Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy’s statement reads:

In my absence, occasioned by me remaining in the flood areas, I have asked the member for New England to read a statement on behalf of the people in these disaster zones.

North Queensland has suffered not the worst floods, but definitely the most widespread serious flooding in recent history. The flood zone extends across much of Northern and Central Queensland, covering the entire electorate of Kennedy from our western border with the Northern Territory, across the Gulf and mid-west plains to the coastal towns of Gordonvale, Innisfail, Tully, Ingham and many others.

We have reportedly suffered the loss of three lives so far. This is in spite of the gallant efforts of many of our volunteer SES, who at Ingham alone had reportedly recorded 42 rescues in the first two days of flooding.

What is deeply troubling is that we are only halfway through our wet season. Any further monsoonal or cyclonic rain influence will have the most serious consequences. Mass evacuation of communities has never taken place before, but some have been very near run-in things.

Some inconveniences are small, and some are not. I am informed that yesterday Charters Towers ran out of chicken as the supply van could not cross the flooded Burdekin River. This situation applies to a number of similar suppliers that have not been able to reach the 50,000 people living in Charters Towers, Mount Isa and the other mid-west towns of North Queensland.

In Ingham yesterday I spoke to Carol Mackee, the local chairman of the Cane Farmers Association. Carol said that some farmers in her area will record a 50 per cent loss of this year’s cane crop. It must be noted that every farmer I spoke to pointed out that without the cane there would be potentially a massive loss of topsoil.

Prior to cane, this area was covered by a tree canopy which left the ground bare of grass cover. Without going into specifics, this bare land resulted in a kilometre of land at Lucinda Point simply vanishing in one giant flood. Cane has bound the soil and minimised some of the potentially catastrophic impacts of the flooding.

The Gulf communities from Georgetown west have been cut off now for over two weeks. The very hardworking and excellently performing mayor of Georgetown, Warren Devlin, has said that a bridge over the Einsleigh River—

I think that is it. The Treasurer might take note. My pronunciation has been corrected—

costing only $15 million, would have at least enabled road access to the towns of Georgetown, Croydon and Normanton for most of this period. These towns and Karumba, Burketown, Doomadgee and Mornington Island have not been serviced, except by very expensive air drops, since a week ago when regular air services were terminated.

Karumba, the only natural port in the 1,500-kilometre Australian Gulf coastline south of Weipa, could be operating if the government were to invest in a $40 million road, a $15 million bridge and a $15 million harbour facility. This town is now all but surrounded by 15 kilometres of raging, crocodile-infested floodwaters. Unless one wants to traverse these waters at night in a three-hour trip in a very small boat, then one cannot get out of Karumba to the all-weather landing strip at Normanton. It may be that there will be a loss of life if someone in Karumba were to break a leg or experience a heart-attack.

It does not reflect well on the powers that be that they could not place a small casualty evacuation helicopter on standby at Karumba or Normanton that is night-rated and able to facilitate casualty evacuation. I would plead—

and I think members have heard the member for Kennedy plead the interests of his people before—

with state authorities to:

• borrow one of the hundreds of helicopter CASvac stretchers at army bases such as Townsville;
• put a retainer on to keep a helicopter at Normanton. One is presently based there doing Ergon and Telstra jobs; and
• secure clear cut approval from CASA for this helicopter to do night emergency evacuations.

The perilous situation at Karumba, with water still lapping at the edges of houses throughout the town, is not expected to abate for another 6 to 9 weeks. That is assuming that the Norman River catchment receives no further rain.

We are in the unhappy situation of knowing that the Gulf, the Burdekin, the mid-west and the Herbert River catchments have all suffered the second worst flood in recorded history, and Ingham has suffered its third worst flood in recorded history. But the bad news for us old hands is that we are only half way through our normal wet season, with February being our wettest month.

The region is one of the few parts of Australia with a large expanse of land and reliable, big annual rainfall. Irrigated land in this region supply a significant part of Australia’s lychees, mangos, bananas, pineapples, avocados, pawpaws and potatoes.

At the time of speaking there is some $8-10 million worth of fresh fruit and vegetables in cold rooms and sheds in the cut-off coastal areas. Many of these goods have been there for over a week and their shelf life is ending. From today onwards they will bit by bit have to be thrown out.

It is with great bitterness—

and I wish I could impersonate the member for Kennedy at this part, but I am sure members will see through my veneer—

and very considerable anger that my request for an airlift for these fruit and vegetables, made Thursday last week, has still not been answered. Not a single kilogram of these goods has been moved. All I have at this point in time is what I had on Thursday afternoon—assurances that the matter is being addressed and that there are legal and technical difficulties in using army planes sitting at Townsville airport. To quote my late father the then Minister for the Army “every month those planes have to fly as part of meeting maintenance, training and readiness programs”. Such flying time can be very useful if put into emergency assistance to bunny hop these fruit and vegetables the very short distance from Tully or Innisfail to Townsville.

People have spoken to me with great anger that these facilities have been provided to the South Pacific Island and Asian Nations in times of need. Again I repeat with great bitterness and anger, I counted 4 Caribou aircraft at Townsville Airport yesterday doing nothing. These aircraft are ready, and able to provide much needed assistance to the farmers of the Far North.

I wish to thank the Commonwealth Treasurer for visiting Ingham yesterday to survey the impact of the floods. I will greatly appreciate his action in providing emergency fruit and vegetable transportation over the next 2 to 3 days. After this time, it is expected that inland and some coastal routes to Townsville might reopen.

I appreciate the recent Government announcement of immediate financial assistance of $1,000 for flood-affected families. However, we require immediate fodder drops and longer-term financial assistance is also sought in the form of subsidised interest rates and some government grants. Development banks were established for addressing these situations. However, they have been sold off and their effectiveness, and I must emphasise PROFITABLE operations, are sorely missed.

In the long-term, road access could be considerably improved with Government investment in road works at Gairlock between Ingham and Cardwell and some upgrading of the Atherton-Charters Towers alternative route.

I thank the House for its consideration and, on behalf of the people of the Kennedy electorate, we send our deepest sympathies to the people of Victoria whose plight has been even more life-threatening than ours.

Mr Speaker, on one further personal indulgence: I support the comments of the member for Murray in relation to the ABC and the invaluable role it has played both in Queensland and in Victoria.

On a personal level, I think we all reflect on our own families at these times. Our eldest son is, as we speak, in a helicopter dumping water on fires in New South Wales. He spoke to his mother the other night and told her with a great degree of pride that they had just saved a house in the Hunter Valley that had been well manicured in terms of fire protection. The people at work, the volunteers and, in his case, a helicopter were able to stop the fire only metres from the house.

On behalf of the Independents, including the member for Kennedy, who is not with us today, I say that we would like to associate ourselves with the comments that were made earlier in terms of both these tragedies.

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