Debate resumed from an earlier hour.

Mr KERR (Cronulla) [8.36 p.m.]: I am delighted to speak to the motion on behalf of the community of the Cronulla electorate and express their appreciation for the work done by the many volunteers. It was a disastrous hailstorm that occurred some weeks ago, particularly in the Lilli Pilli area of the Cronulla electorate. Considerable damage was sustained by many homes in that area. I did tour the area with the Leader of the Opposition. We were able to speak to a number of volunteers who were repairing the damage done to the homes. I toured the area also with the Hon. Bruce Baird, the Federal member. Once again, we spoke to residents, who expressed their appreciation for the work that had been done by the volunteers.

It was my privilege to inspect the facilities of the State Emergency Services Caringbah office and to see the work being done there. The hailstorm was a tragedy of enormous proportions to the people of Lilli Pilli and other areas of the Cronulla electorate. The storm is now regarded as Australia’s worst natural disaster. It was devastating in its impact on many homes. However, one should also appreciate the sense of community that occurred as a result of that storm. I remember visiting Lilli Pilli school, which sustained extensive damage to its library and classrooms. Yet many parents whose homes had been almost destroyed by the hail worked as volunteers to repair the school facilities. That showed the extent of the community spirit that exists in the area. The parents were prepared to make sacrifices so that not only their children but the children of others could enjoy basic amenities at the school.

Heroism was exhibited by volunteers in a number of areas. On one occasion a volunteer worker’s leg was broken when he fell off a roof. There was always a danger of personal injury. It was not an easy feat to put tarpaulins onto damaged roofs; it entailed a considerable amount of danger, in particular, because of the high winds that occurred after the hailstorm. It is well for all honourable members to remember that night. Fortunately I was at home and my car was in my garage, but many people who were driving on the roads had their windows smashed and they were subjected to a considerable amount of terror. People in the city were not killed or seriously injured as a result of that hailstorm.

On the night of the storm some people, despite the damage that they had sustained, ensured that their neighbours were all right and that they had not suffered any injuries. People were huddled together on streets discussing the best way to put one another up for the night and ensuring that people were looked after and attended to as a result of the deprivations they would have to endure. On that same night a number of church camps were established on the other side of the Port Hacking River. It is well to remember there was no warning of this storm; it had been a reasonably quiet night. One worker who was crossing the river in a kayak was hit by the storm midway across the river. He was able to get out of the kayak, overturn it and
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make his way to a buoy, which provided some degree of shelter. He was on that buoy in the midst of the storm.

Residents on the Lilli Pilli side of the river observed his plight, he was able to be rescued and he was taken to hospital were he was treated for hypothermia. But that incident could well have resulted in a drowning. That was a terrifying experience for that young man. It says a lot about the community that people had their wits about them, they went out to see whether anyone was on the waterways during the course of that evening, and they were able to effect a rescue. Despite all the devastation, great comradeship, help, and kindness were shown during the course of the disaster. Next week this Parliament will be occupied with a drug summit. It is well to remember when we are looking at a fairly desolate landscape in relation to the drug problem that we still have a society where people are prepared to help one another. We still have neighbours helping their neighbours. Those values, which are still evident, are very strong.

The damage that occurred in my electorate occurred all over Sydney. I recall listening to Alan Jones referring to the extent of the damage in the eastern suburbs. Alan Jones referred also to a lot of the problems that had been encountered in those suburbs. My heart went out to those people. This is a disaster that no-one could have anticipated. We were in extremis. As a result, people’s endurance, their capacity and our emergency systems were tested in a way that no-one could have envisaged. This disaster could not have been envisaged when Major General Grey prepared a report relating to emergency services.

Lessons can be learned from this hailstorm. We have had some weeks to recover from it. What has occurred in the aftermath of the storm? We must revise our communications and reassess our priorities. We must reassess other services and the co-ordination between those services. We must redetermine our area of expertise. There was considerable debate about who was entitled or skilled enough to put tarpaulins onto damaged roofs. All those criteria must be revised. In those areas where elderly people are living alone we must ensure that work is carried out quickly to avoid them undergoing considerable hardship.

History must not repeat itself. Lessons must be learned and appropriate emergency services must be made available. I hope that we will never again endure a hailstorm or a tempest such as the one we endured in that period. On behalf of the community I thank all those volunteers - people who are so often overlooked. Many volunteers often make huge financial sacrifices in order to provide emergency services. They undergo training and are on call for this sort of emergency. Nevertheless, no organisation should ever have to undergo a devastating storm of such unprecedented proportions. I thank all the volunteers for the work that they did.

