down to zero calls when we were there with the Premier on Sunday. They worked basically nonstop. The member for Glen Waverley and I took them some chockies for Valentine’s Day, which was the day after, to tell them how much we love them. I think we all love our SES. They were not alone, though. When I got down to see them, Fire Rescue Victoria were there with them. The Monash council stood up. In this place we like to have a bit of a whack at our councils now and then, but my hat is off to Monash council for their response. They are still working. The sides of the streets in Mount Waverley, Ashwood, Chadstone and a little bit of Ashburton are littered with the chopped-up trees. They are working around the clock to get rid of them. I think when we saw it on Sunday the pile of woodchips was about 3 metres high, which they are slowly going through. I thank the minister for waiving the green fees, because that has made it easier for councils to do their work. That was just our little area, and the work is still going on.

We lost power, like many. We have powerlines in the air, and when a tree comes down, the power is going to stop. We got a message that night – that was Tuesday night – that said the power would come back on Thursday at 1 pm. I thought, ‘This is going to be a great week. Okay.’ Luckily and amazingly, our power came on at 5 o’clock the next morning, and pretty well by that Thursday, apart from some very isolated cases in our area – I am sure the member for Monbulk, if she is going to make a contribution, will tell us about a lot more than isolated cases in her area – all the power was back on. When I think about the half-hour or so, probably only half an hour, that we had that tornado rip through us, we had over half a million homes without power, and I think within two days we were down to 120,000 or something like that. Now it is 2000 – do not quote me – or thereabouts.

Amongst all the other rhetoric, I think we should be very appreciative – and I am sure members of this house are – of not only our councils, our SES, our police, our ambos and everyone but of our linesmen, who have worked tirelessly to get that power up and running. So while I am at it, a shout-out to Troy and the good fellows down at the Electrical Trades Union who just did their job, and in those circumstances it was a pretty useful job that they did for us.

Going forward, the other thing that was mentioned obviously is about mobile phone reception. I am mindful that Telstra in our situation managed to keep running to some semblance until pretty late in the night. I reckon the uninterruptible power supplies were running out; the diesel does not push the towers as far as in the normal situation. Sue and Kev across the road – they are with Optus – lost theirs immediately, so I think there is work to do with our federal government, with our telcos. Look, if Telstra could at least keep one tower up until 9 o’clock at night, surely Optus can do the same thing. I am not trying to make their lives harder, but – you know. Also, do we need to think about diesel switching systems in especially remote areas? There is obviously work to be done.

I look forward to the review that is done by experts, that as our minister has aptly said is done without us, because we can get in our own way sometimes in this place. I look forward to that review. I look forward to the government adopting any and all responses from that that will ensure our supplies go forward, but when acts of God happen, which basically it was, we are not infallible. And I just go back to thanking every man and woman in our patch who worked so hard to bring us back. Luckily we did not lose more lives, and hopefully next time we are a little better prepared.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:52): I rise to contribute to today’s matter of public importance, and the key message in today’s matter of public importance from the opposition is to really express deep concern at this Labor government’s inability to manage Victoria’s emergency services. We can make those comments today because last week, tragically, literally thousands of people around Victoria lost homes, lost livelihoods and probably suffered damage to lifetimes of memories. So I would first like to just put for the record my respect and my acknowledgement of the heartache that is ongoing, as we speak, for those at Dadswells Bridge and Pomonal and Mirboo North in particular and my acknowledgement of the many people in eastern Victoria, particularly in the far eastern suburbs of Melbourne, that are still inconvenienced by the collapse in the Victorian power network.

But what we learned last week was it was the first catastrophic day that Victoria had had for some four years, and we have heard a lot about the preparedness of this state to manage emergencies and crisis at a time. There has not been a time when Victoria has not faced massive bushfires and massive wallops from Mother Nature from time to time. You go back to the earliest European settlement here, and fire in the landscape and floods have been key parts of what we have to deal with here in Victoria. We are in fact renowned as being one of the most bushfire-prone areas in the whole world, equal with Portugal and California. It is an issue that all governments have and an absolute obligation to make sure that we are at the cutting edge of how we deal with these crises. And what did we learn from last week?

We were put to the test for the first time in four years. The government has brought to this Parliament new legislation around 000. This government has embarked on a reckless budget regime that has seen significant cuts and a lack of focus on our emergency services. In fact only just in the last few months we have had the FRV annual report brought down on the FRV’s first two years of operation. This is the agency that has been tasked with keeping metropolitan and country Victorians safe at the most critical times in our calendar year, when fire can just wreak so much havoc. And what have we learned in recent weeks? We have learned that in the first three years this new government agency has run at a $300 million loss, and that $300 million loss is coming from somewhere. It is coming from taxpayers, and the concern that many are beginning to have is those funds to prop up inefficient management and inefficient operations are coming at the expense of desperately needed equipment and support for communities right around Victoria.

What do we mean by that? One example was laid bare in recent weeks. This government promised back in 2020 – that is now some four years ago – 48 new heavy-duty tankers to keep regional Victorians, country Victorians, safe. What do these tankers do? They allow for the maximum amount of water with the maximum amount of safety to fight fires and events like we saw last Tuesday. After four years the government has delivered just 15 of these units, and they still are not prepared to put a date on the rest. They have now pushed out their third expected delivery date, and even that is still an expected date. Victorians know only too well what an expected delivery date for a promise from this government looks like. Particularly from western Victoria, we have all experienced the West Gate Tunnel. It was being delivered in 2022. It is now 2024, and I do not think it is any closer now to delivery than what it was in 2022.

