Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I wish to make a few remarks, on indulgence, about the floods in Queensland and to talk about the assistance that is available and being provided. The events in North Queensland and north-western Queensland are a catastrophe. Something like 60 per cent of the state, an area around the size of South Australia, is now flood affected. The irony is that something like 40 per cent of the state is drought affected and some areas are both. That is the cruel extreme of what is going on.

Ingham, where I was yesterday with the member for Kennedy, Mr Katter, is where the full force is being felt at the moment, along with what is occurring in the gulf. In the gulf people have been flooded in for weeks and weeks and weeks. The point has to be made that there are probably another couple of months to go in this wet season. What we are dealing with, particularly in Ingham, is a flood which, at its height, was 12 metres and is now at 11.7 metres. It has receded somewhat. The problem is that the tropical monsoon which is sitting off the coast could move back in. If it does, there will be further problems in the Ingham area and perhaps elsewhere in North Queensland or Far North Queensland. I know the member for Leichhardt is keeping a very close eye on what is going on. There was some very heavy rain in Cairns a night or two ago and further south and to the north of Townsville there is a huge mass of water. When it comes to Ingham alone there are something like 3,000 houses that are flood affected. A massive emergency relief operation is going on, with helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft and boats—you name it. Fortunately, we have not seen the loss of life that we have seen in Victoria. So far, the damage is to property and to the local economy. But, if the floodwaters remain, the social impact will also be great over time. After all, if people have been stuck in their houses for a week and flooded in, it begins to have an impact on the nature of the community.

Fortunately, these are pretty stoic folk. They are North Queenslanders and they like a joke, they like a beer and they like a good time. It is great to see—and I saw it there yesterday in Ingham and in talking to the emergency service workers and so on—a great sense of community; people are out there helping each other. Even members of the emergency services from my electorate in Brisbane are already on the ground up there, and a state-wide operation is happening. Plenty of local volunteers and volunteers from elsewhere in the state are coming in to lend a hand. It may go on for some weeks.

But consider the plight of the communities in the gulf who have now been cut off for five weeks and who may have to endure being cut off for another six to eight weeks. To all those who are working up there in these difficult conditions—all the volunteers across the local communities and those who have come from elsewhere to help—I want to express the admiration of the House. In Ingham they are fortunate to have a local mayor, the chair of the Hinchinbrook Regional Council, who likes to be called Pino by his mates and the people he represents. Pino has been very, very effective up there on the ground. He is doing a terrific job. I first met him down here at the end of last year when he was at the local government conference organised by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. He is a great organiser, so we are seeing a great effort from the Hinchinbrook Regional Council and all volunteers on the ground.

Yesterday I called in to the recovery centre, where there were a number of elderly people and young families who have no homes to go to at the moment, and I ran into an older lady who looked me in the eye—her home is flooded and she was hanging around the centre—and said, ‘This is like being in a resort.’ She was having a good time, and she was busily organising all the other people there and making the most of it. North Queenslanders, particularly, have become used to floods over the years, but this is one that, by historical proportions, is certainly big. I want to repeat what I said on the ground yesterday in Ingham and on ABC radio in North Queensland: that the full support of the Commonwealth government, the state government and local authorities is there and, as time goes on and the waters recede, there will be a requirement for an even bigger effort.

I will also follow up on a point that was made earlier in the debate. ABC radio are up there doing a fantastic job. They have a mobile unit they bring in, from which they can broadcast to the affected areas and get information out really quickly. They are doing a superb job, as is the Queensland Department of Emergency Services and the Queensland Department of Communities. There is a flood hotline—1802222—which should be utilised, and the special payments that the government has announced for those affected in North Queensland and Victoria are being taken up. There have been something like 300 applications since the announcement on Saturday afternoon, because a lot of people are trapped, a lot of people cannot go to work and a lot of people cannot get access to any money at all, so those organisations are playing a very important role.

To conclude, I know that Mr Katter, the member for Kennedy, would wish to be here but he is in his electorate in Queensland working with locals. I also know that the member for Leichhardt has been in constant contact with his local authorities to the north. We in the Australian government stand ready to do everything we possibly can to assist the people in the north, as we will in Victoria. Whether it is fire in the south or flood in the north, we have to summon all our national strength and all our compassion to assist people to deal with these terrible challenges.

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