Black Saturday memorial service at Callignee

TRANSCRIPT:

Can I say upfront what an honour it is to be here with Peter to be part of opening this memorial.

It is the third anniversary of the dreadful fires of 2009 and we very much respect and value the contribution the Callignee community has made in this recovery process.

And I think what we see here with the new facilities, the beautiful memorial, into which so many people have poured their hearts and souls, is just a reminder of how important the community is to these recovery processes.

The community continues to recover, continues to work together and the government is continuing to support communities to do that.

We think that is vital in the ongoing recovery right across Victoria.

The various communities recovered in different ways, and that is not only understandable, it is also important that they, as individual communities, recover in a way that they believe is important.

We have seen here at Callignee, an extraordinary coming together and a focus on community facilities, a focus on these memorials, and a participation of young people in particular, I think, is very important – we have seen that today.

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