We have seen this government promise to fix up the 000 crisis, so much so that they brought in an act of Parliament to give it a new name, to call it Triple Zero Victoria instead of ESTA. What did we see last Tuesday on the first catastrophic day they had to plan for in some four years? We saw a call centre go again into crisis. This government is slow to learn. It does not manage those essential items. We can ask why they do not manage those essential items. One reason is the state is going broke, and the result is it leads to a broken emergency services system. A broken emergency services system delivers statistics like when desperate Victorians, at the height of an emergency, want to ring the SES, they want to ring the police, they want to ring the fire. This government has made a promise of answering those critical calls in 5 seconds and 10 seconds. But what are we delivering at the height, when the pressure is on? When the pressure is on, as we saw last Tuesday, 5½ minutes for police calls, with some 35 calls in the queue. The SES – 22½-minute waits, 133 calls logged. This is simply not good enough. There was 24 hours notice. We know that at the height of the crisis, in the mid-afternoon last Tuesday, ESTA – Triple Zero – management were sending out texts to call takers to come in and be rostered on. That is simply not good enough. We need a system. Victorians want a system that they know they can rely on when they need it. They do not want to be sitting hanging on a phone.

As we have learned all too well in this past week, this government has failed to fundamentally ensure that our telecommunications system in our rural and remote areas that are really fire prone, that at times like this really need the communication network, have the backup. I mean, you do not need to have let your phone run flat for very long to realise that 8 hours keeping a mobile phone communication tower running is simply not good enough in this day and age. We cannot possibly have an emergency management system that relies on our Emergency Management Victoria apps on our phone – that is the government’s preferred method to disseminate safety information and critical updates – when whole networks go down in the very areas that are relying on this technology. It is simply not good enough, and it has highlighted that this government has had more than enough time to get its act together, to get the infrastructure and to secure the infrastructure in place so that Victorians can feel safe at the time of an emergency.

We talked earlier about the lack of ability to deliver on new trucks and equipment for the CFA – 48 ‍trucks, some four years and we have only delivered 15. It is a very poor performance for emergency management. But that is not all. We know, for example, there are some 200 vehicles in the CFA fleet that are now well over 30 years old, and the current funding from this government will see a replacement time frame of around 40 years to turn over the CFA truck stock. That is simply not good enough in a community and a state that is so heavily fire prone. Victoria’s safety depends so much on volunteer services from our CFA, from our SES and just the goodwill and knowledge of our local communities, and yet all those communities want is a government that will have their back, that will back them, that will provide them with the resources they need to keep themselves safe, their families safe, their communities safe, that will protect their aged care facilities, their local hospitals, their local schools – this important state infrastructure that cannot be looked after if we are not going to back those communities and keep them safe.

We heard from the member for Lowan, and I know the member for Lowan has similar circumstances to what I have in my own electorate. It is so dire, the support for CFA and emergency services in country Victoria, that many of the emergency service vehicles, the fire trucks that are keeping our communities safe, cannot even be stored in the local brigade sheds. Too many brigade sheds are now out of date and not in keeping with the equipment that we need in a modern firefighting world. We find that often new trucks are left at farms in hay sheds not close by to where the brigade shed is because there is not the resourcing, the backing and the support for that local CFA to keep their own fire trucks in their own communities. It is simply not good enough, and it demonstrates how little regard this government has for the needs of emergency services out where it counts in the communities in our fire-prone areas. It might seem okay that we are storing a spare truck in some farmer’s shed around the corner, but every minute delayed to a fire will cost property, potentially cost lives and exacerbate the trauma and the damage on a day of high fire danger.

We also talked about and experienced last week the mismanagement of our energy system. In conclusion, I will just say that managing that level of infrastructure around the state of Victoria, managing it well and managing it in a modern and efficient way is vital to keeping Victoria safe, because if we do not manage our electrical infrastructure safely we cannot organise our communications effectively and we lose contact with each other. But most importantly, 85 per cent of all fires and property losses are attributable to the collapse or breakdown in our energy network.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (17:02): From the outset I would like to acknowledge the member for Gippsland South’s community and express my sincere condolences to the family of Bruce Manintveld, who lost his life in the storms. There are several members in this place, including the member for Lowan, whose communities are suffering to one degree or another. The town of Pomonal’s devastating loss of homes and businesses from bushfires is felt keenly across our state, and to the members in this place for Ashwood, Pakenham, Bass, Ripon, Oakleigh, Glen Waverley and Berwick, whose communities were also affected by the severe wind event resulting in prolonged power outages from last Tuesday, and to all their communities I offer support and empathy from the people of Monbulk. Whilst my electorate was fortunate enough that we did not lose any lives, we were hard hit once again by storms. It is getting tiring. At the latest update, there are still over 575 homes without power. Hopefully by the end of today it will come down to around 360. I have met with, I have talked to and I have corresponded with dozens and dozens and dozens of constituents. My electorate office staff deserve a huge shout-out for the amount of time that they have spent supporting our community. To the ministers and their officers, their advisers, everyone who has handled all the inquiries coming through, huge gratitude and thanks – and the Premier’s staff as well.

Now I turn my attention to the matter of public importance which has been offered here today by the opposition, and I have to express my deep concern with the premise of the MPI, not because the subject matter is unimportant, but because it is so very important and so grave, yet the opposition – and no less its leader – are trying to make political capital out of last week’s storms. People are genuinely suffering. This is not hyperbole. We know that, and I think it is understood as a truth in this chamber. They are dealing with their homes being destroyed and long-term power outages. There are traumatised children and adults who are terrified of the wind. In response, the opposition is trying to foment anger at the state government instead of saying, ‘What can we do to assist?’ It lobs bombs and sometimes obfuscates the truth. And that is not individual, but there is a theme coming through. It is a shame that that is occurring, because we must not muddy the waters of information. We should be laying blame where the blame by and large truly lies – with the huge profit-making, privatised companies that provide utilities, in particular –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: Fully privatised. I would like in my contribution today –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: I am actually talking about Telstra. I am talking here about telecommunications. I find the silence on telecommunications deafening from those opposite. I have travelled from one side of my electorate to the other. I went to Gembrook CFA when I could not call through to see how they were going. I had to drive. There were a good 30 hours when I did not have any phone communication until I spent 25 minutes in my car to get off the mountain to put a call through. The entire ranges were knocked out of telecommunication range. People could not dial 000. My daughter did not want to stay at home on her own –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: No, no, this is not about the call takers. This is absolutely about the fact that there was no mobile service and no NBN connectivity because these profit-making businesses have not deemed fit to ensure that they have mitigation strategies to deal with power outages. The lines get hit by trees; it is a fact. As the wind blows, the trees will knock them down, especially in areas where there is a high density of trees. But it is not hard for the telecommunications companies to install generators which can switch on automatically. I know households who have invested in that technology. They themselves have put generators on which automatically kick in when their power goes out. That is how they have hardened their homes to deal with constant power outages, depending on where they are.

