NSW bushfires: MPs shed tears as they share personal stories of fire trauma in state parliament
One by one, politicians stepped up to offer their condolences to those affected by the bushfires and to pay tribute to the 25 people who lost their lives in NSW. Several MPs, including Andrew Constance (pictured), shed tears in parliament on Tuesday.
NSW
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As bushfires tore through Nowra on New Year’s Eve, Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle received a harrowing text message from her firefighter son.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it. I love you, Mum,” the text read.
Ms Doyle’s son miraculously survived the night after his crew was left stranded in a broken-down Fire and Rescue truck amid a raging inferno near Nowra.
“No one ever wants to sit on the couch to get a text message saying, ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it’,” Ms Doyle said.
The Labor MP on Tuesday joined other politicians — some of whom fought to save their own homes — to mark the bushfires that have left a “huge scar” on the state.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian used the first parliamentary sitting day of the year to move a condolence motion for those affected by the fires and to pay tribute to the 25 people who lost their lives in NSW.
One by one, politicians stepped up to offer their condolences, several shedding tears, others barely holding them back.
NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay said after the fires “nothing can be the same”.
“This was the summer that broke our hearts, the summer when the rains didn’t come, the summer that forced us to rethink our relationship with this parched land, this changing climate,” she said.
Among those in the public gallery were members of the Horsley Park Rural Fire Service who lost volunteers Andrew O’Dwyer and Geoffrey Keaton when their fire truck rolled on December 19.
Prospect MP Hugh McDermott, also a member of the Horsley Park brigade, spent December 19 fighting the Green Wattle Creek fire and told parliament he had spoken to the men just an hour before their deaths.
“In the future when (Mr Keaton’s son) Harvey is old enough to read this … I want him to know that the last words Geoff spoke to me were about him,” Mr McDermott said.
State MP Andrew Constance emotionally described how the New Year’s Eve bushfires in his southern NSW electorate of Bega changed him forever.
Mr Constance recounted in parliament on Tuesday that “fire bombs” exploded in his community on December 31.
“That day on New Year’s Eve has changed me forever … it’s hard, it’s traumatic,” he told the Legislative Assembly.
Mr Constance recounted the path of the blaze towards his Malua Bay property, south of Batemans Bay, and his attempts to spray his house with about 5000 litres of water before fleeing to the beach.
He made the late decision to leave when the fire’s heat became too intense.
“I thought holy hell, we’re going to lose hundreds of people,” he said.
Mr Constance, who in January stepped aside from his role as NSW transport and roads minister to aid his electorate’s recovery, pleaded with anyone impacted by bushfires to reach out for support.
“I don’t want to see anyone on their knees fall through the cracks,” he said.
“These are really testing days. They are black days. It’s a test of our humanity.”
Mr Constance said he was more determined than ever to make the bushfire recovery the best the world has ever seen.
He urged his parliamentary colleagues to leave politics out of the process and focus on helping people and communities rebuild.
Mr Constance’s wife Jen and his parents were in the chamber during his speech, which ended with a round of applause.
— with Dominica Sanda, AAP