I thank the member for Monash for his very heartfelt words. Relentless: that's how this summer has been for people living in the Hawkesbury and the Blue Mountains, as it has been for many people around the east coast and in South Australia. Our fires began in late October, and our first evacuation happened in early November in Woodford. Our first declared catastrophic day was 12 November, and it hasn't really stopped since then. As I drove to Canberra on Sunday, the fire was again at a watch-and-act level. That's the second-highest level. We've thought of nothing but fire and smoke for months. We've worried and we've waited, and for some the waiting has resulted in destruction, and for many it has resulted in trauma. It's an understatement to say that it has been an anxious summer.

This was not just one fire; this was fires all around us, without the sea to the east to provide even one side of sanctuary. This was the Gospers Mountain, Grose Valley, Ruined Castle, Green Mile and Erskine Creek fires. The Gospers Mountain fire has been described by the RFS incident controller. She was told that it was the largest fire recorded in the world from a single ignition point. It was in the heart of Blue Mountains World Heritage. The lightning strike was impossible to get to early, and from there it spread. Given the conditions, the drought, the winds and the fact that this area is already one of the most bushfire prone places on the planet, the fire behaviour was constantly described by the professionals as unusual or surprising. In the middle of the night, with high humidity, it was still racing up the sides of valleys. With all that, we know we were relatively lucky. We count ourselves relatively lucky on the lives that weren't lost in our region, but we know how close we came. We join others in mourning the lives tragically taken by these firestorms, whether on the ground or in the air.

As a community, we have watched with relief and heard the welcome sound of planes and helicopters as they carried water and fire retardant to combat the flames, travelling from our RAAF base at Richmond or the various helicopter staging posts around the electorate. I have seen from the air how that retardant has saved so many homes in the Colo Heights region, stretching right across to Mount Victoria—the full spectrum of where the fires travelled. But we felt the loss of those three US aerial firefighters, who were doing such a difficult job. I heard their C-130 take off from Richmond that morning and not return. Our hearts go out to their families.

Only a week earlier I had been at the RAAF base with our shadow minister for defence and our shadow minister for emergency services, speaking with pilots and airmen about their work—its challenges and satisfactions. I want to acknowledge their work and also the support provided to them by RAAF Base Richmond. I also acknowledge the ADF work that is happening on the ground. But, for us, the Richmond RAAF base was the real hub of that aerial fighting—and we certainly want to see more of it.

In the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains we count ourselves relatively lucky on what didn't burn—the thousands of homes we didn't lose and the businesses that are still standing, although empty because people are staying away. Thanks to the efforts of so many, most of our views are still magnificent, most of our gardens are still splendid, and the apple pies are more delicious than ever! But we are deeply saddened by what has been destroyed and the trauma that people have endured as they watched the fire burn their homes and properties and as they fought that fire—the people in Colo Heights, Bilpin, Berambi, Mount Tomah, Mount Wilson and Bell. The 44 homes and the businesses lost is devastating. When you include places like the Macdonald Valley, Webbs Creek, Mount Irvine, Mount Victoria, Blackheath and the Megalong Valley, which all faced weeks, if not months, of fire activity, the region faces the replacement of dozens of small accommodations, outbuildings, sheds and hundreds of kilometres of fences.

These things feel overwhelming for our community at times. But, as well as the businesses and properties, we've got our agriculture—our orchards, our grapevines, our pastures. On top of that, the fires took so much of the wildlife we've carved our niche among. At least 80 per cent of the Greater Blue Mountains world heritage area has been burned through. That's nearly one million hectares. This is beyond anything that has happened before—and we don't really know yet what recovery is going to look like. There are the effects on the breeding and feeding habitats of the brush-tailed rock wallaby, which has been mentioned by the member for Gilmore. It has very few, and small, places that it breeds, and all of them in our region have had fires through them. Our swamps have burned. And yet, the only known Wollemi pine grove, which has been there since long before any humans walked this earth, was saved. These are the little things we hold onto that give us hope for the future. And there was a particular koala who lifted our spirits during the fires, thanks to the Grose Wold Rural Fire Brigade. It was known as Kevin, although it turns out that it is actually Kelly! But the saving of one koala, when we know so many others have been lost, is something we hold onto.

Lives have been changed by this spring and summer. The volunteer and paid staff—whether Rural Fire Service, National Parks and Wildlife or Fire and Rescue—faced the fires day in, day out. Whether on the front line or making decisions in the instant command, they knew their decisions would have an impact on people's lives. We owe them such a debt. The summer has changed them. Some started fighting the fires at Tenterfield and, after months of volunteering, are now still supporting RFS crews down on the South Coast. They worked 12- to 15-hour days. These were not days in pleasant air-conditioning; these were hot, sweaty, dirty, smoky days. And by Christmas they were exhausted—and that was when there were weeks still to go.

If you've never been in an incident control room you've never seen the faces of people like fire controllers Karen Hodges, Greg Wardle and David Crust as they get a weather forecast or a drone report and realise what the day might have in store or what the night did hold; as they get reports of 30-metre or 60-metre flames over crews and homes, knowing that the decision to light up a back-burn might or might not work but it's your only hope of slowing a fast-moving fire that isn't for turning. Theirs is the reality of making decisions knowing that animals will not be able to escape the flames fast enough and that the Blue Mountains World Heritage area, listed for its biodiversity, will stand no chance; of knowing that the members of the RFS were busy saving other people's homes as their own homes were destroyed and under threat; of knowing the seriousness of what we faced. Yet their own feelings were set aside as they managed the safety and morale of their people on the front line and those who supported them—the SES, police, ambulance—some of whom found themselves facing flames that they hadn't imagined. We have asked so much of them. We've asked too much of them. Their lives have changed, as have the lives of many who supported them—the volunteers from Rotary, the church groups, people who just stepped up in so many ways, day after day.

It was a privilege to be an unremarked on attendee at daily briefings, the handover between the night shift and day shift, or a day shift and a night shift, and to work alongside the dedicated mayor of the Blue Mountains, Mark Greenhill; the New South Wales shadow minister for emergency services and local member for the Blue Mountains, Trish Doyle, who lived this fire as the parent of a frontline firefighter, not just a politician; the Hawkesbury mayor, Barry Calvert; and the state member, Robyn Preston. All of them cared about what was happening in their communities.
For those whose homes did not survive the firestorms, who are being forced to deal with the grief of losing things that they feel hold their memories and the gigantic and overwhelming task of starting again—and I know this because we've only just managed to move back into our house after a rebuild, six years later, and I know life will never be the same—there will be before the fire and there will be after the fire. People are being forced to make decisions they weren't ready to make and should never be asked to make: about where they live, about the work they do, about what more sacrifices they must make because—in too many cases—their insurance will not be enough to allow them to replace the home they had. I say to those people: it is impossible to imagine right now, when the loss is so raw, but, provided we give you the support you need when you need it, you will get there bit by bit and find a way through the fog that envelopes you. For those whose properties were destroyed—whether it was a cafe, like the much loved Tutti Frutti at Bilpin, or thousands of apples or figs, or a mud brick bungalow that housed a building business—there is also a dreadful sense of loss.

Sitting in the gallery today are a group of people going through a mix of all these things I've mentioned. Residents from the broader Bilpin region—Berambing, Kurrajong Heights, places all along the Bells Line of Road in the beautiful Hawkesbury—whose lives have all been changed by these fires got on a bus at six o'clock this morning to be here because hearing what we said was so important to them. They also want to show the resilience and the strength that they have in the face of some immense personal tragedies and loss. I join them in their determination to see our region revitalised. We have Helen, who lost her home; and Margaret and Simon, who lost half their huge apple orchard and many figs, just as fig season was coming in. Lionel, Kooryn and Lichell all have accommodation where the surrounds have been burnt, and they have no-one to come and stay in it. But even in its burnt state it is starkly beautiful. There are also Jana, Matilda, Annette and Greg, and John, who has had the trauma of the fire followed by the devastating loss of a son. I really thank you all for making the effort to be here. This is the sort of community that we have. They know that we have much to do to recover from these fires, and to learn the lessons that they present.