I have spoken with CFA captains and the unit controller of Emerald SES, and they have all said to me clearly, unequivocally, that the number one concern was no mobile connectivity. Power outages are an annoyance. They are terrible for some. For those most vulnerable, they are difficult –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: No, no, no. For some it is an annoyance, but they have hardened their resilience. For others it is terrible. For the most vulnerable out there –

Members interjecting.

Daniela DE MARTINO: It is a spectrum of experience, and there is nuance in this. Unfortunately, so many times only black-and-white terms are used in debate, and that diminishes the debate. There is nuance here. The number one concern coming through loud and clear was that there were no mobile communications and no NBN conductivity. Wi-fi died. The VicEmergency app, which is actually an excellent app, does not work if you have got no wi-fi and you have no mobile connectivity.

It is high time that all of us around the chamber, no matter what colour we wear – be it red, be it blue, be it green – call on the mobile telecommunications companies to step up and develop resilience in their networks, because it is incumbent upon them. It is a matter of life and death. When people cannot put a call through, when they have to drive with children to find reception, it is beyond frightening. I cannot understand why this is not being taken up more. We are not talking about it.

The call takers at Triple Zero did an amazing job. They were flooded, inundated. It was a devastating event which covered the state. They are amazing. They were surged and they were ready for it. The problem was once there was a little bit of backup generator power on some of those towers. For my husband, who is on Optus, his phone died at about 8 o’clock at night. I am on Telstra. There must be a little bit more juice in the battery for the mobile tower for Telstra; mine died at 9:30. After that point, if anyone had had a medical emergency in our home, there is no way anyone could have put a call through, because it all stopped.

There was no resilience in that network, and the problem is they knew about this in 2021. They heard in 2021. Telcos are a federal responsibility. They have not been held to account for the 10 years of the coalition government. They were not held to account. We are suffering the consequences, and not just in this state but in other states. In Queensland they have had this issue; it is a problem everywhere. The power outages were terrible. I still have people suffering from it, as well. Some can get by with their generators. Others cannot. There have been people across the hills lending their generators to strangers because that is what we do: we take care of each other as a community, and I am proud to be a member of that community. But none of us can go and lend a generator to the mobile phone tower. We cannot turn that on. It is incumbent upon Telstra and Optus to do that. They must lift their game, and I would call on everyone here in representing their communities to demand no less of them.

There are so many amazing people who have done incredible things – my CFA brigades like Gembrook, who turned up and cleared the trees and spent 24 hours doing it. They worked so hard. I mentioned them before. They opened their own CFA as a relief centre. Emerald SES and everyone there, Monbulk CFA – these are incredible human beings doing their work and they all said to me: ‘Please, the hardest part was not being able to make phone calls.’ We need our telecommunications companies, but in particular Telstra and Optus, to actually make a commitment that they consider our lives worthy of being protected by having our communications continued, especially when we need them most, in emergencies.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (17:12): I have an important contribution to make here today with the matter of public importance, which focuses first and foremost on the emergency services workers and volunteers who do so much and who were really put to the test in the most recent weather events. We have got emergency services workers across a variety of areas. Some of them are paid and a lot of them are volunteers, and if you are in an electorate like mine, it is pretty well all volunteers. It is very easy for us to say they put their lives at risk, but they do. I see this time and time again. I see it when they go out to some not so challenging situations and when they go out to exceptionally challenging situations. I find it really quite sad when I hear people say to the SES, who hike into national parks at night to rescue somebody who has fallen, ‘That’s okay, you’re on overtime.’ No, they are not on overtime. They are people who live in the community who are out in the dark having to hike in for an hour or so to protect and look after members of the community. We see this sort of attitude from our volunteers time and time again when they will do that. They will be in tricky situations, and they will have to work out what they need to do and how to do it. What is so important is that our government supports, respects and really acknowledges the work that the emergency services do and particularly volunteers, which at times really gets forgotten about.

We have had many severe events in recent years and natural disasters. We have had fires. We have had floods. We have had storms. I have had all those in my electorate in very recent times. Black Saturday in 2009 – 173 lives were lost at that time, devastating communities for years. And I go to the member for Lowan and what is happening in her communities. She has implored the government to support people now and provide the mental health services that they need, because this is not a quick fix. The quicker they get this service, the better it is for those people. We are 15 years out from Black Saturday and the services in the ranges and at Kinglake still tell me they are seeing people for the first time. Some of the children now who are finishing secondary school are having all sorts of issues, and it is across a wide number of schools. This still impacts them greatly. I remember several principals telling me at one time that among the preps at all different schools the number of bed wetters was incredible. These kids were one and two during the fires. These matters persist through families and through communities, and there is nothing more important than for the government to support communities and get the mental health services that they need there at the time they are needed, quickly.

So we have had just in this last week devastating storms across the state – in metropolitan areas and in country areas. We have had fires, and I want to acknowledge the stresses and the distress really of the communities of Pomonal, Dadswells Bridge, Mirboo North – and there was life lost there – and the Dandenongs, which have been hit again. They had devastating storms a few years ago, and they have been hit again. And these are hot on the tails of some of the anniversaries of devastating events. We have just marked, on 16 February, 41 years since Ash Wednesday, and that saw the loss of 12 CFA lives. My community of Panton Hill still have a memorial service on that day together with those from the Narre Warren CFA who also lost brigade members at the time. And I can tell you the people that lived it and the people who made decisions go over in their mind year after year the decisions they made and what happened. We have just had 15 years since Black Saturday, and we have had the Mallacoota fires and fires in East Gippsland; we have had many fires. We had floods in my town just very recently and again in January, hot on the tails of what had happened in October 2022. This time we saw over half a million businesses, families and houses across the state without power.

