Doorstop - Angaston

E&EO TRANSCRIPT

Doorstop - Angaston CFS, South Australia with Jay Weatherill and Greg Nettleton

Friday 27 November 2015

SUBJECT: SA Bushfires

JAY WEATHERILL: Many farm properties and associated structures have also been damaged, something like 450 insurance claims have been made with a collective value of $61 million, and that amount is likely to substantially rise. We also know that there have been extraordinary losses of livestock and wild life. Tens of thousands of chickens and something 27,000 livestock – these are enormous numbers, and there is great sadness associated the loss of those animals’ lives [inaudible]…

We now turn our attention to the recovery effort. I was very pleased yesterday to announce the appointment of the recovery coordinator, Vince Monterola, he will coordinate the effort. One of lessons of the Sampson Flat bushfire was that even though we appointed a recovery coordinator a week after the event people thought that should have happened straight away, so we’re making that appointment now. People will get on with the recovery effort straight away. That means allowing people to restore their lives, whether that’s their property, quickly being able to return to their homes. Now, the learning experience with the Sampson Flat bushfire was to open up the roads as quickly as possible so that people can access their homes and make their decisions about how to take the next step in their lives. It’s an enormously distressing thing to lose one’s home, and being separated from your home and your possessions, and just not knowing – can be a very distressing period for people. So, we getting are people back to their homes, assisting them in dealing with the wreckage in their lives. In this regard, we are very pleased to say that the Commonwealth has offered every assistance, and in a moment the federal minister, Christopher Pyne, will make a few remarks about the Commonwealth’s offer of assistance. But we expect to share the costs associated with this recovery, and I must say, it is pleasing to be here with a range of federal and state members of parliament who all have close connections with this area, or represent this area. This just reflects at a political level what we are seeing across the community. There are thousands of volunteers here, thousands of community members, either helping directly in fighting bushfires, or offering donations or financial support. Indeed, people across the nation. Victorian firefighters are here helping us out. People from interstate and overseas are offering donations. Our relief fund is now open for people to make those donations, we’re so grateful for the expression of solidarity and support. Not only will this be important in the material sense, but it is great moral comfort for the people who are suffering these losses that there are other people standing by. And, as is often the case with these great tragedies, paradoxically, there’s a sense of wellbeing as we’re somehow brought closer together as we respond to these times of crisis. This is what has happened with this event, as it happened with the Sampson Flat bushfire. So, I would like to thank all South Australians who have pulled together in a wonderful way to support those who have suffered so much in the last few days. So thank you to all of those who have made that contribution, and I now invite the federal minister to make some remarks.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well, thank you very much Jay, and on behalf of the Australian Government, firstly, I would like to extend our condolences to the families and friends of those who have perished in this shocking fire, and I’d also like to thank the thousands of volunteers and professionals, across all the services - whether they are firefighters, ambulances, or those working behind the scenes to keep those people in the field – thank them for their service and for their sacrifice. Obviously we are still concerned about those in hospital recovering from injury, and we hope that there are no other South Australians who lose their lives through their injuries, and I’m glad to see that the fire is now contained. I am very pleased to announce that the Commonwealth and South Australian Governments have readily agreed to co-operate for a natural disaster relief arrangement. That means the Commonwealth will share the cost of the emergency relief to those affected - $280 per adult and $140 per child, up to a maximum of $700 per family, and we will co-operate in all other respects. Because this tragedy is not just a South Australian tragedy, it’s an Australian tragedy and right across the country when these things happen, in this terrifying and beautiful country of ours, we all have to pull together. Whether we’re South Australians, or Victorians, or New South Welshmen, or whatever. So the Commonwealth is very happy to have readily agreed to the request by South Australia to be part of arrangements, and we look forward to doing whatever we can to assist the South Australian government in a speedy recovery from this disaster, and putting people back on their feet.

REPORTER: Premier, do you consider one form of other compensation that might be very helpful is if people who are affected have their Emergency Services Levy reduced or even abolished?

JAY WEATHERILL: I don’t think today is the day to talk about politics…

REPORTER: I’m talking about relief for people who may have lost their homes and are still paying an ESL

JAY WEATHERILL: You’re talking about politics and how services are payed for and how that burden is distributed across the community and today you’re talking about politics.

REPORTER: Can you just talk us through how you expect relief payments to flow through to people and what sort of quantum people can expect if you’ve lost a house or…. What can you expect?

JAY WEATHERILL: Well the, those sums that were mentioned before ….. they’re very much for out of pocket expenses for people who have been separated from their finances and may need some food or accommodation. That’s not the extent of our contribution for relief, there are other supports available. Of course the first call is on peoples insurance and because this is a catastrophe fire that should facilitate the speedy process of insurance claims. So many though, either they won’t be insured or their losses were simply not available to be insured, so this where some of the other forms of support are available from the South Australian Government and the Commonwealth, and indeed beyond that what we found with the Samson Flat Bushfire is that generous donations made by the community can also bridge any further gap that may exist. There are lots of things like fence posts around properties that may not be covered or be insured but could add up to a very substantial amount of loss. Just having to deal with a gum which is posing a danger on a property and has to be taken down, somebody has to saw that down, that could be quite an expense… ah… that’s not insurable. We do have resources that are available to assist with those sorts of things. Very generously the community donated to the Samson Flat Bushfire relief and I think the contributions that will be made to this will assist us to really reduce any further loss.