Their lives, like so many around St Albans, Mount Tomah, Mount Irvine, Megalong and Bell, were at greater risk because of the fragility of the phone systems. Landlines failed and there was no mobile coverage in so many of these areas. We can't ignore those issues, and Telstra needs to take a leaf out of the book of Endeavour Energy. They got in fast after the fire moved through and they reconnected electricity. But, unfortunately, many people are even now without phone lines.

The recovery has to begin even as the fires burn elsewhere, or nearby. In fact, this is a lesson for governments to learn: not only was there a delay in recognising the seriousness of this fire season, but the recovery has been far too slow and that's why we face a second crisis in our region, in Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains. Since November visitors have stayed away, and every part of the local economy is feeling it. Small businesses have had to reduce shifts for workers, with casuals the first to go. Their takings are down by 70 or 80 per cent in what is usually their best season. Three hundred businesses in the Blue Mountains joined me last week to share their pain and beg for urgent support. Today the government has released details of its promised small business concessional loans, up to $50,000 over five years for businesses who need help with cash flow. I welcome this as a useful measure, but it will not be welcomed by every small business, who fear additional debt, and I will continue to tell the relevant ministers what the needs are in my community.

I do want to thank the minister for emergency management, David Littleproud, for reaching out during the fires and for bringing the head of bushfire recovery, Andrew Colvin, along with the foreign minister to the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains to hear these things directly from constituents. My own leader, Anthony Albanese, was a rock during the fires, as was shadow minister Senator Watt. They were untiring in their support of my community, in wanting to see what more could be done. These are the sorts of things that make it possible to go through a fire season like this and maintain your belief that this parliament is made up of really good people who really want to make a difference. I was also grateful for the support of the members for Eden-Monaro and for Gilmore. Those phone texts where we could share what we were going through at different stages of the fires were a lovely little lifeline at times.

I really hope the spirit of cooperation continues. I urge people to resist the temptation to do political pointscoring. I certainly won't be, but I also have no intention of shying away from robust discussion on the issues that matter, even as we mourn. We will need more targeted assistance to get my community through this. We want to see local access to and input into the tourism funding that has been announced. We need to shout loudly to the world that the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury are open for business, but it needs to be a coordinated campaign across all the impacted areas. We each have different things to offer, and while I love a hashtag campaign that is not going to get us the visitors that we need.
Surely now is also the time to bring insurers to the table, to demand a better deal for customers so that the underinsurance that I experienced and that people are facing every day is not repeated fire after fire. It's bittersweet to me that, as a result of reading of my experience, one family in Bell increased their home insurance only a short while before their home was destroyed. Having a good insurance policy does make your rebuild a little less difficult. It makes your choices easier. In fact, what it does is give you choice.

There has been mention of the ABC, and I want to add to that. When your landline dies and your power goes off, which means your mobile signal through your wi-fi fails, then all you have is the ABC. And how lucky we are to have it. You don't have your Fires Near Me app, you don't have Facebook and you don't have any way to communicate with people. You listen to those wonderful ABC reporters and presenters telling you in detail exactly where the fires spread, hoping that you don't hear a mention of your own suburb or your street. It was such compelling broadcasting that one Saturday night I listened to the horrors unfolding down south, thanks to the ABC and Simon Marnie—very human, bringing to our lounge rooms just what was happening. We must ensure that these broadcasts are properly resourced.

These fires could have been worse but for some major strategic hazard reductions. We need to ensure that New South Wales national parks are properly funded to be able to do the ones they think will really make the difference, based on the best information. We also must have a conversation about what landholders should do on their own properties and how we can incorporate traditional burns. We all know there's more we could do in this area.

Another lesson is planning. None of us can pretend that this won't happen again, as much as we hope that this is a one-off. All the science tells us that this may well be the new norm unless we act. Federal, state and local governments need to have the best plans in place, as do charities and not-for-profit groups, so they can activate much faster. How we make sure we've got people on the ground willing to wear that yellow uniform and that our fire and rescue teams know how to defend in bushfire situations is vital.

I want to finish with the obvious, the thing that you can't ignore: the role that climate change played in exacerbating these fires. It's my community that's already paying the cost of climate change not metaphorically but lit