That is just not good enough, and the government have to have a look at what they can do, rather than just blame everybody else. Yes, we have got nature – forces of nature are forces of their own, and you cannot always predict what is going to happen with mini tornadoes. We heard the commissioner Rick Nugent tell us today that trying to work out where a tornado is going to hit is really impossible. These things whip themselves up and cause enormous damage, and we are probably lucky that in Mirboo North we did not have more fatalities when you look at the extent and the size of the trees that were ripped out of the ground. But the government need to have a look at what they should be doing and what they could be doing rather than just saying, ‘Oh, this is all a force of nature. It’s all somebody else’s fault. It’s the telecommunications. This is a problem. That’s a problem.’ Well, there are things that they can be doing, and I think with regard to power infrastructure there have been four reports that we know of – Energy Safe Victoria, AusNet. They have had expert panels as recently as 2022 advising them of what they should be doing and how to do it with regard to increasing the resilience of the infrastructure and communities. We have got 12 per cent of towers that are unsafe, that are rusty. That means the likelihood of them coming down is increased significantly. That is just not good enough. This is something that the government need to be monitoring and regulating and making sure that these are addressed. We cannot just have towers pop over.

Reports, though, can delay getting things done, and we have got to hit the ground running and we have got to learn from our mistakes and events. One of those things that we need to learn from is what I mentioned with Black Saturday, with the PTSD and mental health, and I cannot endorse the comments from the member for Lowan more wholeheartedly as she called for those services to be initiated straightaway rather than ‘We’ve got to assess this, we’ve got to look at that, we’ve got to take time.’ All of that time that delays it has a detrimental effect.

We have got to learn about the dissemination of information. Too often I heard, as parts of my electorate were without power for days as well, that people’s default was, ‘Oh, we’d better put that on the internet or Facebook or social media.’ When the power is out, you do not have these. I know Yarra Ranges worked very hard to look at alternative ways to get the message to people because they know that phones are flat; they know that you are not going to see something on social media if you do not have a signal or if you do not have the power to keep things charged. So we need to have a look at that. We need to have learned the lessons that happened from Black Saturday. We have seen with 000 not so long ago that there were 33 deaths which were linked to delays with 000. These are things that the government can do something about. We know that you cannot dial 000 when your phone is flat. But this is what we need to do: we need to support our CFA brigades and our SES units. The government is good on announcements but lousy on implementation and delivery. They were going to have 48 state-of-the-art CFA tankers delivered by December. When this question was asked in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, 15 out of 48 tankers had been delivered on time, and 33 ‍per cent is a fail in anyone’s book.

I was at Buxton CFA just a couple of weeks ago. They showed me their trucks where they still have to sit on the outside – there is not enough room in the cabin for all of the people that are on the truck. You cannot hear, and you do not know what is happening. With the wind whistling, you cannot easily hear what instructions are being given from the cabin, and if there is an ember attack or ashes, you are at risk there. These trucks need to be replaced. As I said, I was at Buxton watching them do some breathing apparatus training. It was particularly good to witness a couple of the members doing that, but these are the things that must be done.

I saw the SES during the floods. They cannot go into water. They could see someone only a few metres away and know they could go into the water to help them but they are unable to because of the regulations around the SES. I was looking at the floods in Yea just recently. Yea had water on every road leading in. Kinglake SES could not get in there, and Alexandra could not get in there. SES controller Peter Weeks deserves the biggest medal ever. They had to make a call – ‘Is that water deep enough? Is it safe for the SES units to go through?’ – because they needed to do rescue operations and support the township of Yea as it was being flooded and the waters were rising very quickly. There are lessons that we can learn, and the government, I am afraid, is just not learning them. They sit on their hands too often, waiting for report after report. It is not good enough.

Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (17:22): I rise to speak on the matter of public importance (MPI) submitted by the member for Hawthorn today. Before I do so, I want to applaud the contribution of the member for Monbulk. I know how hard she has been working in her electorate, driving around groceries to people and giving generators to single parents. She has done a phenomenal job, and I sincerely want to thank her. She is a fantastic member for Monbulk. I also want to thank the member for Lowan. We are neighbours and have different stripes, but again I know how hard she has been working on the ground. I have heard really great feedback from people saying just how much she is doing. Fantastic work by the member for Lowan.

On this MPI specifically today, I truly consider the assertion by those opposite that our state’s emergency services are badly run a total slap in the face to the thousands of volunteers who work tirelessly day in, day out to protect our properties, our livestock and our lives across Victoria. Our emergency services members and volunteers are the best trained in the nation. They go up to Queensland to train up the Queensland fire brigade members. We have the best volunteers in the nation right here in Victoria. They are at the top of their game, and to suggest otherwise is just shameful.

What we saw last week during the catastrophic weather events was nothing short of remarkable. We saw an emergency services system that swung into gear and put Victorians at the centre of everything that they did. Incident control centres were stood up instantly. Members of the CFA, SES, Forest Fire Management Victoria, Victoria Police, Ambulance Victoria, Parks Victoria, Emergency Management Victoria, Agriculture Victoria and local councils all worked hand in hand. Relief centres were set up within hours, including in Ararat and Haddon in my electorate. Our CFA volunteers banded together as one big family, backing each other with local strike teams deployed to wherever they were needed. This was extremely evident in the Ripon electorate, where almost every brigade from districts 15 and 16 supported each other and sent volunteers to Stockyard Hill, Pomonal, Dadswells Bridge, Newtown and the Ross Creek state forest. Brigades from Lexton, Barkly, Beaufort, Glenorchy, Snake Valley, Burnbank, Redbank, Amphitheatre, Ararat, Avoca, Smythesdale, Ross Creek, Haddon, Napoleons and beyond did not waste a minute in responding. They were aided by hardworking CFA leaders in the region, including Brett Boatman, Fire Rescue Victoria members, firefighting aircraft from the Ballarat Airport and incident control centre staff, who helped coordinate crews and logistics.

