New Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove visits fire-ravaged Victorian community in first public engagement

Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove in Wandong meeting volunteers of Blaze Aid, a community charity fixing fences after the Black Saturday fires. Photo: Angela Wylie

Wearing an open-neck countryman's shirt and donning the peaked cap of the volunteers who rebuild the fences and lives of farmers struck by bushfire and other disaster, new Governor-General General Sir Peter Cosgrove came to the small Victorian town of Wandong to celebrate what he called the Australian spirit.

The very worst of circumstances, he told a crowd of hundreds, many of them victims of Victoria's Black Saturday and more recent fires, brought out the best in Australians.

"We will bend our backs and empty our pockets to help others," he said.

Governor General Sir Peter Cosgrove Photo: Angela Wylie

The thousands of volunteers who had joined Blaze Aid, formed soon after the Black Saturday fires of 2009, had not only re-built enough fencing to span Australia, they had built bridges between themselves and those who needed help, he said.

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It was Sir Peter's first public engagement since becoming Governor-General.

He was piped to the strains of Waltzing Matilda into the event, near Kilmore north of Melbourne, by former West Australian police band piper and Blaze Aid volunteer Jimmy Clarysse.

But it was clear Sir Peter, who has seen a bit of disaster in his time - in war in East Timor, in the wake of earthquake and tsunami in Aceh and in cyclone-struck north Queensland - wanted this to be an informal occasion, with the focus on volunteers rather than him.

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New Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove visits fire-ravaged Victorian community in first public engagement