Mr DEBUS (Blue Mountains - Minister for the Environment, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Corrective Services, and Minister Assisting the Premier on the Arts) [8.46 p.m.]: On the evening of 14 April an unprecedented and cataclysmic hailstorm cut a swathe through the south-eastern suburbs of Sydney. The hail and the heavy rain and strong winds which followed it damaged almost 20,000 homes and 40,000 cars. The estimated cost of the hailstorm is in excess of a billion dollars. Over 2,000 families have been assisted by the welfare administration since this storm occurred. The response to the disaster was correspondingly immense. Over 44,000 calls for assistance were responded to and 124,000 properties were doorknocked by emergency services, by community services and by volunteer agencies.

Over the 3½ weeks of the emergency response an average of almost 2,000 volunteers and emergency workers have been on the ground each and every day. Between 10,000 and 15,000 workers have been rostered to the response over the last month, many undertaking several tours of duty and travelling from as far away as Broken Hill, Coonamble, Walgett, Albury and Murwillumbah. Volunteers in State Emergency Service [SES] units in country towns who have trained in major flood, storm and rescue responses were paged and phoned within hours of the storm and, at first light, drove to the city to assist in the response. They drove from villages where the spirit of community and mutual obligation is strong and vibrant - from villages where almost every able-bodied man and many women are part of the local SES or rural fire service unit.

On the very first night when the hail had scarcely begun to melt on the ground nearly 400 emergency workers, including 45 SES teams, supported by rural fire service brigades and New South Wales Fire Brigades were already at work on the slippery roofs of south-eastern Sydney. By the end of Friday, 48 hours after the storm, almost 2,000 emergency workers had been in the field and 15,000 tarpaulins had already been used. Over the first three days more than 4,000 badly damaged buildings were secured. By the end of the first weekend nearly 5,000 emergency workers had used 45,000 tarpaulins.

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Of course, the availability of tarpaulins restricted the number of workers who could be usefully deployed in the first few days. In fact, it was not until Monday 19 April that the supply of tarpaulins and other essential equipment matched the number of workers, which had grown to 1,500. After three days the number of calls for assistance was approaching 11,000. Two weeks later, and after several periods of gales and torrential rain, this number had more than doubled and emergency services crews had discovered many other tasks through doorknocking and other reconnaissance. By this time the actual tasks that had been completed by the emergency services were in excess of 30,000, reflecting the large number of jobs that had to be done two and three times in the face of continuing severe weather conditions. This unprecedented emergency repair rate demonstrates clearly the massive resources committed to the clean-up operation.

As the size of the emergency escalated, the resources in the field were appropriately increased. By Saturday 24 April 3,000 workers - 1,000 of them from the Rural Fire Service, 900 from the State Emergency Service, 700 from the New South Wales Fire Brigades, 200 from the Army and 125 from the National Parks and Wildlife Service - were in the field. By Tuesday 27 April the SES had spent more than $8.5 million buying in excess of 161,000 tarpaulins. In total 200,000 tarpaulins were used in the operation at a cost of more than $10 million. That is enough to cover more than 2,000 football fields. Up until today the Government has spent more than $50 million on various emergency, welfare and recovery phases of the operation.

By way of contrast, the 1990 Sydney inner western suburbs storm involved serious damage to fewer than 2,000 houses. The initial emergency response to tarpaulin and secure those 2,000 houses took three weeks. I might also add that is how long it took the Premier of the day to visit the affected area: three weeks. Our emergency services workers in the first three days of the storm response last month tarpaulined 4,000 houses. The 1991 Sydney northern suburbs storm involved 2,000 houses - one-tenth of the premises involved in the recent hailstorm. There were just over 12,000 calls for assistance, a quarter as many as in the present case, and again the initial emergency response lasted three weeks. To underline the comparison, the SES alone had 90 teams in the field on the second day of the recent storm clean-up operation. That is 30 more teams than were involved in the whole of the first two weeks of the response to the 1991 Sydney storm.

The public responded overwhelmingly well and positively to this emergency. However, there were a number of armchair critics, in particular the Leader of the Opposition. She took the position that thousands and thousands of houses could effectively be resecured overnight, and that simply by pouring more people into the response willy-nilly a disaster bigger than Cyclone Tracy in financial terms could be fixed by the weekend and life could resume as though nothing had happened. Managing a huge response effort requires a proper balance of people, skills, experience and equipment. It is not an option simply to throw people at a problem without sufficient equipment to work with or the skills to use it.

The Leader of the Opposition has today moved a motion which suggests a tender concern for the emergency workers, but the real purpose of her motion is to divert attention from her own completely inappropriate behaviour when it really mattered, that is, at the height of the crisis itself. Thousands of volunteers and paid workers across the board needed support and she dismayed them by attacking the commander of the operation, Major General Howard, the Director-General of the State Emergency Service, and calling for his resignation.

From the viewpoint of the volunteer SES crews and all the other emergency workers this was a frontal assault on them. I know this because I spoke to them daily during the emergency operation. The proof of their anger is demonstrated by the dozens of letters the volunteers have sent to me in the past two weeks. I have received literally dozens of these from every country town in New South Wales. I choose one from the Coonamble shire. It says this:

IN SUPPORT OF OUR DIRECTOR-GENERAL AND OUR ORGANISATION

We left our own communities unprotected to assist the people of Sydney.

We departed from across the Western area of NSW, Walgett, Narromine, Warren, Coonamble and even from the opal fields of Glengarry . . .

We came from all walks of life from Deputy Shire Engineers to the unemployed to carry out our role as the combat agency for Storm and Tempest . . .

The current high standard of our training and of our commitment is solely due to the efforts of Major General Howard.

To return from Sydney, just to see our commitment called into question, our training called into question, and our organisation called into question, is an insult to every volunteer that proudly wears the orange overalls.

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Do not use us as political weapons, we deserve more than that!

That letter is signed by the local controller and all members of the Coonamble Shire State Emergency Service unit. The divisional controller from Moree, which is in the electorate of the honourable member for Barwon, says:

I am absolutely appalled at the continuing attacks on the Director-General of the State Emergency Services by ill-informed commentators, but more particularly by the Parliamentary Opposition through their leader, Kerry Chikarovski.

The Armidale-Dumaresq State Emergency Service says:

The recent accusations by the leader of the State Opposition, Mrs Chikarovski, of incompetence against the Director-General, Major General Howard, with respect to the management of severe hailstorm damage in Sydney are unfounded and disgraceful.

The letters go on and on. Country New South Wales responded with dismay at the attacks by the Opposition upon the emergency services. They regarded attacks upon General Howard as attacks on themselves, for the very good reason that he is so closely identified with the SES, which over the past decade he has built up from an organisation that had very little credibility to one that has very high credibility across the country. It is an organisation that is and has been respected by everyone in politics on a bipartisan basis until the Leader of the Opposition took the position she did. I suggest that every country member of the Opposition who represents a country electorate needs to go to their emergency service units, their fire brigades, their SES units, their Rural Fire Service units and say to them that they do not associate themselves with the attack of the Leader of the Opposition.

If they do not we will no longer be able to maintain the bipartisan approach to emergency services that I have always assumed to be an essential part of the way we have conducted business and the affairs of our community. I think the Leader of the Opposition is a damned disgrace! I have time only to thank the other services that have been involved in the clean-up operation, and particularly to thank Commissioner Koperberg of the Rural Fire Service and Commissioner MacDougall of New South Wales Fire Brigades for the work they have done. [Time expired.]

Ms MOORE (Bligh) [8.56 p.m.]: I support the motion that this House places on record its appreciation and the appreciation of the people of New South Wales of the efforts of the State Emergency Service volunteers, the members of the Rural Fire Service, the Army and other organisations for their work following the recent Sydney hailstorm. Indeed, I should like to amend the motion. I move:

That the motion be amended by the insertion of the words "the New South Wales Fire Brigades" after the words "Rural Fire Service".

I move that amendment because of the extraordinary contribution made by New South Wales Fire Brigades to the response to the hailstorm on 14 April. Australia’s worst natural disaster hit my electorate at around 7.30 p.m. on 14 April without any warning whatsoever. Redfern, Surry Hills and Paddington were hit first with hailstones smashing windows, skylights and roof tiles in almost every house in some streets and badly damaging all the major Department of Housing blocks in Surry Hills and Redfern. Parts of Darlinghurst, Woollahra, Darling Point, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay and Potts Point were also in the track of the hailstorm, and homes there also sustained severe damage.

Thousands of cars in the electorate had windscreens smashed and car bodies were covered with dents. The noise, the shock and the experience of glass skylights and windows smashing, followed by rain pouring into our exposed homes and cars, was terrifying. In my own home in Redfern our skylights were smashed, computer equipment ruined by water damage and glass splinters, and my car was dented and the windscreen smashed. All our cars were undriveable. When I hired a car the next day - from Victoria, incidentally, as no local cars were available - to drive around the electorate so I could assess the damage, the scale of the disaster became clear. Little was being done to assist those who were in crisis and shock. The community was paralysed and did not know where to turn for help.

For example, in devastated East Redfern and Surry Hills one fire brigade team was working and urgent help was needed. I was very concerned to see residents climbing onto dangerously high roofs on three-storey terraces in an attempt to protect their homes, thus endangering their lives and threatening to dislodge tiles, which would have been a danger to pedestrians walking on the footpath below. Clearly, professional expertise, such as that of New South Wales Fire Brigades, was needed to get onto high roofs as soon as possible to provide temporary cover before the rain came again.

I urgently faxed the Premier and the Minister for Emergency Services requesting that the situation be treated as a natural disaster and that an urgent, systematic plan of action be put in place to go from
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house to house in badly affected areas to cover roofs and offer assistance. In response that evening, Thursday 15 April, the Minister sent a senior officer of New South Wales Fire Brigades out with me to survey the damage. We did a three-hour drive around, which ended in midnight discussions at the fire brigade headquarters in Alexandria with Assistant Commissioner Ken Thompson, who agreed that the situation was urgent and serious, and that a systematic plan would be put in place.

At 7.30 the following morning one of the officers came back to me with such a plan to put tarpaulins on roofs house by house and street by street in Redfern and Surry Hills, then Paddington, Woollahra, Darling Point, Rushcutters Bay, Elizabeth Bay and Potts Point. They were to work with South Sydney and Woollahra councils. By Saturday the area was swarming with fire brigade trucks from around the State. From then on I liaised with the Assistant Commissioner of New South Wales Fire Brigades, Ken Thompson, passing on any calls for assistance with tarpaulins that were received in my office. Throughout the days and weeks that followed, New South Wales Fire Brigades has consistently done an excellent, systematic and thorough job in securing homes against further water damage.

On behalf of the residents of Bligh I cannot thank New South Wales Fire Brigades enough. Its members worked long hours in the rain, more hail and even high winds until it became too dangerous even for them. They worked from 6.00 a.m. until dark. After dinner, which was provided by the Salvation Army at the Alexandria headquarters, they were bussed to motels. They had left their families. They had come from all around New South Wales to rescue the people of Sydney. Their planning team worked until midnight preparing the program for the following day. If members have been following the letters in the Sydney Morning Herald they will realise that the firemen made quite an impact on my community.

Department of Housing tenants were of particular concern. The roofs of many top-floor units were in danger of collapsing, but the tenants were reluctant to leave their homes and possessions unguarded. I pay tribute particularly to Annette Gallard and John Becker and their teams, who worked until 9.00 p.m. and through weekends for the first couple of weeks. In the week following the disaster, when it became apparent that the department’s private contractors were not getting tarpaulins onto roofs securely or quickly enough, New South Wales Fire Brigades was called in and did the same excellent job it had done for private homes in the area.

After the initial shock of the disaster, calls started pouring into my office about the need for tarpaulins, concern about damaged cars, anxiety about elderly relatives living on their own in damaged houses and concerns about lack of insurance cover. I wrote to the Premier requesting full-scale assistance from the Department of Community Services to go house to house in badly affected areas to make sure that people were getting the assistance they needed. I asked him to get teams of volunteers to do just that in affected areas, ensuring that people knew how to lodge paperwork for insurance claims, obtain financial assistance if they were unable to pay for interim repairs until insurance was paid out, and how to secure builders, tilers and other contractors to do the repairs. This will be a long-term process, requiring a sustained effort.

Notwithstanding the initial co-ordination problems in the wake of the disaster, which left some homes in my electorate exposed to further water damage in the atrocious weather over following weeks, I am grateful for the marvellous response to the crisis by the fire brigade, particularly in my area, the SES, the Department of Housing, the Department of Community Services, the Minister for Emergency Services, and the Premier’s Department. My constituents were appreciative that the Premier joined me to visit affected residents in Surry Hills and Redfern on Saturday 24 April. It is staggering to doorknock and discover how many elderly or frail residents are still living in hazardous conditions and who have not sought assistance. These people are especially vulnerable, and they need proactive intervention to assist them to get their lives back in order.