Our firefighters work nonstop around the clock to protect our communities, and to suggest that they are poorly managed is frankly offensive. It is so offensive. Our government has backed our emergency services members and volunteers with countless amounts of money and support since 2014, while those opposite have only stood to fearmonger and politicise them. It is laughable for those opposite to come in here and try and act like the heroes of Triple Zero and ambulance services when all they ever did when they had the chance was go to war with our paramedics. We all remember those days, and they were grim days. They were extremely grim. On this side of the chamber we have backed our paramedics and given additional supports to Triple Zero Victoria. On Tuesday and Wednesday last week we rostered extra Triple Zero and SES call centre staff, with over 250 people taking calls. There were an extra 50 people put on. Claims that we did not adequately resource Triple Zero Victoria are simply incorrect, and it is insulting to those amazing staff who turned up in huge numbers to work longer shifts that day.

We also worked hard to reconnect communities whose phone lines were down, and as the member for Monbulk very articulately said earlier, we will be fighting for telco providers to do more to support communities in the future. The Minister for Government Services shared with us yesterday and today that she will be meeting with her federal colleagues about these issues, and our government is calling on the Commonwealth to better regulate our telecommunications industry, as it is primarily a federal responsibility.

More broadly across Victoria we have also boosted our paramedic workforce, including developing the next generation of paramedic practitioners, who will graduate in 2026 and be deployed to rural and regional Victoria. Since 2014 our Labor government has invested more than $2 billion to recruit more than 2200 additional paramedics. We have delivered 35 new or upgraded ambulance stations with construction on another 16 underway. We have upgraded the Ararat ambulance station in my own electorate. We have built brand new stations in St Arnaud and Inglewood. We are also building a new ambulance station in Avoca as we speak, and I am working closely with other communities across Ripon to advocate for more upgrades into the future. This is all in stark contrast to the gloomy Kennett–Baillieu–Napthine years, when those opposite did next to nothing to deliver for our emergency services.

I find the member for Hawthorn’s point about power supply very rich too, coming from a mob who sold off Victoria’s energy supply to private multinationals. Those same private multinationals increased the prices, and they sacked the workers, and we are still left with the damage decades later. The member for Bulleen has said in the past that the privatisation of energy was good for consumers and that Victoria did very well out of it. It was fantastic to privatise our energy market, wasn’t it, even though those decisions sent $23 billion of profit to private companies. Those opposite cannot now feign outrage, as they are now, that our private energy providers did not fix things quickly enough after last week’s catastrophic events.

Our government is working hard to fix the miserable legacy of those opposite and the mess that they left our energy network in by bringing back the State Electricity Commission. We have already invested an initial $1 billion towards 4.5 gigawatts of new power, and this will increase over the coming years to help power our public hospitals, schools, police stations and government buildings. Bringing back the SEC will reduce power bills and create 59,000 jobs. That is right: 59,000 jobs, including at least 6000 apprenticeships. We have also announced an independent review into the energy distribution system’s response to last week’s storms. It will be led by a panel of independent experts, not a panel of politicians. It will focus on the preparedness of energy companies to respond to these extreme weather events, including those who manage transmission lines.

Another important point to make about last week’s extreme storms is that our government is supporting impacted Victorians. The Australian and Victorian governments will provide a prolonged power outage payment, with eligible households to receive $1920 per week for up to three weeks. It will help families buy basic items and find alternative accommodation. Generators are also being distributed, with priority to go to the most vulnerable who are in homes with prolonged power outages. And the waste levy – as you, Deputy Speaker, were talking about earlier – has been waived for storm-impacted residents across 21 local government areas until 30 April so that locals can take their waste to the local tip free of charge, which is fantastic.

We are working hard to ensure families get the support they need to recover as quickly as possible – and it would be nice if those opposite took a leaf out of the member for Lowan’s book and actually helped with practical solutions and support on the ground rather than just throwing cheap jabs for political points. In moments of crisis we see people’s true colours and people’s real leadership or lack thereof. The Premier was a leader last week, visiting communities and pulling up her sleeves to help wherever she could. We did not see the Leader of the Opposition in Ripon, in Lowan, in Monbulk, in so many electorates that were impacted. Our Premier made us all proud, and our rural and regional communities felt supported with her by their side. Meanwhile those opposite were focused on their donor-funded legal defence and not on Victorians in need.

I want to thank our emergency service members and our volunteers again from the bottom of my heart for their tireless work, and my thoughts are with them for tomorrow’s total fire ban, especially in the Wimmera. Our volunteers are the best of us.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:32): I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the matter of public importance with respect particularly to the words ‘tireless commitment of emergency service workers and volunteers’, which is the area that I particularly want to focus on as the member for Gippsland South and therefore representing the beautiful community of Mirboo North, which has been through an event. Last Tuesday, just as the storm hit Sale actually, I got a call from the CEO of South Gippsland shire to say she had just driven through Mirboo North; it looked like a war zone. She sent me some photos which, whilst they were dramatic, with some trees down and things, did not look that bad. I have to confess I thought, ‘Oh, she’s over-dramatising a little bit’ – until I got there the next day. And to this day – and people in Mirboo North are saying this as well repeatedly – you do not understand how severe and dramatic the event was in Mirboo North until you have seen it. The pictures do not tell the story. The vision does not tell the story. You actually have to go there and see it – more so for the community and anyone who has ever been to Mirboo North, knowing what it used to look like compared to what it now looks like – because what happened there was a very severe storm.

As we know, it went right across the state – a cell of some sort, a supercell, a microburst, a tornado, a mini-cyclone; lots of names are being given to it. But it hit the community probably in about a 2-kilometre stretch, and quite bizarrely and remarkably it has left virtually half the town untouched –. well, not untouched, because they still had the storm, so there were trees down. But this stretch of about 2 kilometres, which you can see running through quite a wide area probably for about 5 or 10 ‍kilometres, has just ripped up everything in its path. Trees have been stripped of bark, stripped of leaves, snapped off. There were the two goalposts; both goalposts on the footy ground were bent over about 2 metres from the bottom at 90-degree angles. Bizarrely the point posts are completely untouched. There is a concrete power pole that is snapped in half, and you can actually see the reo in that power pole. The community has been through something that is pretty hard to comprehend, to be honest.