REPORTER: The immediate payment, how do they go out?

JAY WEATHERILL: Go to the relief centres and register and they can be speedily processed. There are three relief centres um and we can get the details of that you.

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: They can be paid directly into their bank accounts as well, so they don’t have to go through the usual lengthy processes of say a Centrelink application or other kinds of support. We’ve also learnt over the years from other disasters like this one, particularly the Victorian Bushfires from a few years ago when I think Labor was in power, how to quickly respond and that the immediate fear of the victims is that they have access to their accounts and cards, they might lose their wallets or their purses etc. and are instantaneously panicked by how they are going to feed themselves and their children in many cases. So these relief payments apply very quickly.

REPORTER: Have the governments done any assessments yet on sort of infrastructure costs you might be faced with and how those repairs will be done and paid for?

JAY WEATHERILL: Not yet.

REPORTER:Can I ask Greg about the role of the weariness of volunteers out in the field? Greg how are the troops standing up out there?

GREG NETTLETON: I think the troops are feeling quite good. And the reason I say that is that just after midday on Wednesday this fire started, a particularly nasty fire as we described it. To have this fire contained within 48 hours – we had it declared contained just before lunchtime – I think is a fantastic effort by our crews and all of the people who have supported us. So, I hope that all our CFS volunteers and our colleagues who have assisted us here are feeling pretty good, because it’s an exceptional effort to pull up a fire of this size and have it contained within 48 hours. Certainly when our crews are out here they’ve been working particularly hard, but we have been rotating crews on a regular basis to make sure they are rested and able to come back for future journeys. But it’s a team effort, it isn’t just CFS staff and volunteers, but other agencies such as the MFS and SES, police, ambulance, our colleagues from Victoria, our colleagues from New South Wales have helped us. We work as a team-effort and the whole team should be feeling proud of what we have been able to achieve, and I hope the community can get back to normal as quickly as possible.

REPORTER: Is it still 35 houses or will that be updated again?

GREG NETTLETON: Look, I don’t have exact figures with me. 87 houses I understand have been destroyed or damaged. The number of farm sheds, vehicles, and one of the things it is difficult to put a firm figure on is farm infrastructure such as gates, fences, yards and all of those sorts of things. So, a significant loss to the community, and a lot of recovery to get people back into their normal lives.

REPORTER: Greg, when you see the losses and see how hard the people have worked out here, do you have a view on whether Emergency Services Levy relief could be a just reward for their service this week?

GREG NETTLETON: I think what you’ve seen in the past few days is the emergency services levy work, and really it’s up to the community to determine whether they got value for money for their emergency services levy. Whether people get relief from the emergency services levy or not, that’s not for me to say. But, certainly, today and yesterday, you’ve seen your emergency services levy at work. And for those people where we saved properties, I am sure they are very grateful for that.

REPORTER: Does anyone… Can anyone comment on the condition of the fire victims? Is it critical or has it improved or worsened?

GREG NETTLETON:: No no, I don’t know the details of that and I’m not in the right position to give you a prognosis because I’m not a medical person but we just wish that people who are in hospital with injuries as a result of the fire recover as soon as possible and return to their families.

JOURNALIST: Greg obviously the roads are now reopened but what are the dangers remaining on the fire grounds? What’s your advice to people who might be returning to homes etc. over the next couple of days?

GREG NETTLETON: The dangers for people over the next few days is if they’ve got sheds that have contained chemicals or other farm type substances to be careful if they have been impacted by fire as people move around we ask them to be careful driving on the roads, particularly over the next few days when the wind picks up there will be a lot of dust so visibility in the fire effected areas will be a problem for some people and we just ask people to be careful. And for those who haven’t been effected by the fire scar, we’ve got a long summer to go and our message is make sure you have a bushfire survival plan and if you are going to leave make sure you leave early because the numbers say that if you leave it too late you become a casualty.

JOURNALIST: Is it possible that this caught people off guard because it happened so early in the season?

GREG NETTLETON: Look I don’t know whether it caught people off guard or not, we brought the fire danger season forward two weeks for this area, we could see that we were going to have an early fire season, an early start, we brought the fire season forward by two weeks when we did that we certainly should have… that should have alerted people to the fact that we are now in fire danger season and they need to take the necessary precautions for this time of year.

JOURNALIST: This might be one for the Police Commissioner, but are we getting any closer to the cause?

GREG NETTLETON: I think that is one for the Police Commissioner.

POLICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you, in terms of the investigation in relation to the cause, we are still working on that. We have crime scene investigators with fire investigators from the MFS on scene. This is a long and detailed process, at this point in time we are still satisfied that it was not deliberately lit, there are a couple of possible causes which are still being examined and it is not appropriate to elaborate on those at this time, but we are quite comfortable at this point that we are not dealing with an arsonist or a deliberately lit fire.

[ends]