Pauline Hanson thinks teen arsonists should be placed on a register

Pauline Hanson says teenage arsonists should be placed on a register and forced to repay society out of their future wages.

Tina Hag cradles two-year-old Nora and two-month-old Edward as she surveys the debris left after the family’s Rappville home was razed. Picture: Natalie Grono

Pauline Hanson thinks teenage arsonists should be placed on a register and forced to repay society out of their future wages in the wake of devastating bushfires in northern NSW and southern Queensland which police suspect were deliberately lit.

As many as 30 homes and buildings in northern NSW have been lost in northern NSW after two major bushfires swept through the area on Tuesday, and at least one home was destroyed at Laidley in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley.

“I am very angry with what is happening,” the One Nation senator told the Nine Network’s Today on Thursday morning. “If we put teenagers on the sex register, why can’t we with these arsonists even if they’re underage?”

Senator Hanson said kids who deliberately start fires were selfish and lacking in compassion.

“If they are found guilty of doing this it should be a detention not just a slap on the wrist,” Senator Hanson said. “It should be automatic detention and then they should be made to pay back this debt to that household and society for the rest of their lives. I’m sick and tired of a slap over the wrist by the court system or they’re let off because they’re kids. No I’m sorry, they have to face responsibility for their actions.”

Senator Hanson said she lives in constant fear that a bushfire could take her own home, which is 45 minutes away from Laidley. “Every time I leave my property I’m in fear of a bushfire that may come through and destroy my home. It’s devastating,” she said.

"I’m sick and tired of a slap over the wrist by the court system... They have to face responsibility for their actions." @PaulineHansonOZ on tougher penalties for teenage arsonists. #9Today pic.twitter.com/1NxFB0hZD2

— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) October 9, 2019

A police taskforce is investigate suspicions the bushfire in northern NSW on Tuesday night was deliberately lit, with several people still unaccounted for and scores of residents traumatised after barely escaping with their lives.

The NSW Rural Fire Service confirmed investigations indicated an arsonist may be behind the blaze, which first flared in the Busby Flat area Friday night and then erupted amid high winds late Tuesday, ripping through the rural hamlet of Rappville.

The bushfire, which has now scorched almost 100,000ha, is still burning, with local Richmond Valley mayor Robert Mustow saying although conditions had impr­oved there was a renewed threat with southerly winds picking up.

Mr Mustow said there were several people unaccounted for from around Rappville, which bore the brunt of the bushfire, and that he hoped they would soon register with local authorities after evacuating.

“I’m aware some people are missing, and hopefully they will be found safe and sound,” he said.

“Police have already set up a taskforce to investigate the suspicion it may have been deliberately lit, it is very disappointing and it won’t be tolerated.”

At least 30 homes and buildings were destroyed, along with livestock, bridges and electricity infrastructure, with the rail line between Sydney and Brisbane expected to be cut-off for at least five days.

Ross Harrison with his mother, Jane, who lost everything. Picture: Natalie Grono

Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said two fires — at Drake near Tenterfield and at Busbys Flat near Rappville — had joined together to form one large blaze, which was fanned by 80km winds and temperatures in the high 30s.

In the aftermath, Rappville residents told of their frightening ­escape from the inferno by sheltering inside the township’s school as around one in every five homes burnt to the ground.

Rappville Public School principal Kathleen Collis said 50 people took shelter in the school and could only watch on as their houses burnt down outside.

“There was no power so it was in darkness,” she said.

“All they could see was little spot fires starting around the community and watching their own houses burn. Horrendous.”

Residents had started arriving at the school around 1.30pm, waiting out the fire in the library, many bringing animals.

“We had goats who took up residence in the boys’ toilets, dogs in the staffroom,” Ms Collis said.

Some Rappville residents battled the blaze all night on Tuesday and were able to save their homes, even as neighbours lost their homes. Firefighters said 10 of the town’s homes had been destroyed, five were damaged and 31 had been saved or rescued.

Tina Hag, 37, fled to Casino on Tuesday afternoon with her four children — Jesse, 6, William, 4, Nora, 2, and Edward, two months. Her husband, Robert, 34, was at work and a local man warned her it was time to get out. The family ­returned on Wednesday to find their home destroyed.

Ms Hag said they’d lost everything apart from their home computer, which she’d gone back to the house to get after initially forgetting it.

“We wanted to see with our own eyes,” Ms Hag said.

“The brain just doesn’t want to make you believe it.

“It’s devastating. Everything we owned was in that house.”

Jane Harrison, 90, lost everything when her Ellangowan home of 32 years burnt down.

“I’ll be going to the op shop. I’ve only got what I’m standing up in, and this is borrowed,” she said.

“One of the local fireys came over that I know very well and said, `I think you’d better go’.

“At first I demurred, then he came back and said, ‘C’mon, it’s time you went’, so I up and went.”

She drove herself from her 40ha property, where she lives alone, to a friend’s home.

“I said, ‘I’m a damsel in distress’, and she laughed like mad. I’ve never seen anything like the scene in the sky. It was just thick blackness and when there was still daylight the sun was like a fiery red ball. It was extraordinary.”

Her son, Ross Harrison, himself a rural firefighter, drove seven hours from his Hunter Valley home on Wednesday and met her at Casino’s evacuation centre.

“None of the trees on her place up until now had black bases on them, so it’s been a long time since a fire’s gone through there,” he said. “As soon as I looked at the map and saw the weather forecast I knew exactly what was going to happen.”

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said she was “horrified” to hear the fire was suspicious.

“I’m simply horrified and shocked that anyone would think it’s smart to be lighting any of these fires — I hope that’s not the case,” she said at the Sydney headquarters of the RFS.

Additional reporting: Michael McKenna