JOURNALIST: What did you make of what you saw?
PM: Well this is devastation on a scale that most of the old hands, the fire fighters themselves have never seen before. This is the worst set of conditions, I was advised, in the history of European settlement in Victoria. And the sheer face of human tragedy as people deal with anxiety, grief, despair, this is something where the nation has a responsibility to reach out to all the good people of Victoria and these communities who are suffering so much right now.
JOURNALIST: What immediately can the Commonwealth do to help those people whose lives have been turned upside down by this tragedy?
PM: Two or three practical things. The first is - in response to conversations late last night and in the early hours of this morning, we activated all of our defence assets and the army is out there providing whatever support is necessary in individual communities and that will vary depending on what part of the State we're talking about.
The second is this, a lot of the good people that you've just been talking to at Whittlesea for example, where I was earlier today have literally come out of this with just the shirts on their back. So what we the Commonwealth are doing through Centrelink is making available straight away cash payments, emergency cash payments so that people can go and buy some clothes and you know, buy some toiletries and basic stuff like that. That's underway.
And thirdly of course the Victorian Premier John Brumby and I have launched a public appeal on top of our combined community fund of $10 million.
And that public appeal, if you don't have the number already, is 1800 811 700 for all Australians wanting to pitch in and help these very good people who are, who have suffered a huge kick in the guts.
JOURNALIST: You've just announced the $42 billion stimulus package, can you also afford to consider maybe more medium term help for some of the people whose lives have been turned upside down?
PM: Let me say this to the people of Victoria, all Australians through the Australian Government are going to stand in absolute solidarity with these communities and we're going to be partners in their rebuilding.
The Government of Victoria and with the local authorities, you've come through bad times before and we'll come through this one and this Government will be behind these communities.
I fear in the days ahead though the news is going to be bad and I believe the nation needs to prepare itself as the full facts become known.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] the extent of this suffering. The Premier told us that many parts of the State are still a tinder box and it really could be touched on many times if there is a wind change. Do you stand ready to put defence force personnel, man power, bulldozers in the line if they're needed?
PM: As I said before, we have done that. The conversation I had with John Brumby at you know 11 o'clock last night, one o'clock this morning whatever it was, all Australian defence and army assets are available to the emergency authorities here in Victoria.
And whether that's heavy bulldozers, whether it's emergency accommodation, whether it's bedding, whether it's logistical support, and we've now despatched a high level defence team to Victoria, I'll be meeting them again in a few minutes time, to go through each community, community by community to work out what we can physically do in each place, apart from of course a practical thing for families who have lost everything is to give them cash in their pockets straight away.