Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I support the motion moved by the Attorney-General. Just over a week ago Cyclone Larry tore through the communities of Innisfail and the surrounding towns and districts. Miraculously, but sadly, only one person was killed and few were seriously injured. In the space of a few hours, winds up to 290 kilometres an hour destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, ruined banana and sugar crops and destroyed the livelihoods and hopes of very many people.

The damage bill is substantial and the cost of rebuilding immense. At the outset of these remarks, I want to thank the Prime Minister for including me in his party that went north to meet with Peter Beattie to tour the sites of damage and destruction in the immediate aftermath of the horrific event. I can assure honourable members that what they saw on their television services in the nights that followed was not an isolated representation. This is one of those occasions where the shock obtained from the evening news services could not possibly encompass the damage actually suffered—extraordinary, widespread damage that will take a very long time to deal with.

The value of the political leadership of the state and country turning up, along with state and federal members from the area, was an opportunity to say to the people of Innisfail and the surrounding areas that the Australian people stand behind you in the circumstances you now confront. We are a people who responded generously to a natural disaster, the tsunami, in our region a year or so ago. We will stand with you at least as well as we did then, when there were enormous outpourings of generosity, in order to deal with the circumstances in which you now find yourselves.

Naturally enough, as the crisis unfolded there was invariably going to be a struggle on the part of emergency authorities, police services and governments to get to grips with the enormity of it, and, as a result, people’s patience would be, and was, tried sorely. It is in that context that it was very good to get the stories of self-help that emerged from the region. For starters, the extraordinarily low casualty level speaks enormously well of the people of the area. They were well prepared. They knew how to defend themselves in circumstances where a cyclone hit. Secondly, there was a real concern and care for each other, even though most were shocked and traumatised by the destruction of things that held such both sentimental and practical value for them.

I met a chap in Babinda who had spent the previous couple of days—and was continuing to do it—going through all those areas that he knew were inhabited by neighbours who were elderly and had started the process of cleaning up and taking away in his small truck the wreckage around their yards. We all saw in Innisfail the activities of butchers and a restaurateur who, confronting a situation in which people simply were not being fed and where food was scarce, emptied their storage facilities to feed the population and ensure that survival could take place.

You could go through a whole range of anecdotes about self-help. It does not get away from the fact, of course, that people are deeply traumatised and have very high expectations of government. To this point, the reaction of governments has been, to my mind, fulfilling those expectations. There is also the undertaking by both state and federal governments that whatever measures have been put in place to this point are not necessarily the last of the things that they will do.

I thought it was a very good move to put General Peter Cosgrove in charge. One of the things you can say about soldiers is that they know how to work through logistics issues. They know how to work around officialdom or blockages when they confront logistics problems. I know that General Cosgrove will stick to his task until he believes that it is satisfactorily concluded. I want to praise the local federal and state members. I want to praise the Queensland Premier as well. The Queensland Premier has spent a considerable amount of time there and he has tried his very best to keep on top of the issues as they emerge and to keep the rest of the country informed. I have words of praise too for the member for Kennedy and the member for Leichhardt in doing their jobs as local representatives in the circumstances. I want to add to that list Warren Pitt, who is the local state member directly concerned with the area most seriously affected.

Rebuilding lives, businesses, farms and buildings will take commitment, energy and money. The money pledged not only by governments but by the Australian people will be very well spent. It will, however, take time. Fifteen thousand homes are still without power and all face the dogged task of cleaning up and restoring services. I remember talking to one woman who owned a beautiful heritage hotel which looked as though it had been the object of an artillery barrage. The water was still seeping in through the roof. We must remember that the people in Innisfail are in the middle of the wet and the rain is virtually continuous. Any queuing is done in the most inclement and difficult circumstances. I think the hotel owner understood—she had before her decent insurance and decent support—there would be no monetary difficulties in handling the problem. But there is just the despair, the trauma and the horror at looking around at what had been built and what had given people so much joy for so long. She had to stand in the middle of that wreckage and face the fact that she, her husband, her family and their workers will be tied up for months and months in attempting a decent repair of that hotel to get it back to being fully operational again.

We have to understand that the workforce to do the job does not exist in the region. There are not sufficient builders, carpenters and those associated with the building industry to do the job. It is not going to be easy to mobilise the personnel to do the tasks that are necessary to see that people are going to be adequately housed. What that means is that the hundreds of volunteers, SES personnel and defence forces helping those devastated communities to get back on their feet are actually going to be required for a long time. It is another reason that it is important that there is good local representation handling these issues and a good man like General Cosgrove on the job. The fact of the matter is that this will still be a major problem for the people of the area long after this has passed from the 24-hour news cycle. It is going to be a substantial task for months, if not years, to bring an element of normality back to the lives of the people of Innisfail. But they need to know that the federal and state parliaments are seized of this matter and they will not cease to be seized of it until the job is done.

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