Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (30 January) . . Page.. 34 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I also want to put on the record the admiration and gratitude I feel for firefighters, for police and for all workers on the front line of this emergency, who selflessly and endlessly put themselves on the line and, without a doubt, did everything they possibly could to protect us from the fire and to care for us in the crisis.

The more details and stories I hear, the more remarkable it seems to me that more people were not hurt or killed. The devastation is unique in Canberra's history, being on the scale of that from a cyclone or an incident in war. This disaster and how we move forward from it will prove to be a key moment in the evolution of our communal identity.

Canberra's media-in words, sounds and pictures-showed why they are important to this city, not only in providing us with the information and the company we needed through it all but also in keeping a record for the benefit of all of us.

On the first days of last week it was easier to know how to help. If we were not directly involved in addressing immediate needs after the event or in fighting off the still threatening fires, then we could make donations where they were needed, we could lay off the water and the sewerage to allow the essential service teams to do their work, and we could clean up around our houses and reassure our neighbours or be reassured by them.

But now that we are moving into recovery stage-I hope we are and will not have to face another disaster, although I hear that another warning was issued at 11.30 today-we need to deal with a number of more complex issues. Day by day, right now, those people who have been worst affected need consideration. The ACT government and people who work in it were commendably prompt in setting up emergency support systems, but now we have shifted into a more normal mode of service delivery. Bureaucratic procedures have seen some people miss out on emergency financial support when they finally got to the right desk. Tenants whose houses have been damaged but not destroyed and who are thus not eligible for assistance are faced with the cost of replacing carpets. The sense of inequitable treatment is becoming an issue.

People delivering these services need to be both fair and flexible. I understand that there is quite a demand, but we should work very hard to achieve fairness and flexibility. The cost to the recovery of people feeling hardly done by is too great for us to do otherwise. Our social fabric is a function of our interactions. How we deal with this disaster has the potential to strengthen our community or to undermine it. Managing the soft edges of this interaction might be a key to the result.

The two major issues we are yet to address are understanding better what happened and making good decisions on how we rebuild. Analysis on this fire and its impact on Canberra has to be open. There seem to be three approaches on offer.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .