STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (18:01): I rise to join this parliament in expressing my deepest condolences following the devastating floods and landslides that have struck Nepal and Tibet. The scale of this disaster is almost impossible to comprehend. Lives have been lost.
Homes, roads and bridges have just been swept away. Communities have been devastated, and thousands of people remain missing—35 of those are from Australia. I am devastated to say that this disaster has impacted on my community in Newcastle.
Three people with connections to Newcastle are among the Australians who remain missing. They are my constituents from Rankin Park—a woman, Reshma Patel, and brothers Rishab and Rudhra Iyer. Reshma travelled to the region on a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash.
Rishab and Rudhra are joint medical program students at the University of Newcastle and were travelling with their parents. These are not just names on a list. They are members of families.
They are friends, students and members of our community. There are people in Newcastle who knew them, loved them and are desperately hoping for their safe return. For their families, every passing hour without news brings another wave of fear, uncertainty and anguish.
Behind every missing person is a family living through an unimaginable kind of uncertainty. I want to particularly acknowledge Reshma's husband, Bhavin, who has travelled to Nepal himself in the desperate hope of finding his beloved wife. He has visited authorities day after day.
He has followed every possible lead. He has tracked information from Reshma's phone and, in an extraordinary act of determination, chartered a helicopter to fly over the area where she was last known to be. He saw the earth where buildings had once stood.
He saw the landscape where he believes his wife's last location was. Still, he has kept searching because, for Bhavin, this is not an abstract disaster. This is his wife.
This is the mother of his two children. This is the person he loves. He has said, simply and heartbreakingly: She is my life … I am not going without her.
I think it's important that we pause on these words, because they tell us what families are enduring that statistics never can. When we hear that thousands of people are missing, it's easy for the enormity of that number to become overwhelming, but every single person represents a lifetime of memories, relationships, hopes and plans. For Reshma's family, their mother and wife are missing.
For their family, there is no certainty about what tomorrow will bring, and that is an extraordinary burden to carry, and yet Bhavin continues to search. He has travelled thousands of kilometres because he simply cannot accept walking away. He's done what any of us would hope we could do for the person we love the most—he has kept going.
His determination is a testament to the depth of his love for Reshma, and the anguish being felt by the families of Rishabh and Rudhra is just as profound. Both are studying medicine and both are talented young men with their whole lives ahead of them. Rishabh's partner, Sarada, has spoken about the unbearable uncertainty of not knowing where he is.
She and friends have been conducting their own search from Australia, monitoring location tracking apps, following every fragment of information they can find, trying to piece together where they might be. She has said: My search will never end. I will keep looking for him until anything is confirmed.
I will not give up on them. That is what families do when someone they love is missing. They do not give up.
They search. They hope. They hold on to every possibility that their loved one might still be out there waiting to be found.
These stories are just a reminder to all of us that behind the headlines, behind the numbers and behind the briefings are ordinary Australian families experiencing extraordinary pain. We have very large and proud Nepalese and Tibetan communities in Newcastle. I know how deeply this uncertainty is affecting them.
Recently, I joined members of the Nepalese community of Newcastle and the Tibetan community of Newcastle at vigils held for those affected by this terrible disaster. Those gatherings have been incredibly moving. They have been places of prayer and solidarity but also places of profound grief and anxiety as people wait for news of loved ones and worry about the fate of their communities and homelands.
To the Nepalese and Tibetan communities in Newcastle and to everyone in our city with family and friends in the affected region, I want to say that you are not facing this alone. Our community is here for you. We are hoping for the safety of your loved ones, and we will support you through this awful, uncertain time.
And anyone wishing to donate should do so through the official channels, the Emergency Action Alliance and the Nepal Flood Disaster Appeal. I also want to acknowledge the concerns that have been raised with me by members of my community about the lack of information coming out of the Tibetan side of the border. The families here in Australia having accurate and timely information about what is happening to their loved ones is absolutely vital.
Unfortunately, obtaining information from the Tibet region has been extremely difficult. There has been very limited detail made publicly available about the people affected there beyond broad reports of hundreds of people now missing. There has also been little specific information about the settlements and villages that have been impacted by those catastrophic floods and landslides.
I understand that accessing information from this region presents significant challenges, but Tibetans are living with extreme uncertainty about the safety of family and friends impacted by this disaster. At a time of such enormous human suffering, transparency matters. For Tibetans living here in Australia and for families who are desperately trying to establish the safety of loved ones, information is not a political issue; it is a humanitarian one.
People are desperate to know what has happened to their communities and the people they love. I know the Australian government is continuing to seek updates and to advocate for information that can assist families in the broader search and recovery effort. Australia has committed $11 million in humanitarian assistance, supporting emergency shelter, food, clean water, sanitation, health care and other essential supplies, and the Australian government is doing all it can to find Australians who remain unaccounted for, to support loved ones and to assist in the disaster response.
I acknowledge the Australian officials, emergency responders and specialists working to locate Australians who remain unaccounted for, to support their families and to contribute to the search, rescue and recovery effort. The conditions facing those teams are extraordinarily difficult, but their work is vital. And while our immediate focus must remain on finding those who are missing and supporting those affected, we must also recognise that the road to recovery will be long.
Communities will need homes rebuilt, roads and bridges will need to be restored, essential services will need to return and families will need support to recover from the trauma and grief this disaster has caused. Today, this parliament mourns those who have lost their lives. We hold close those who are still waiting for news, and, particularly for the people of Newcastle, we hold Reshma, Rishab and Rudhra and their families in our thoughts and our hopes.
We stand with the Nepalese and Tibetan communities here in Newcastle and across Australia. We extend our deepest condolences to everyone affected by this terrible tragedy. But you are not alone.
We stand in solidarity with you in your time of need, and you will be in our thoughts.