The following statement was read into WA State Parliament today by the Member for Darling Range, Alyssa Hayden MLA. Thank you Alyssa for recognising some of our amazing volunteers.
BUSHFIRES: Statement by Member for Darling Range
MRS A. HAYDEN: I acknowledge and thank the many men and women from across our state, and particularly those from Darling Range, who not only fought local fires, but also selflessly left their homes to battle fires in New South Wales and Queensland.
Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time with my local fire brigades at many fundraising events and training sessions to support their efforts and thank all those involved. Although there are too many to name, they include the Byford Volunteer Fire Brigade, which was joined by the Byford Progress Association in raising funds for their mates in the Wandandian Rural Fire Brigade in New South Wales; the Keysbrook community, its local volunteer brigade and local vet and Keysbrook’s newest celebrity, Dr Garnett Hall—he is now famous for his drop-bear prank!—who all pulled together to raise funds for Kangaroo Island; the Bedfordale Volunteer Bushfire Brigade, which I am sure invited me to join its training session just for a laugh, and which has a fundraising event coming up this Saturday; and Landcare SJ, which has been busy building nesting tubes to deploy to Kangaroo Island and across New South Wales and Queensland. Delivery of the nesting tubes was expected to be expensive and challenging. However, I am pleased to say that after speaking with the Minister for Defence, Hon Senator Linda Reynolds, the challenges have been overcome and she is super keen to work with us to get them delivered.
I put on the record today a massive thank you to all the volunteers and our community for pulling together to support one another. You guys are the real deal.