When I came in at about 10 o’clock the next morning to Mirboo North I was astonished. There were trees down everywhere. There were roofs of houses and sheds in different parts. One unfortunate gentleman lost the roof of his shed, but it ended up in the next street, directly in front of his girlfriend’s house. Thankfully, he had his girlfriend there, because her home was unaffected and he has been able to move in there with her in the short term. It was just an unbelievable event. I have seen videos and posted videos that were provided to me by members of the community, and the force of the wind was just something to be believed. The hail, everything that happened – talking to the people in the pub today, they mentioned the wind, the leaves and the debris literally going sideways.

It has led to an extraordinary response in Mirboo North in particular. Mirboo North is a wonderful community. I said yesterday that you love all your communities like you love your children, very much equally, but Mirboo North has always had a get-up-and-go attitude. It does not sit back on its laurels and wait for government to give it handouts; it actually gets proactive. It has got a fantastic community foundation, which it was lucky enough to establish a number of years ago when its old bush nursing hospital was sold as aged care. It raised a million dollars for the reconstruction of the pool. The Mirboo North pool is not just a pool, it is part of the community and it is also part of Gippsland. As a kid growing up in Traralgon, when we had a hot day we would often go to the Mirboo North pool, because it is in this beautiful little valley surrounded by bush. We have just spent $6 million on that pool – as I said, a million dollars of that raised by the local community – and it has now been decimated. The scenes of the bush around there, including the trees that are now down and virtually in the pool, have to be seen to be believed. What we have seen as a result in Mirboo North is just an extraordinary community response – people looking after each other, people looking after neighbours and people looking after friends, family and everybody in the community. People who do not know each other at all are putting on meals and putting cards in peoples’ letterboxes to say thank you.

I should extend that to all of Gippsland, because on the morning when I got there I was talking to one gentleman who actually lives directly across from the pool. I said to him that I could see the trees on the ground already sawn. I said, ‘Who’s done this?’ This had only happened a few hours ago, virtually. He said, ‘Oh, a uteload of blokes from Thorpdale appeared this morning with chainsaws and they just started doing it.’ And that has been happening all week. Businesses from out of town – Pizza Boyz in Traralgon came last Sunday night with hundreds of pizzas and just fed everyone – community members and community businesses in Mirboo North are doing similar things every night. There was a breakfast on this morning.

The Mirboo North RSL has become somewhat of a community volunteer hub, a great credit to Jess Graffe and Dan Smith. Dan is the president there, but Jess has done a hell of a lot of the work in coordinating volunteers. There are so many people coming in wanting to help and so many people coming to them to say they need help with this or that. My colleague in the other place Melina Bath called me from there on Friday, I think it was, and said they needed PPE for some of these volunteers coming in. Well, I went there today and there are boxes of gloves and earmuffs and helmets and everything, which have just been donated by businesses from around the area. It has just been fantastic.

Sadly, we lost a life there in Bruce Manintveld, a dairy farmer down the road who was trying to get his cattle in to protect them from the storm. Unfortunately, the shed roof blew off, it seems, and he was killed pretty much instantly, along with a number of his cows as well. It is just an absolute tragedy. My condolences to his family and friends, the wider community and the wider dairy industry, which Bruce was very well respected in.

It is a miracle – and all of us keep saying this as we hear the stories – that no-one else was killed or even injured. This story is about the second property I visited. It had a ute in the front, and the owner of the house said this guy had stopped when the storm was hitting. The ute was shaking, and then it actually started to lift, so the driver thought, ‘This is not good. I’ve got to get out.’ He got out and hid under an apple tree, and about 30 seconds later a branch went straight through the front windscreen. I have got some pictures of the ute here.

It was a hot day, as people will remember. Kids were at the pool. They closed the pool at about 4 or 4:30 and said, ‘You need to go home.’ One kid set off through the bush behind the pool as the storm hit, and when you see the bush now, how he was not injured or killed – he did apparently get a branch across the back of his neck – is just amazing. There are so many stories of people avoiding shattered glass in their homes. There was one where a mother went in and picked up a three-month-old baby out of the cot, and as she pulled the door shut behind her to get into the centre of the house the window shattered and shards of glass went straight through the cot mattress.

There was just an extraordinary series of events and an extraordinary response from a beautiful people. I have only got a short amount of time, so I will not be able to thank everyone or every organisation. I am sure I will miss someone, so I apologise in advance. Particularly I thank the CFA, who were the first responders. Mirboo North does not have an SES, but they were in from Leongatha and other places in the next day or so. The CFA in particular did so much. I thank South Gippsland Shire Council. Councils cop a lot of flak a lot of the time, but South Gippsland I think has been there and doing a lot – probably a lot that the community does not realise it is doing. I thank Forest Fire Management Victoria for getting out and clearing roads in particular on our behalf ‍– I might add, with the support of a lot of timber contractors or former timber contractors doing their jobs. I thank VicRoads and their contractors; the businesses I mentioned for providing food and equipment, donating things; and the ladies from the Italian Festa committee, which only happened on the Sunday before, and thank God it happened the Sunday before. There were 20,000-odd people in Mirboo North on the Sunday before. If it had hit at the same time, it would have been horrendous. They put on a lunch to support everybody.

I have mentioned Jess and Dan at the Mirboo North RSL. I thank the Red Cross, the Victorian Council of Churches for providing counselling and particularly AusNet. AusNet has probably had a pretty ordinary week, but look at what they have done in getting people back on. The township areas worst hit today were starting to get put back on. There are a lot of issues to work through, and not everything was perfect by AusNet, but the contractors doing that have done a great job – likewise with Telstra, Optus and NBN. I would like to also thank the Premier and many of her ministers who have helped, but I particularly thank the people of Mirboo North for being so resilient.

Jordan CRUGNALE (Bass) (17:42): I would like to begin by offering my sincerest condolences to the family, friends and all who cherished Bruce Manintveld from the Mirboo North area, who lost his life during the storms, as the member for Gippsland South was saying. It is an absolute tragedy that has rocked their local community, and reading all the comments and commentary as well he was a highly regarded, very respected gentleman and dairy farmer.

