Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will be very brief. I want to take the opportunity on behalf of my community in the electorate of Canberra to make a couple of comments. First of all, on behalf of my community I want to send to the victims of Cyclone Larry in North Queensland our very best wishes and our commiserations for the trauma that they are finding themselves in. My community knows as well as any what it is like when a trauma of this kind occurs, given that it is just over three years ago that we had the extreme bushfire emergency here in Canberra.

I know that the members for Leichhardt and Kennedy and the senators who live in that part of the country will have a lot of work in their communities in the weeks and months to come. I know from my experience in dealing with the issues of the bushfire emergency here that you are never quite sure at any particular point just exactly what is going to come up. There will be a lot of very difficult decisions to be made. A lot of people will face social dislodgment, unemployment, great trauma within their families, homelessness and the whole business of whether or not to rebuild and whether or not to return to their homes and villages. In this case, they will have to consider whether they can afford to return to their townships in the north and what will happen economically in the meantime. So there is going to be a great deal of heartache and a lot of hard work.

I speak very confidently on behalf of all the people in my electorate and in the ACT in sending our very heartfelt wishes to all the people in the area affected by Cyclone Larry. I commend the appointment of Mr Cosgrove to his current position. I also commend the appointment of Sandy Hollway, who will be working with Mr Cosgrove. Sandy Hollway played a very important role in Canberra in heading up the Bushfire Recovery Taskforce. I know from that experience that the people of Northern Queensland can be very confident in the abilities of the duo who will lead the work that will be undertaken.

I reiterate that our thoughts are with those people. We know what they are going through. We have a very good idea of what they are going to be facing. We wish them all the very best. I suggest to people in our communities that we should give all the support that we possibly can to these people, in whatever way we can—not least by leaving them alone so that they can get on with their recovery, and by being there to support them in the best way we can when they need that support.

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