NSW parliament subdued as full impact of bushfire horror hits

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has let MPs pay tribute to the lives lost and the heroism displayed during the bushfire season.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian in state parliament in Sydney on Tuesday. Picture: AAP

One by one the victims’ names were recited: Geoffrey Keaton and Andrew O’Dwyer, volunteer firefighters who perished on December 19. Expectant father Samuel McPaul, killed fighting the Green Valley blaze on December 30.

Twenty-five names and a roll-call of communities — Bilpin and Buxton, Batlow and Batemans Bay. Cobargo. Quaama. Tumut, Taree and Tathra: from the top of the alphabet to the very bottom, few towns were spared.

On Tuesday, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian moved a condolence motion to suspend the ordinar­y business of parliament and let MPs pay tribute to the lives lost and the heroism displayed during the state’s most calamitous bushfire season.

“The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented,” Ms Berejiklian said. “Never before have we seen three state of emergencies declare­d in the same season. The fires have literally stretched from the Queensland border to the Victoria­n border and inland.”

Maintaining a vigil from the public gallery were 13 members of the Horsley Park Rural Fire Brigade, there to honour their fallen comrades Keaton and O’Dwyer. They died when a tree crashed onto their truck in the Green Wattle­ Creek fire. A few seats away sat the loved ones of Colin Burns, aged 72, one of nine residents of the Belowra community. He died trying to save his property.

“We remember each and every single one of them,” the Premier said. Normally raucous MPs sat hushed and straight-backed, with mobil­e phones left in suit jackets and pockets. Amid this pin-drop solemnity, Ms Berejiklian recalled how on a single day in November the state faced an unprecedented 17 fires at emergency level.

“In any other season, just one fire at emergency alert would have caused major concern,” she said.

There was no mention of clim­ate change. No mention of land clearing or grazing. With the polit­ical extinguished, here were only tales of heroism and sadness: an elderly couple who tried to fight back the flames; a loveable bush larrikin; a trio of American firefighters whose aircraft crashed during a mission last month.

But the chamber was reminded, too, of bravery and grit, of mirac­ulous survival, of rallying communities and uplifting stories­ — people who opened their homes up to strangers; a man in the town of Rosedale who took in 27 people, as well as their pets.

NSW Labor leader Jodi McKay spoke of a summer that “broke our hearts”. “After these fires nothing can be the same,” she said, becoming emotional while recounting the story of colleague Trish Doyle, the Blue Mountains MP, whose son is a firefighter.

He texted his mother on New Year’s Eve while fighting a blaze near Nowra, saying he “wouldn’t make it out”. “The fact that all eight crew members survived is a miracle,” Ms McKay said.

A wide-ranging independent inquiry into the bushfires has six months to report to the Premier. It will cover the causes, preparation and planning, community respon­ses, and a range of other factors.