Schools in the area were also seriously damaged, particularly Sydney Girls High School, Crown Street Public School, Bourke Street Public School, Glenmore Road Public School, Paddington Public School and St Francis School. They all suffered extraordinary damage. Indeed, Paddington Public School has had to bus three classes to Bondi Beach because its rooms are unusable. The whole top floor of Sydney Girls High School has been destroyed and is unusable. Demountables had to be erected fairly quickly. However, the school is fully functioning under the brilliant leadership of the principal, Margaret Varady. Centennial Park and Moore Park sustained $500,000 worth of damage, and flocks of native birds were killed by the hail.

It is one month since the event, yet the ramifications and recovery stage will continue for months. My affected constituents in Bligh need ongoing monitoring by the fire brigade to ensure that tarpaulins are secured. People whose roofs will
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not be permanently repaired for months because of a shortage of tradesmen will need heavy-duty tarpaulins. Co-ordination and prioritisation of repairs are essential. Staff of the Department of Community Services need to follow up house to house to ensure that people who may be unable to seek assistance with repairs and insurance receive that help. Sustained resources for recovery are badly needed to enable the communities in the area to return to normal as soon as possible. I appeal to the Government to continue its good work and to ensure that that happens.

There are lessons to be learned from this disaster, and now is the time to discuss them. I agree with the Minister. I do not believe that the time to discuss the problem was when we were in the middle of trying to deal with the crisis. First, we needed a warning. It was amazing that no-one was killed, given that hailstones came down with such ferocity that they smashed cars and broke roof tiles. Many people, particularly the elderly and those living on their own, were scared out of their wits. So were the rest of us - and I speak personally when I say that. There was no warning, nothing on radio or on television, that could have stopped the terror or at least allowed people to prepare for it mentally. Even if the meteorological equipment was not functioning, this hailstorm started in the National Park and travelled 30 kilometres through south-eastern Sydney, yet there was still no warning of it by the time it reached my electorate in the city.

Second, after such an occurrence we need an immediate, systematic assessment of the damage, that is, the next day. This should include - and I say this in reference to the future - both helicopter assessments and street-by-street inspections so that a response plan for immediate action can be drawn up which would overcome the problems that were experienced on this occasion. It must include both a physical and social assessment to ensure that we respond to the needs of people such as the elderly and those from non-English-speaking backgrounds who were cowering in their homes terrified and unable to seek help for themselves. I should like to express my appreciation to the services that performed in such an extraordinary way in Bligh, particularly New South Wales Fire Brigades, and organisations like the Department of Housing, the Department of Community Services, the office of the Minister for Emergency Services and the Premier’s Office.

Mrs GRUSOVIN (Heffron) [9.06 p.m.]: I have no problem supporting the amendment moved by the honourable member for Bligh. The majority of my constituency have been victims of the greatest natural disaster in the recorded history of this country. In fact, my electorate suffered the greatest concentration of damage in all of the devastation that followed the storm. The irony is that most of Sydney and, indeed, the rest of the State do not have an understanding of the destruction caused by the storm, which selectively hit this city only four weeks ago tonight, on 14 April. Only a short drive from the affected areas, life goes on as a normal. One has to see the devastation first-hand to comprehend it.

To give honourable members some idea of the extent of the damage, earlier this week insurance claims, with 95 per cent of the industry reporting, stood at 28,549 household claims, 41,500 car claims, 2,618 commercial claims as well as large aviation losses at Sydney airport. This will result in a financial payout of at least $1.4 billion. That is more than the figures involved in either Cyclone Tracy or the Newcastle earthquake disaster. But we also have to deal with the human side of the problem. Many families have been hard hit and have suffered severe damage. I refer especially to those with young children who are unable to remain in their houses.

Some of them have to deal not only with the loss of their roofs and household goods, but also the loss of their cars, which many of them depend on for transport to work, for child-minding purposes and for child care. Their lives are in turmoil. Such has been the trauma that many people are finding it difficult to make decisions about replacing their cars. When they are told by an assessor that their car is deemed to be written off, they are presented with a voucher for a cab ride home. One of my constituents said to me, "If I take my car to the assessors and it turns out to be a write-off and I am given a taxi voucher to get home, I will have a nervous breakdown. I do not know how I will keep functioning and I cannot make decisions about cars."

As well, the demographics are such that many victims are elderly, living alone and in receipt of services from community health centres, Meals on Wheels and other community organisations. In many cases the elderly are refusing to leave homes that are uninhabitable. Some of their homes have been without power or lighting circuits for days. In the course of the bad weather and heavy rains since the earlier storm they have experienced further water damage and loss of power. The thousands of tarpaulins now in place mask the misery and the extent of the internal damage beneath. One has only to walk into those homes to experience the hardship, the damp, fetid smell, the fallen ceilings and the bare floors - and winter is fast approaching.

