Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—As the honourable member for Maranoa said, yesterday he and I, together with the Special Minister of State and, for some of the time, Senator Joyce, were able to visit some of the affected communities to tour the area and assess the damage. There were two reasons I wanted to go to the affected area. Firstly, I wanted to thank the staff members of government agencies, both those locally based in the affected areas and those who had flown in for the purpose, for their tireless work in assisting these communities over many hours—often very long hours and often with very little sleep—and, often, for those who are locally based, dealing with trauma in their own family. Several staff members that I had spoken to had homes which were flooded but their key priority was assisting others.

Secondly, I also wanted to assess the government’s response to ensure that we were doing everything we could and to assess whether there was anything we needed to do better or anything more that needed to be done. I am very pleased to be able to report to the House that federal government agencies, primarily Centrelink, and state government agencies, primarily Emergency Management Queensland and the Department of Communities, and local government agencies and not-for-profit organisations such as Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Lifeline and the SES, as well as private companies like Telstra and the banks, have come together as one to provide seamless support and assistance to those affected.

Yesterday we were able to visit St George and Charleville. It is true that the degree of damage, indeed devastation, is very significant. We expected to see that. It is also true that the degree of resilience and determination in those communities is very evident. They are not all in the same situation. It is easy for those of us who are watching from afar on television to assume that there is one flood and one situation. That is not the case. The people of St George, for example, got significant notice that the flood was coming. That does not mean the devastation has been less, but it means it has been different. The people of Charleville had very little notice at all. Several people I spoke to went to work at eight or nine o’clock in the morning and by 10 o’clock their houses had been deluged, with no warning at all. So these situations are very different.

Yesterday we were not able to get to places like Quilpie, Thuringowa and Dirranbandi, but they were very much in our thoughts and they were very much in our questions as we spoke to members of the various government instrumentalities and not-for-profit organisations about what support and assistance is being supplied to people in those communities. It is very difficult in some circumstances there, where access is very limited indeed, but nevertheless the support is being given.

The government has activated, through the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin, the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payments, and they are a big focus of the government’s response. Yesterday, further assistance was announced by the Prime Minister and Premier Bligh in relation to primary producers and small business. This is very significant, and I thank the member for Maranoa for both his public and private comments on yesterday’s announcements. A number of small business people I know had difficulty getting insurance coverage for floods. Underinsurance is a big issue around Australia but, where a company tries to get insurance but cannot get insurance, that is a separate question altogether. I know that the further announcements made yesterday, with grants under two different programs of up to $20,000 or $5,000, will be very significant in those communities.

I say to the House, as I have said to the member for Maranoa, that the government stands ready to listen seriously to any further issues or requests that arrive. As the member for Maranoa said, the Prime Minister spent a considerable part of the weekend on the phone to the various mayors, which I know the mayors appreciated. The member for Maranoa should not hesitate to provide further information, requests or anything of that nature to the government, because we stand ready to take seriously any requests.

I thank the mayor of Charleville, Mark O’Brien, and the mayor of Balonne, Donna Stewart, for their assistance yesterday. It was very useful to have them personally giving us a tour of the towns, talking about the issues that the community is suffering at the moment and talking very positively and constructively about the recovery and the determination of the communities. We stand side by side with them.

See this speech in context