When I look through my electorate as well – it was around Pioneer Bay, Grantville and the Gurdies, and it then went on through to Mirboo North – it is a miracle that there was not a massive loss of life. It was quite incongruous, with the member for Gippsland South talking about the Italian Festa that was on the Sunday, then it was on the Tuesday. And it was the committee that put together the Italian festival who put their hands up as well to help out the communities of Mirboo North.

I also want to acknowledge the communities in the district of Lowan who have lost their homes to fire. It was a very sincere, genuine and heartfelt contribution from the member for Lowan, who is on the ground supporting her community at every turn, and I note also the contributions from the members for Monbulk and Ripon as well.

We have been out in our communities. Where I was, we did not have power or phones for over 24 ‍hours. I did not have fuel in the car either, which was a bit annoying, so I will remember to always have fuel in the car. We kind of got on our bikes and just checked in with all the elderly around our town to make sure that they were okay, because no-one could communicate, and I want to concur with the member for Monbulk too around the telecommunications aspect. From the number of calls we have since made and places we have visited, whether they were schools, CFAs, SESs, community centres or local businesses, the issue was the phone aspect – not being able to, one, ring 000 but also not having internet and phones as well. We are a resilient, kind, amazing community, and we have seen that right across the state with affected communities but also in my electorate of Bass. We have had people just running a generator over to the corner store and hooking them up to make sure that their local community still had daily supplies. This was down in Corinella before council were able to activate a generator. We have had people like Dan in Pioneer Bay, who, probably in shorts and a T-shirt and thongs, went out on the Bass Highway, which is pretty messy and also has all the big panels sloped on an angle. But in his community people were running around with the sound of chainsaws, putting other people’s needs in front of their own needs – helping community, neighbours and people in their street start the clear up and clean-out.

Our emergency services have been remarkable, as always. Our CFAs, our SESs – Phillip Island, San Remo and Inverloch all formed part of strike teams and units to go out and help people in the Pioneer Bay, Gurdies and Grantville area. We had the CFAs right across the Bass district as well. Even in the Cardinia and Casey area our CFAs did a remarkable job, even getting water out to livestock, as they did in Bayles and Koo Wee Rup. Also, the Clyde CFA were out putting water in troughs to make sure that the livestock had something to drink.

There is a big, long list of people. I struggle with the matter of public importance (MPI) itself in that, yes, I totally agree with commending our emergency services and agencies and hospitals and everyone that really activated to help at that time, but ‘the failure this’ and ‘the failure that’ I take a bit of umbrage at. It is the language that is used, given that we are on the cusp of potentially another emergency this week, with fire bans enacted already for tomorrow in a lot of areas that are already affected from last week’s catastrophic storms and fires. We are still in the throes of a massive clean-up, and many are still without power. Everyone is heightened with anxiety and in the thick of experiencing the trauma of it all, and it is not actually what we need right now. What we need here is everyone to be there, active and on the ground. Many of the members who have spoken in their contributions today have been very visible and active on the ground with supports, working across governments and across parties, making sure that people have what they need for today and attending with urgency to what is required in the recovery and rebuild as well.

Our emergency personnel during times of crisis become really everyday heroes, and we have heard that word a bit in today’s MPI. They say goodbye to their families, and they run to the job at hand. Sometimes their own places, as we have heard as well, have been affected or struck by fires. It is worth acknowledging as often as we can the impact of their efforts and the commitment to community that they make every day. They all play an important role in disaster response and crisis recovery and in the mitigation and preparedness phases as well: Fire Rescue Victoria, Forest Fire Management Victoria, our Parks Victoria team, everyone at the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and the incident control centres that were set up. There is a lot to do. There are certainly a lot of learnings, and there is a lot of information on the ground from community members who have just been through the last week. We are certainly taking a lot of notes down about how we can do better and also, I guess, have a crack at the telcos on a few fronts.

To our SES units and CFA brigades, who have been out there supporting affected communities in a myriad of ways, as mentioned – clearing the roads, paths and properties, running community barbecues as well, knocking on doors and being that conduit of information and support – I just want to say a big thankyou. Also, they attended to a couple of house fires that we had. When the power came back on, there were two properties with a power surge that the Phillip Island CFA and also the Corinella CFA attended, so a big shout-out to them.

I also want to mention our health services. So the power is out and phone lines are out and our Bass Coast Health and also the Kooweerup Regional Health Service pretty much went to their building and set up a team. People came running and then literally nurses, team members and a lot of staff just went out to start checking on their vulnerable clients and patients in the community, whether they were in Hospital in the Home care with oxygen or home dialysis, whatever it was. They went out to make sure that they were okay and were offering a place also to come to because they did have power with generators of course. It is a remarkable community at the Kooweerup health service and also Bass Coast Health, who are also doing a lot of meals and sending them out to community centres as well.

Our councils have been remarkable – Casey, Cardinia and Bass Coast – in all activating their emergency plans, but also being out and about in the community setting up relief centres and charging stations, driving buses to showers at pools nearby, providing food relief and messaging out as best they can all the supports and services available.

I want to also just quickly talk about one of the community centres. I am going to talk about Corinella. I have got 42 seconds, so I will not have much time at all. Corinella and District Community Centre as well as the Venus Bay Community Centre had battery, they had solar and they actually became like a community hub for information, cups of tea and charging. I just want to give a shout-out to Kerryn Ladell the manager there and the extraordinary volunteers through all our community centres that have just been remarkable during this time and will continue to support our community as well. Our pharmacies, our Red Cross – I have got six seconds; I am going to make it. I have got four seconds. A big thankyou to everyone.

Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (17:52): I rise to support the Leader of Opposition’s matter of public importance. It was put by the member for Hawthorn in relation to obviously the recent events that have happened here in Victoria. As I start, I would like to just clarify a couple of points made by those opposite that I think it is really important that we do get on record. First of all, to the member for Monbulk: when we are talking about power outages, to say that for those people that lost their power, it is just an annoyance. If you are putting it to compare it to others, I think that does a disservice to those that lost their power, that have lost thousands of dollars worth of stock. In my electorate alone I will go through some of the stock that was lost from some of the places up through Upper Beaconsfield. I know for a fact that we have been out and about – not just us, members of the government as well – visiting businesses and homes that have lost so much. I think it was disrespectful for the member for Monbulk to come into this place when her electorate was impacted so much and say losing your power was just an annoyance. She cannot say that. She cannot put that out there. It is an absolute disgrace and disrespectful to her community. At the same time, I will continue to say –

Kathleen Matthews-Ward: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, what the member was saying is incorrect.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point of order is?

