Tuesday, 17 February 2026

 Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (19:11): (1523) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Emergency Services, and I seek the minister to act immediately to ensure the Muckatah CFA truck is returned to the local Muckatah station as soon as possible. As I spoke about in this place during the bushfires condolence motion recently, Muckatah lost their truck for mechanical reasons back in October. But here we are in February and that truck still has not been returned. This followed two other trucks, the Cobram and the Tocumwal trucks, which turned into a burnover and would have been quite disastrous for them had they been with them. They are in a 30-year-old truck now, just while they are waiting for their truck to be returned, and it is really important that we get that back online as soon as possible.

Summer is not over, Deputy Speaker, as you well know. It is a total fire ban up our way today. Thursday is 37, Friday is 39 and Saturday is 37 again, so we have still got a lot of summer to come, and I think it is really important that the minister understand that getting our appliances back on board as quickly as possible is really, really important. We had over 30 appliances at the fire in Muckatah, which is between Cobram and Katamatite, and we lost 12 houses down there. It was a disastrous day, a tough day for the community, and we just want to ensure that we get our appliances back as soon as possible to make sure that they are ready to go for the next call-out when that comes, because, as we know, there could be plenty of call-outs still to come over the next couple of months. It is important that the minister understand that and get that back in shape for us as soon as possible.