JOURNALIST:
The Prime Minister is just walking towards me now Steve and he's just putting on some headphones so he can have a chat to you. I think he can hear us. Prime Minister, have you seen anything like this before in terms of fire damaged areas?
PRIME MINISTER:
Tom, no I haven't. This is the worst bushfire devastation I've seen anywhere in the world, certainly anywhere in Australia. What is remarkable, in the worst sense of that expression, about this is that it's devastation of what you can probably describe as an ordinary suburban scene in Australia. The number of houses lost or severely damaged is extraordinary. The other remarkable thing is that there weren't more people seriously injured. It's very much a tribute to the emergency services, the police and the firefighters and everybody else that so great a firestorm, so great a bushfire, didn't claim more lives and didn't damage even more property.
JOURNALIST:
I suppose Prime Minister, to put it on a scale for people in Sydney - close to 400 homes here in Canberra, that's the equivalent of about 5,000 homes in Sydney metropolitan areas.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh when you look at the population of Canberra - what 350,000 - compared with the population of Sydney, yes that is an approximation and you only have to state that figure to give an idea to the listeners of Sydney what this has meant to Canberra and to the people of Canberra. They have rallied very well. Australians always do in times of adversity. We're very good at coming together and helping each other, and that was very much in evidence yesterday when I went around the various evacuation centres and talked to people. Through their distress, they were very grateful for the help that they had received from so many.
PRICE:
Prime Minister, you've lived in Canberra on and off since the early 70s. Did you ever think to yourself that you would see the damage you have seen today?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I didn't Steve. You don't do that. You imagine that somehow or other it's just an ordinary - I don't mean ordinary in a flattening sense, I just mean a normal, easygoing sort of place in which to live - you never really think about it because you tend to associate bushfires in Australia with outer metropolitan areas of the big cities or with the bush. Canberra somehow or other, in the consciousness of so many people, doesn't qualify for either of those despite the fact that it has the name of the bush capital. Anyway it's quite a devastating thing for the city but they will rebuild and recover. There is a great community spirit here and these things always push people even closer to each other. I think that's the quite remarkable thing and an inspiring thing about these kinds of adversities.
PRICE:
Just talking to Rob de Castella who has given us so much enjoyment over the years. Everything gone for him - all his medals. He's found some charred medals in the remains but that's it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I saw that on the news and I met a man yesterday, and it's been in the papers this morning - the only thing he seemed to have were the charred remains of his World War II medals. We can certainly get those replaced and they certainly will be. That's a story that will be multiplied several hundred fold where people have lost everything. When it happens so suddenly, you don't get your possessions, you don't get the old photographs, you don't get the old letters, the memorabilia - all of those things that are part of our lives, they're lost forever when something like this happens. But quite a number of people said to me yesterday, we've lost everything in our house but we've got each other and we've got our children and we've got our pets and to us that's the thing that matters most.
PRICE:
Appreciate the time very much Prime Minister. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you Steve.
[ends]