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Our schools and institutions have been hard hit with millions of dollars worth of damage. Many principals and staff, some of whom are themselves victims, have done and continue to do a valiant job in getting school programs back to normal under difficult physical constraints. Many of their students need counselling and support as a result of their present home situations. While we have heard of the large amount of damage to Sydney Girls High, many students, particularly in my electorate, have had to be bussed to other schools to receive continuing education. Even as late as this week, classrooms were under threat from the heavy rains on Monday. It was not until Monday afternoon that tarpaulins could be secured over the roofs, which saved the prospect of 250 pupils being sent home on Tuesday as a result of further damage.

Small businesses have also suffered. I am pleased to note the role of the Minister for Small Business, who is present in the Chamber, in getting out there, talking to small businesses and making them aware of the support that is available. But the continued provision of support will be necessary at many levels in our community in the coming months. I want to pay tribute to the work of the thousands of volunteers and the State Emergency Service and Rural Fire Service workers who came from across the State and interstate. They have given their time and energy, often at great personal risk, to aid our community in trouble. Local government has been outstanding in its response and assistance to residents, and the work of the New South Wales Fire Brigades has been outstanding.

The Police Service, public servants, government departments, particularly the Department of Community Services and community health services, volunteer community groups, such as Red Cross, churches and Rotary, have been and still are involved in providing assistance. Many industry and business groups - including the Insurance Council of Australia, the Master Builders Association and the Housing Industry Authority - have unstintingly given their time to try to come to terms with the disaster we have experienced.

Special mention must be made of the superb operational response of the Department of Housing to their many affected residents in the inner city, Redfern, Waterloo and Eastlakes. I also acknowledge the contribution made by Annette Gallard, John Becker and their colleagues for their dedication, compassion and expertise in their dealings with the many distressed families and elderly residents in the course of these past weeks. We can learn from what they did and put that information to good use in any future recovery operation.

The Recovery Co-ordination Committee, chaired by the Director-General of the Premier’s Department, Col Gellatly, and the operational role of Phil Koperberg have brought together the expertise necessary to deal with the reconstruction and recovery program. Through that committee a number of relief measures have been put in place to aid people, such as the waiving of government charges by the Roads and Traffic Authority and EnergyAustralia. As well, there has been a Government commitment to secure the homes of the uninsured. As we have heard in this debate, the Government has provided at this stage approximately $50 million of expenditure. The creation of the recovery task force with the expertise of Bob Leece of the Olympic Co-ordination Authority has brought together the resources of the building industry groups, the HIA and MBA, and the Insurance Council of Australia to provide both a rapid response to priority cases and professional co-ordination of the vast task of reconstruction which lies ahead.

The building industry is presently geared to construct approximately 25,000 roofs per year. It is now faced with constructing more than 20,000 additional roofs in the same period. In turn, that is impacting on the construction of new homes, particularly in western and south-eastern Sydney. That represents a real problem because the building industry is already working to full capacity in providing facilities for the 2000 Olympics.

The job of a local member is to provide effective representation for the community. With my first-hand knowledge of the devastating storm damage I voiced a number of concerns about some aspects of the initial response because of the failure to grasp the magnitude of the damage. It was my responsibility to do so. In light of lessons learned, at the end of the reconstruction program a thorough review should be conducted of our emergency services, and there should be a commitment by the Government to properly resource an upgrade of systems and data collection to ensure that in future there is a more effective response. I intend to play an appropriate role in that process.

Mr TINK (Epping) [9.16 p.m.]: I want to join with other speakers in congratulating the emergency service workers on a job well done in extraordinarily difficult circumstances during the recent storm damage that occurred over a wide part of the greater Sydney metropolitan area. However, the chronological events need to be placed on the record because concerns were widely expressed in the media by literally thousands of people about the way this disaster was handled.

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The storm occurred on 14 April and by 16 April the Premier had declared an official disaster area covering a 150 kilometre zone from Nowra to Palm Beach, but the worst hit areas were Botany, Randwick, Waverley, Woollahra, South Sydney and Marrickville. About two days later the Prime Minister, at the urging and with the full support of the State Opposition Leader, offered the Premier Army assistance. That offer was turned down. The Premier and the Minister for Emergency Services bear the ministerial responsibility for the decision to decline the Prime Minister’s offer of Army assistance 48 hours after the disaster occurred.