Kathleen Matthews-Ward: Relevance.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is not a point of order.

Brad BATTIN: And then the member for Monbulk went on to talk about Telstra and blame Telstra for everything. Just today this government came in here and wanted to brag about their better mobile connectivity for the south-east.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Tarneit is not in his seat. Warned.

Brad BATTIN: If they want to have better connectivity, why didn’t they do it in the black spot zones that are at highest risk from Black Saturday? If you are going to be spending money on black spot places, why wouldn’t you have put it in the areas that most desperately need it instead of coming in here and then blaming Telstra for what Telstra have supposedly done?

Let me assure this government that they regulate the power here in the state. You cannot then go and blame everybody else when the privatisation of the power in this state began with your government. It began with your government. In Hansard, in here, prior to the Kennett government, on record already were steps to start the process to privatise the power here in Victoria. It is so important that we get all these facts on the record of what has happened.

Then to add to that, the member for Ripon came in here and said that they put an extra 50 callers on that day to put 250 callers in place for 000. There were 63 callers; there were not 250 callers. You cannot just read something that you have been given by a minister that is absolutely factually incorrect and not expect it to be corrected when communities have suffered because they could not get their phone calls answered at 000. People were waiting. We used to hear from this government that every second counts. Now when it is 6 minutes, they seem to go silent and it is not their fault. It is about time you actually put in place some of the recommendations that have come forward. After 30 people died whilst they were waiting on calls to 000 here in this state, the government has only changed the name of the organisation. That is all you have done: you have changed the name of the organisation. That has not saved or helped one person here in this state. It is so important that that gets on record. Members of the government want to come in here and big-note themselves about the things that they have not done and try to blame others. You are in government. You been in government for nearly 20 years in this state; start taking responsibility for some of the things you have not delivered. Eventually, you have got to start taking responsibility.

When I went out through my community I went up to the general store in Upper Beaconsfield and I spoke to JD and Steph. Now, JD and Steph have so little faith in this government when it comes to power through Upper Beaconsfield that they actually went out and spent $20,000 to put a generator on their property – $20,000. They also got a second generator they could use to run their second business across the road. Of course, having two businesses, I am sure those on the other side would like to write them off now as those rich people that can take care of themselves. But they are the best community people, and what they have done up there to support that community has been absolutely outstanding. They have made sure that there is a hub to go to, with power, with food and with everything else that can be supplied for the area.

But then I walked around the corner, and I went to FoodWorks and I spoke to Pramod. When we walked in there, not only was his roof damaged from the rain and the storm, he was in the middle of emptying his fridges of milk, ice cream, chocolates, meats and some of the most expensive items that they had. Pramod and his parents are small business people, and the impact of this will be over $20,000. It is a massive impact on that small business. Pramod’s parents at that time were away. It was the first holiday they have happened to have in 30 years. They are not getting any support because they do not fall within that seven days as they got their power back on Friday. Thankfully, they did get their power back on Friday, and the member for Pakenham will agree. It is such an important day in Upper Beaconsfield when we get together as a community, which happens there every year. It is a community event that started around Black Saturday to build on that community strength, and it is events like this that highlight how important it is.

I went down into Berwick, and there are few places in Berwick that also struggled. Rachel and James at Blanc Bakery were mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition today. We went down there, and I can speak from experience as a former baker. When you lose a day’s stock, particularly with sourdoughs, you do not just have a sourdough culture ready to go the next day. Some of them are years in the making, so it has affected and impacted their business greatly. I know that they are the two hardest-working people and took a huge risk with the bakery they have got there in Berwick. They will not come out and ask for support. I wish they could get some support, but they will not be coming out to ask for it, because they are the sorts of people that will just get on with the job, keep doing what they are going to do and work their way forward. But there are other businesses. Leroy at Bodega – for anyone who has been into Berwick lately, Bodega is a new business having a real crack. They have an amazing turnover with what they have been doing, building up this amazing business they have got. On the day they had to go out and hire a temporary fridge to put out the back. Fortunately, their power came back on fairly soon, but they had moved a lot of their product from their main fridge. It was around about when the last box went into the external fridge that the power came back on, so his next job was to bring it all back in again. But it did impact with the day of trade. You have got to pay your staff and you do lose some of the stock in there.

Stephen down at the butchers lost a lot, and we know the price of meat these days. They lost a lot of stock down there that was so important to them and to the impact of what would happen in their business. But again, another great local business – they are not asking for support. They know they will get insurance et cetera, but they do understand the impact to the wholesale side of it for people that could not get support from there.

The other part of this matter of public importance is around our emergency service workers. It does not matter whether you are paid or not, it is any person who goes out there and helps out. I know the SES units; I have always had a great relationship with Ben Owen up in Emerald. I know they would have been out and about doing their job. Narre Warren and Pakenham would have come out. The CFAs would have been out there, and the volunteers.

But can I make one special shout-out, and it is to Shane and Jarryd Miller, who I have known for a long period of time, at Clematis CFA. Whilst they were out they had a tree fall on their property. There is a fair bit of damage. The house is still habitable, but there is going to be a fair bit of a rebuild on it. For Shane I have to get this on record. Shane was unlucky, and not just in having a tree go through his house. He had just finished painting the outside decking, and he could have got that done with insurance if he had have waited just one more week, because he does not like painting. Those two have done so much for their community, but they have highlighted the people who they did not necessarily know in their local community who came down and offered them food, who offered them support, a chainsaw or a bit of extra help around the place, and that is what rebuilding the community is all about.

I know I started with this, where we have to get these things on record, but I think it is really important in this MPI that we do emphasise the fact we all live in communities where there are some amazing, wonderful people that volunteer and get behind each other and support each other. It is really important that we continue to back those groups. When we have events in our local communities that are about building community strength, it is really important that we as members of Parliament get behind them.