Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On indulgence: I rise today to speak on the North Queensland floods. But I need to start, on indulgence, by talking about the bushfire victims briefly because they have impacted the whole of this country in a way I do not think we have seen in the past, because it is the worst natural disaster we have experienced in this country. I want to associate myself with the comments of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and other members and put on the record the deep sympathy that my community feels for the victims of the bushfires. I was talking to a man on the way down here on Sunday evening, and he said: ‘Give me cyclones and flooding rains any day compared to the bushfires and the scenes that we saw on television.’ The community in Cairns and the tropical Far North have opened their hearts and are donating money, and I congratulate those members of the local community who are doing that. I encourage others who have not yet done so to also open their hearts and make contributions to the bushfire appeals and also to the flood appeals.

My main focus here today, though, is to talk about the floods in Far North Queensland, in the gulf, because that is the area that I represent. Honourable members might not realise, but there have been two cyclones across the north this year. We had Cyclone Charlotte on 12 January, which came across the gulf between Kowanyama and Normanton with winds of between 120 and 130 kilometres an hour, and we had Cyclone Ellie, which crossed the coast around Mission Beach on 2 February. Neither of those brought great destructive winds to local communities, but they brought flooding rains—flooding rains that have endured since early January. Effectively, as the member for Kennedy eloquently outlined in the House the other day, communities in his electorate have been cut off for long, long periods of time—most of this year. Not only communities in the gulf but, since the second cyclone, also the communities that I represent in Cairns have been cut off for extended periods of time—more than a week. Luckily, just the other day we had the roads open and trucks are again able to roll through.

So there has been extensive flooding all across the north, and the statistics show that 62 per cent of the state has been declared a disaster zone. We have 36 council areas that have now been declared disasters. The damage bill will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. And the risk of flooding is not over. As people in the north know and understand, February is our wettest month of the year, and we are yet to get halfway through it, so we face in the future the potential for greater flooding and more downpours.

In my own community, last Saturday night we had almost 200 millimetres of rainfall in less than an hour. I was driving home that evening from the Taipans basketball game, and it was quite amazing to have the windscreen wipers on full bore and to be flat out seeing the road in front of me. We drove very slowly, but driving in a dark night in heavy torrential rain while being able to see floodwaters poses great risks to people in my part of the world. These are some of the things that people up there put up with. They know that they need to respond to the weather appropriately.

Tragically, we have lost lives in this flood. We have lost at least four lives. I think that is from people being washed off floodways. There is still a man who is yet to be found who was washed away around Tully last weekend, a young child was taken up around the Daintree and others, sadly, have been washed down stormwater drains. So we need to be prepared to make sure that we can respond to the weather conditions that we face during these difficult times. The loss of life is nothing compared to the loss of life in Victoria but, for those families and those individuals who have been impacted, the loss of life is still tragic.

As I said, the Far North is being inundated with water. I was looking at the synoptic chart before coming in here. We now have a low sitting up around Bowen, and the monsoon trough is still positioned across Northern Australia. There is a real risk and threat that the floods will be back later this week, with the potential for the region again to be cut off.

Some of the things that obviously impact on people are houses being flooded and lives lost when people are washed away in floodwaters and the like. But one of the things that are often not seen is the impact on small businesses, whether they are farming businesses or small retailers. What happens when we have floods in the Far North is that the Bruce Highway gets cut. At Ingham it was cut for more than a week. In Cairns, the shelves on the supermarkets became empty. Coles and Woollies looked to bring goods in on barges and to fly goods in, but the shelves still became empty with the population base that we have up there. It is a major regional city. There were also farmers who could not get produce out. Pawpaws, mangoes, longans and other tropical fruits—they could not get them down south. Those farmers have a potential loss of income if that road stays closed for an extended period of time.

Luckily, the road has now opened up. We have had a convoy of trucks rolling in. But we need to continue to work to upgrade the Bruce Highway. It is something that I campaigned strongly for in the lead-up to my election, and I am pleased to say that we are getting on with building a new bridge over the Mulgrave River. The works at Tully have finished early, but we need to do more around Ingham and Burdekin. The government has a $2.2 billion commitment to upgrade the Bruce Highway and a $1.1 billion commitment to upgrade the Bruce Highway between Sarina and Cairns. We need to make sure that those works continue to flow. We need to invest in and upgrade areas like the Gairloch floodway. We need to make sure we continue to work on the areas around Ingham and Innisfail in the future because the economic impacts of road closure are huge and so are the social impacts. People need to come to Townsville at times for medical purposes. What happens when the road is cut is that people cannot get through for medical purposes either. So there is not only an economic impact; there are social and community impacts from having a road closed. But I am pleased to be part of a government that is committed to infrastructure investment and is working hard to upgrade the Bruce Highway.

The other thing we are in desperate need of in the Far North in Cairns is a new council disaster coordination centre. The centre as it is currently established on Anderson Street is in an area that can be flooded and that can be impacted by a tsunami, if one were to strike. We do need a new disaster centre in Cairns, in the Far North. The council has put in a submission to the new community fund established by the government last year and, as part of our stimulus package, we are hoping to add another $500 million to that. It would be a welcome commitment if delivered in my region. The centre would be an education or multipurpose centre, but in times of cyclones or other natural disasters it would act as the disaster coordination centre and the centre of relief coordination in Cairns, in the Far North.

I just want to speak very briefly about some of the other things that the government has done already to respond to the flood victims. We have made available Defence Force aircraft such as Black Hawks. The Treasurer was up there on the weekend assessing the situation and determining the support that we could provide. We have airlifted in aviation fuel and the military has provided fuel drops.

I spoke to the Prime Minister earlier in the week about the opportunity to use military aircraft to assist some of the farmers. I am pleased to report that he cut through the red tape. I had a commitment from him that if Emergency Management Queensland made a request to the federal government, he would look to make military aircraft available to do that. The roads are open, which is good news, but the use of these aircraft is something that we could possibly look to in the future.

Payments have been made available to individuals and families who have been affected by the floods. I understand that those payments are flowing but if there are individuals out there who are struggling or who are having problems with Centrelink, I encourage them to contact my office or the offices of the member for Herbert or the member for Kennedy. Part of our role is to ensure that support that should be getting through on the ground is getting through. If there is a hold-up in the cases of particular individuals with government departments or with Centrelink, who do a fantastic job generally, then by all means you should contact your local federal member. We have a bipartisan approach to responding to natural disasters. We have seen that in relation to the bushfires. We see it again in relation to the flood. I encourage anyone out there who is having trouble to contact their local federal member. We will work with them to help them out.

I want to put on the record again my deep admiration for the volunteers who work so hard, whether in the floods or in the bushfire ravaged areas. We need to thank them for the work they do. That includes the elected representatives, local councillors and others who work tirelessly to support their local communities. I also want to thank the government workers who may be getting paid but during these important times spend many hours of overtime that they can never recoup supporting these communities. I thank everyone from Emergency Management Queensland to the Department of Community Services to the Centrelink workers. I want to put on record again my strong belief that we will recover from these floods, as we have done in the past in North Queensland. It does take time.

I also want to express my deepest sympathies and sorrows for those in Victoria. From our experience, the recovery effort does take time. You can never forget disasters that you go through but, in the end, you can learn to live with them. Let us hope and pray for that outcome for those victims of the bushfires and the floods. These have been terrible tragedies for those individuals.

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