Another week went by, during which, to the best of my recollection, the weather was moderate. During that time the tremendous work of the emergency service workers could have been greatly enhanced by the Army. That was an opportunity lost. What happened then was that another storm occurred on or about 22 April which caused significant further damage to hundreds of properties, which, had the Premier and the Minister for Emergency Services taken up the Prime Minister’s offer of troops, could have been protected from damage from the second storm. It was only after the second storm that the Premier and the Minister finally acknowledged the error of their ways and allowed the Army to come in and do the job that the Prime Minister had proposed and the State Opposition Leader had strongly supported a week before.

I would not be surprised if, as a result of this debacle by the Government, there is significant litigation at substantial cost to taxpayers. It was utterly extraordinary that during this debate the Minister for Emergency Services paid no regard to these fundamental issues which were of the greatest concern to thousands of people for weeks and had been the subject of endless public debate. It seems from the way he acted the disaster was not something that involved or concerned him. He seems to continue with this incredible sense of personal blindness by making no acknowledgment of or comment about the role the military could have played. This is not a matter for idle speculation and it does not simply involve a recommendation or offer from the Prime Minister that was not taken up. It is central to the Government’s disaster plan. As I understand it, the disaster plan clearly outlines the circumstances in which the defence forces can be utilised. It says, inter alia:

. . . [where] immediate action is necessary to save human life or alleviate suffering or prevent expensive loss of animal life, or loss or damage to property.

The plan also provides:

. . . [where] local resources are inadequate, not available or cannot be mobilised in time.

One thing that is clear from the contributions of the honourable member for Bligh and the honourable member for Heffron - both of whom deserve the thanks of the House for the way they mobilised their communities - is that the extent of this disaster was enormous. I would have liked the Minister to have spent a little time addressing those clauses in the disaster plan and explaining why they were not activated when the offer of Army assistance was made. It might seem that this matter is becoming political, but I do not believe it is.

These genuine concerns were held by many people, and until the Government acknowledges its failure to call on the Army earlier there cannot be a genuine effort to assess the process and make sure that in future those clauses of the disaster plan that relate to the Army are activated as early as possible. That is a crucial and fundamental issue that must be taken up. It is relevant to this motion because the emergency workers, all of whom were particularised by the amendment of the honourable member for Bligh, deserved and should have received earlier support from the armed forces. The responsibility for that lies ultimately with the Premier and the responsible Minister in this State.

The other fundamental issue that has puzzled me is why the police were not involved in this operation more than they appear to have been from the public point of view. I do not doubt that local police were working hard, because they always do; they always rise to the occasion. But the overall co-ordination role that the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act envisages being played by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, namely Mr Jeff Jarratt, does not seem to have been invoked. I do not lay the blame at the deputy commissioner’s feet. It seems that subdivision 4 of part 2 of the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act never came into play. For some reason the State emergency operations controller, Mr Jarratt, was not given the responsibility provided in the Act:

. . . in the event of an emergency which affects more than one district, for controlling in accordance with this Act the allocation of resources in response to the emergency.

This emergency stretched from Nowra to beyond Palm Beach. When the Parliament passed this legislation it clearly contemplated that the deputy police commissioner would be responsible for co-ordination. Unless somebody can correct me, that never happened during this disaster. The deputy police commissioner has extraordinary resources at his disposal to co-ordinate such an event and could
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have got around many of the problems other people faced in this emergency. Why was he not involved in this operation? Why was he not given an opportunity to be involved?

Despite its best efforts, the State Emergency Services [SES] had difficulty collating the number of calls, dealing with them and getting across the magnitude of the problem. To be fair to the SES, I understand that much of its equipment was not up to the job, although it has now been brought up to scratch. The Police Service had plenty of equipment on hand with its mobile machinery and computers in its cars that are linked to police stations. Why were the police not used to fill the gap and to get a better idea of the magnitude of the problem so that everybody could have said, "Yes, obviously we need the Army now."? It was obvious to me, to the Leader of the Opposition and to the Prime Minister, but it was not obvious to the powers that be in this State, that the police could have played a significant role.

My final point is that this Government and this Premier made a grievous error in 1995 when they split the Emergency Services portfolio from the Police portfolio. When this problem was unfolding I rang Garry West and he confirmed that he and his predecessor, Ted Pickering, were responsible for both Police and Emergency Services. The State Emergency and Rescue Management Act was drafted when one Minister was responsible for both those portfolios. Having two separate Ministers responsible for those key portfolios drives a wedge down the middle of this legislation. My suspicion is that during this recent disaster many people suffered needlessly as a consequence of those split portfolios. The Minister had the hide to come in here and cast aspersions. If that is how he wants to play the debate and bandy the word "disgrace", he should look in the mirror.

