Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Our troubles pale into insignificance compared with what has happened in Victoria, but it is my duty to advise the House that north-eastern Australia—not just North Queensland—has had the most widespread flooding in its entire history since settlement 150 years ago. Normanton and Karumba have had their second worst floods ever. Normanton and Karumba are up against the Northern Territory border—the midwest, as we call it. The Burdekin basin covers a lot of that area and about a tenth of the state. The Upper Burdekin has had its second worst flood in 150 years. Ingham has had one of its two worst floods. So whether it is on the coast, whether it is in between or whether it is up against the Queensland-Territory border, we have had record flooding.

We have only had three dead—maybe four—and we thank the Lord that it is not higher. But it is very important that I bring to the attention of the House the fact that we are only halfway through our wet season—we still have half of it to go if it is a normal season. All the rivers are full and all the ground is saturated, so every drop that falls now is runoff water. I was in Ingham yesterday afternoon and I can advise the House that the floodwaters there have receded.

How we look after the little people is a measure of our nation. The little town of Karumba is our only port in the gulf other than Weipa, which is right up at the tip of Cape York. So 2,500 kilometres of coastline has only one port, and that is in tiny Karumba. Karumba produces about $300 million worth of prawns a year and is a very significant tourist spot as well. Some 800 souls there are now into their fourth week surrounded by 15 kilometres of raging, crocodile infested floodwaters. Just on dusk the other night the Mayor of Georgetown crossed the river in a dinghy and counted some 23 crocodiles in the water—two of them most certainly were very large. Some properties have had crocodiles in their sheds. A very famous local grazier in the north, John Nelson, has told us that he has lost 1,000 of his 8,000 head of cattle. Those losses can be multiplied right across the board. We do not know the total extent of the losses. The last time we had flooding like this, two meatworks were closed and 1,500 people lost their jobs permanently.

There have been some especially unfortunate aspects to the flooding. I want to thank the Prime Minister and the Treasurer for buying into the situation on the weekend; we are very appreciative of them doing that. Up till then we had a situation where four Caribou aircraft were sitting at the airport whilst $10 million worth of produce was rotting in the sheds and cold rooms. There is just no excuse or explanation for that. By the time the orders came down—and we thank very much the Prime Minister and the Treasurer for this—and by the time they had got on top of the public servants, we had lost half a million dollars worth of that produce. Of course, the day that they agreed to use the Caribou was the day that the road opened. So you can read for yourself what was going on behind the scenes there. I do not say that by way of criticism. I am well aware of the situation that existed. I have been responsible for assisting with flooding in Queensland since 1976, and my family has been up there for four generations, so we understand the difficulties on the ground.

We do not know what the losses are to the sugar industry as yet. It may be 30 per cent throughout Ingham, which is the third biggest cane producing area in Australia, but we do not know at this stage. Sugar is still our 15th biggest export item overall; it is still a very significant item.

Having said all of that, it gives me no joy to say to the House that after four weeks there was no way of evacuating the people of Karumba at night. There was no casualty evacuation helicopter. They went for four weeks before a helicopter was placed there, and there were no helicopters with stretcher facilities even during the day. So if you broke a limb or had a heart attack then you were in very desperate trouble because there were no stretcher facilities on the helicopters that were there, and none of them could do night duty. One family had been waiting for two or three days for help. Nothing happened. A dinghy was going back and forth so they put their little two-month-old baby in the dinghy and for three hours went through raging, crocodile infested floodwaters 15 kilometres wide. That is not right. I do not hesitate to say that that is a criticism of the state authorities. For the little people who are out in the middle of nowhere, it is just not good enough.

Like the previous speaker, I thank the thousands of people in North Queensland who have stopped work and given their time to help others. When I flew into Ingham, there were probably 100 dinghies going up and down rescuing people, helping people out or taking supplies in voluntarily. We do not have quite so many crocodiles there but we are talking about raging floodwaters and we have already lost three or maybe four people.

I would like to leave the House with this message: we are only halfway through our wet season. February is by far our wettest month. It rains almost as much as any other two or three months put together. All our rainfall, which is very high in North Queensland as you are all well aware, only comes within four months, and we still have most of our wettest month to go, so we are very worried. The weather bureau has said that the low will move back in at the end of this week right across the north. So, far from being out of the woods, we are girding our loins for what could be a very difficult situation towards the end of this week.

We thank all the people who have made a very great effort. I certainly single out the Prime Minister and the Treasurer on this because we badly needed their intervention. They had their hands full down south yet they made the little bit of time needed to help us out and we thank them for that. There will be a lot of help needed.

I make this point to the House: there are many primary producers in North Queensland. For every one of these things that have happened to date, we have had a primary industry or agbank to give us loans with negligible interest rates that did not require us to make repayments for two or three years. This is the first time that we have gone into this situation without any of that available to us at all. Many of these people will be gone. They will sell up to ‘lifestylers’—which seems to be what is happening. Of the people who were putting trees in, I am told that three of the plantations have gone completely. All those people who were using those devices to dodge tax—but they were closing our sugar mills—will obviously be paying a price for that. That bears mentioning because those sugar mills have got to stay open. Unless they stay open, thousands and thousands of Australians will lose their jobs. They are in very serious jeopardy, and this wet season will place those mills in even greater jeopardy. I deeply regret to have to say that some sort of financial package will be needed.

We thank very much the thousands of people who are risking their lives, particularly those in the Normanton-Karumba area, which is still under serious threat as we speak, and also the people of Ingham and all other affected places throughout North Queensland. This is not our most intense flood but it is the most widespread flood in our history and one of the two worst floods in the entire history of north-eastern Australia.

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