Page 59 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 11 February 2020
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and other organisations. These efforts have been very successful. They estimate that they have raised around $10,000 for bushfire relief efforts. Similarly, I thank several organisations within the Indian community in Canberra, including the Australian Business Council, the Canberra India Council and the Telugu organisation, which organised a vegetarian food festival with the goal of raising funds for bushfire relief. I attended this fundraiser myself. It was an absolute success, with a further $10,000 raised to support emergency services in Canberra.
While this has been a difficult time, we have seen the beautiful humanity and coming together of our nation to face this challenge. I commend Mr Gentleman, the Chief Minister and our emergency services team for all their hard work. I commend this motion to the Assembly.
MS CHEYNE (Ginninderra) (3.17): Flames towering above treetops. Skies turning from grey to orange, to red and then black. People fleeing to beaches as flames engulf trees and properties behind them. Animals running for their lives. Eye-watering, throat-burning smoke. So much smoke. These are just some of the images that have come to define what has been an unprecedented bushfire season in Australia, a bushfire season that began in this country in August with unprecedented fire activity, a stark manifestation of what we knew was coming: longer and more extreme seasons. It was a bushfire season intensified by climate change, a bushfire season that has burnt millions of hectares of land, killed an estimated more than one billion animals and tragically claimed the lives of more than 30 people, all of whom were defending lives and property. We will never forget them, and we offer our deepest condolences to their colleagues, families and friends.
As we are recognising today, the ACT and the surrounding capital region have not been immune to the threat of fire or the unrelenting smoke that has wafted in and out of our city, forcing people inside their homes and the temporary closure of many government offices, childcare centres, national institutions and businesses.
We are incredibly lucky and fortunate to have been supported by professional leadership in agencies and volunteer and community groups as our city combated such an unprecedented summer, with their actions and their communications assuring us that we have never been better prepared.
It is only right that we appropriately recognise the service of all those who have come to our community’s aid, at the conclusion of the bushfire season, with some formal opportunities which have been mentioned today, but at this moment we thank them all, so much. And I want to thank the wider Canberra community for stepping up in such difficult times: for heeding the advice of the ESA and taking the necessary precautions when asked, and for rallying together to help each other and to help our pets and wildlife across our city and our region.
Many individuals and organisations have already been highlighted today. I want to make special mention of Water for Wildlife, an incredible grassroots movement to ensure that wildlife searching for water in a parched land had access to it; and Canberra Pet Rescue, which has raised over $50,000 in its bushfire appeal for pets in need across the region, with every $5,000 providing over seven tonnes of food.
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