STEFANOVIC: Prime Minister, good morning to you. Your thoughts on this, another dark day where the death toll is now 108?
PM: I think it's very important that the nation braces itself for more bad news. This is of a scale which takes your breath away and I fear things will get worse before they get better. The practical challenge -
STEFANOVIC: I understand.
PM: - is to make sure that we've got people out there in the field. I've just come now from an extensive briefing with our defence personnel and local police who will be surging something like three to four hundred defence personnel out into these areas today.
A combination of searches of individual homes, a combination of bulldozers, front-end loaders, chainsaw gangs, as well as those going to these communities, the worst affected communities which have literally been destroyed, with a view to seeing what can be done to immediately begin reconstruction of temporary reception centres. These are the practical tasks that we're engaged in but that list will grow longer during the day.
STEFANOVIC: Prime Minister, I understand that you have had a briefing this morning - that you may have even just come from CFA headquarters. What are they saying there? What are authorities saying?
PM: Well when I say I think the nation needs to brace itself, I think that's it. This is of a level, a level of horror which few of us have anticipated. There are practical tasks today. The two in which we are engaged at the Federal Government level are these - defence I've just talked about and I've had embedded as of last night the Army representative Colonel Greet and Brigadier Arnold from 4th Brigade here in Melbourne, fully embedded into the operations here in the recovery effort.
Practical things like satellite imagery of the affected areas to make sure we can do before and after shots of where we still need to get to, and that's of course impeded sometimes by weather and cloud cover.
But then at a very practical level for the families concerned is, it's money in the pocket as of you know, nine o'clock this morning when people have escaped with just the shirt on their backs, they need money to go out and buy clothes, to buy toiletries, temporary bedding, temporary accommodation. We're in a position to offer about 600 units of accommodation through various military bases across Victoria. We're also surging the ability of temporary bedding as well.
STEFANOVIC: Prime Minister, we spoke to a number of people yesterday in the Kinglake area and as you say, they've got nothing left. Some of them didn't have insurance, they've lost absolutely everything. Can you guarantee them that they will have assistance now or as soon as humanly possible?
PM: Well I spent a lot of time last night with Jenny Macklin, the Families Minister, and the Centrelink Director for Victoria. We'll be rolling out Centrelink services in each of these affected areas during the course of both yesterday and today, to make sure that cash payments now can be made, and that's the immediate challenge we've got to make sure people can get through the immediate period ahead.
And of course people will make their contributions to the Bushfire Appeal, which both Premier Brumby and I have contributed to and to the National Community Recovery Fund which the two governments have committed an immediate $10 million to.
But these are just starts, Karl, this is just the start. We're barely a day or so into this and these figures will get much, much larger. But I say this to the people of Victoria - Australia is with you and we are going to rebuild these communities. We're going to rebuild these communities with a combined national effort, community, governments, working together.
STEFANOVIC: Prime Minister, we know that the Victorian Premier John Brumby was moved to tears yesterday. As the leader of our country visiting these areas, can you communicate to the rest of Australia what your personal thoughts and feelings were when you visited those areas?
PM: Not really. The expressions of solidarity from around the world -
STEFANOVIC: It is extremely hard.
PM: - have been very important.
STEFANOVIC: I am so sorry to interrupt Prime Minister it's so, go on -
PM: When we've had our telephone calls from the British Prime Minister, the New Zealand Prime Minister and others offering very practical support, the New Zealand Prime Minister rang yesterday offering 100 firefighters, that's been conveyed to people here in Victoria. They'll be supplied as is necessary.
500 extra firefighters are surging today from South Australia, from Tasmania, from New South Wales and the ACT. The British Prime Minister rang late last night to express the support of the British people. This is very good in terms of a combined national effort.
We're engaged in a very practical task here, and in terms of those at the front line of that task, bear a thought today for all those people who are anxious and frightened as each of these houses is searched. Bear a thought in mind today also for the individuals who are charged with the responsibility, be they from the Army or the Police, to search each of these homes and each of these communities. This is an awful task.
But as a nation we're going to come through this and we're going to come through it stronger.
STEFANOVIC: Prime Minister, I am just first of all so sorry to interrupt you then, I am on a slight delay and it's very difficult to hear you. But having been out to those communities and talked to people who had conversations with their children, saying goodbye to their children, dealing with grief on this scale is comparable to the Bali Bombings and it's a lot closer to home and these people are going to need every ounce of help they can get.
PM: This is, in recent years Australia has become unfortunately familiar with disasters affecting our own people around the world. Now we have a disaster like that at home and deep within our home, here in this wonderful community of Victoria.
So the practical challenge with those immediately affected by this is to provide the hand and heart of human friendship. It's one of the reasons why Jenny Macklin and I have been working hard yesterday to make sure that we've got a full supply of grief counsellors, social workers, et cetera out to these areas for the families concerned, for those who've been injured, but also for firefighters and emergency services personnel.
There is a huge demand here in terms of people dealing with the physicality of the trauma of what's involved. It's dealing with that, it's dealing with the defence task of clearing and heavy road works and search and reconstruction, it's dealing with the Centrelink task of money in the pocket.
But we're working our way through each of these systematically. I've asked the Families Minister Jenny Macklin to remain here as my representative in Melbourne all week. I'll stay as long as is necessary and as I said Army are fully embedded together with Centrelink in a combined operation here, but there will be many difficulties on the way. This won't be smooth sailing and as I said before the nation needs to brace itself for what I believe will be a very challenging time ahead.
STEFANOVIC: Do we know yet and this is a very difficult question, how bad when you say bracing for worse, how bad it is going to be?
PM: No, I mean our police personnel are all cautious and methodical about these questions as they should be, and it's just very tough and uncertain out there at the moment. So but this is, the evidence through the course of yesterday as you would have known from publicly disclosed figures is this has got worse as time has progressed.
STEFANOVIC: And Prime Minister we're hearing this morning more news - I'm sure you've been briefed by the Police, but we were talking to Christine Nixon a little earlier and it has come to light that it appears that a number of these fires that have claimed so much life and so much damage in terms of property were deliberately lit. So much anger and frustration here understandable.
PM: Yeah. What do you say? What do you say about anyone like that? What do you say? I don't know. Just. There's no words to describe it, other than it's mass murder.
STEFANOVIC: Alright and we hope that the police can get on with those investigations and lead to prosecutions. What is in store for you today? Will you be visiting more of the areas?
PM: What the Minister and I, Jenny Macklin, who is responsible for Centrelink, and myself, the National Security Adviser and the Head of Emergency Management Australia, is we want to systematically begin working our way through each of these areas to make sure that the Australian Government's effort is being fully deployed and that is quite a detailed checklist in each case.
It will take a bit of time but that's what we propose to do and we'll be getting around as much as we can. Many practical things I discovered yesterday on the ground and the Minister, which we're able to filter back into our own defence and Centrelink effort and I'm sure there'll be more such to be learnt today and quickly responded to.
STEFANOVIC: Well Prime Minister I do appreciate your time and I know that it's difficult for everyone to deal with all of this. I think there is no person in Australia who hasn't been touched by this including yourself. We appreciate your candour and all of your support and we hope that the people here at least can feel a bit better about that. That there is help there from the Government.
Thanks PM.
PM: Thank you and to your viewers, thank them for their support. Dig deep for the Victorian Bushfires Appeal, it's going to be not just this week, it will be a year and more of recovery but we're going to do this thing together. Thank you.