Mrs CHIKAROVSKI (Lane Cove - Leader of the Opposition) [9.26 p.m.], in reply: I thank all honourable members who spoke in this debate. I thank particularly the honourable member for Cronulla, the honourable member for Bligh and the honourable member for Heffron because they were effective members during this disaster, and I thank also the honourable member for Epping. I single out the honourable member for Heffron, who showed great leadership during the course of the disaster by making sure her electorate was well looked after, as indeed did the honourable member for Bligh, who toured her electorate and spoke extensively with her constituents and provided them with comfort in what was a distressing time for everyone. The honourable member for Cronulla said that he and I toured his electorate. It was incredibly distressing to see the suffering that people affected by this storm were experiencing and continued to experience daily as they struggled to get their lives back together and their properties protected.

This debate has been about congratulating the volunteers and acknowledging the tremendous work they did during this terrible time. For that reason I am particularly disappointed that the Minister for Emergency Services decided to try to debase this motion of celebration of the work of those thousands of volunteers by trying to score political points. At the outset I said that that should be a debate for another day. I do not accept that the Minister had the right to try to derail this motion by trying to make cheap political mileage. In doing so he has soured the motion, which is something the House should recognise, as I am sure the volunteers will.

I will not try to destroy the tenor of the motion by responding to his attack in detail, but I am compelled to put two brief points on the record. Contrary to his assertion, there has never been any criticism of the volunteers by me or by any Opposition member. Indeed, all of our comments have been in praise of the volunteers. We have supported their work continuously. We have acknowledged the great job they did and, indeed, we have called for their efforts to be supported. Our criticism was that the people in the field, the volunteers who were climbing on slippery roofs in those driving conditions, were not supported to the full extent they deserved. They deserved all of the available assistance and that is what we called for. By the Minister’s own admission, given the magnitude of the disaster, all possible hands should have been on deck to try to get the situation under control. To suggest otherwise, that all assistance should not have been brought in as soon as possible, is a gross miscalculation by the Minister and an abrogation of his duty as the Minister for Emergency Services.

As I said, the honourable member for Heffron was calling for further assistance because she recognised that all hands were needed on deck. Those in the field, those who took the time to walk around the streets, those who walked into homes and spoke to the people affected and those who bothered to talk to the emergency service workers, who were saying that they needed all the help they could get, knew by the Friday that all help was required. That is what the Opposition called for, that is what the Opposition asked the Government to do and that is what eventually happened.

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We need to put it on the record that after sustained public pressure further assistance, including the Army, was brought in. To suggest that it was inappropriate for a responsible Opposition to ask that the volunteers be provided with support and assistance to do a magnificent job is a complete misrepresentation by the Minister and an admission of his failure. It was the Opposition that forced the Minister to take those actions, and we will not walk away from that.

Tonight we congratulate all those involved in the disaster and acknowledge the terrible circumstances under which they had to exercise their skills. Again, let me make it perfectly clear: no-one has ever questioned their skills. We have all said that it is a most incredible task to have to climb on roofs, particularly in the conditions in which they were doing so. It was wet, cold and windy, and they did their task magnificently. Tonight the Parliament is acknowledging that and it is saying thank you. As the representatives of the people of New South Wales, it is entirely appropriate that we say thank you.

At this stage I make it perfectly clear that I accept unreservedly the amendment moved by the honourable member for Bligh and say, too, that the fire brigade also did a magnificent job. On the weekend I was on my way to the eastern suburbs when the fire brigade managed to disrupt Sydney’s traffic for a considerable period as it used its high apparatus to get onto the roofs of three-storey and four-storey buildings. I am sure the people of Sydney were happy to accept the disruption, given the dangerous nature of the work and the reason it was being carried out.

The people of Australia are privileged and, indeed, blessed to have a fine tradition of voluntaryism. We have people in New South Wales who are willing to go out in the most trying circumstances to help their fellow New South Welshmen. Time and time again we call upon the people of New South Wales to provide assistance to others who are in unfortunate circumstances. What is most amazing is that time and time again they come forward. People give their time and energy to show us their skills, and they work for the people of New South Wales in that voluntary capacity. They must be congratulated and commended by the Parliament. They deserve to be recognised by the Parliament. Indeed, this motion recognises their sense of commitment to and hard work for the community. The motion deserves to be passed by the House without dissent and with our greatest sense of thanks. I commend the motion to the House.

Amendment agreed to.

Motion as amended agreed to.