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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 1 Hansard (30 January) . . Page.. 50 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

At this stage, I cannot put a figure on the cost and I would not want to because tomorrow there will be other impacts discovered and I would not want to be giving the Assembly a misconception of the position. There will be knock-on effects. Depending on how the fires have impacted on ActewAGL itself, there will be impacts upon dividends payable to the government, depending again on their insurance coverage, the costs that they have incurred and the difference.

There will be costs in cleaning up the town that may not be included in the natural disaster recovery arrangements and there will be the costs of the inquiries that members have spoken about today. While on the subject of inquiries, we certainly need them and we have to accept that we will have them. When I see something like this looming, the first thing of concern is the 20:20 hindsight that will suddenly emerge during those inquiries. How those inquiries and the information flow that occurs during those inquiries are handled in the public forum will be a measure of the maturity of this Assembly, of the community and of our media. Mr Speaker, I do agreed with your reminder to the Assembly that there will be considerable pressure from people. I agree with the many other members who have said that the fire season is not over. It is not over for us and it is not over for other communities in Australia.

I do not think I need to enumerate all the organisations that ought to be thanked. They have been mentioned either inclusively or particularly during previous speeches. I would like to add to the list a couple that fall within my portfolio. One is Totalcare, which was immediately available for both cleaning up and the provision of linen and services to assist with the evacuation centres. The other is TransACT, which mirrored Telstra in call diversion and trying to ensure that there was free communication.

We know that at times like this, no matter what government does and what official organisations do, the greatest support people are going to get is from family and friends, from their personal support networks. The value of what TransACT and Telstra did as part of their support in providing additional services and setting up at Duffy and handing out mobile phones to people who were disconnected from the system was immeasurable because it put people back in communication with those that they needed to communicate with.

I visited a number of the workers who were involved in the reinstallation of services and I have to report that they were overwhelmed with the spirit of the community around them. One or two people were upset and needed their services, but in the main they were deluged with support, with Anzac biscuits and with all the things that the community thought they could do to show that they supported the work that these people were doing 12 and 14 hours a day. It is certainly true that the Canberra spirit has been underscored significantly out of this exercise and it will be upward and onward from here.

I close by reiterating that we ought to spare a thought for those of us who are still fighting fires today and spare a thought for those of us who are still under threat from fires today. That is not just our community; it is communities mainly across south-east Australia as we speak.

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