Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The terrible beauty of this vast and unyielding continent of ours truly tested the Australian people over this summer. With the benefit of the phenomenon of 21st century technology and comprehensive news coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the reality of the natural disasters in various parts of the country touched us all so deeply wherever we were. The morning newspapers, the evening news, the daily radio and the blogosphere were filled with tragic stories, minute-by-minute accounts of the unfolding disasters, photographs and film and video footage of the devastation now so graphically etched into our collective memory.

While this real-time coverage brought it home to us all, the actual reality was terrifying, shocking, overwhelming for those facing floods in Queensland, in New South Wales, in Victoria and in the Gascoyne in Western Australia, around Carnarvon in particular, or the cyclone in North Queensland or the bushfires in the suburbs surrounding Perth. When I was at primary school I learned that great Dorothea Mackellar poem, My Country. Time and time again over this summer the middle verse of that poem came back to me, as it did for so many others:

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror—

The wide brown land for me!

That is Australia.

I express the deepest sympathy to those who lost loved ones in these natural disasters. Words cannot replace the loss, heal the hurt, erase or even dull the pain, but it may comfort those who are suffering to know that our thoughts and prayers are with them and that we pledge our ongoing support for them. So many people have lost their homes, their belongings, their property, their businesses—in some cases replaceable, in many irreplaceable.

Across the country Australians pulled together helping each other out in the face of great adversity. We are a courageous, heroic, stoic people when faced with natural disasters and we are concerned, caring, compassionate and determined in the aftermath. The character of the Australian people was on display this summer, as is so often the case when confronted with adversity, including the massive challenges that are associated with the natural disasters that afflict our country on an annual basis: the bushfires, drought, floods, storms, cyclones.

I saw the very best in the national character as I was privileged, as were a number of us here, to work alongside some of our colleagues as they worked in their electorates with members of their local communities who were preparing for the onslaught of the floods or cleaning up afterwards. With John-Paul Langbroek, the Queensland opposition leader, I visited the Lockyer Valley. The scene has been described as an inland tsunami, and as we drove from the town of Gatton to what was left of the town of Grantham I could understand why. The fields on either side of the road were strewn with upturned cars, parts of houses and buildings and farm machinery, a light plane upended, trees. In some instances they had been carried over many kilometres by the surging floodwaters. The devastation was simply astounding. In the town of Grantham the scene was heartbreaking. Having grown up in a small country town I could readily identify with the intimacy and the sense of family that exist in a small town.

The town of Grantham lost some of its residents as the sheer speed and ferocity of the floodwaters overwhelmed them. At the time of our visit a number of deaths had been confirmed and a number of people were still reported as missing. The community sadness was deep and profound. As we stood in the main street of Grantham, a convoy of Army trucks with defence personnel aboard rolled into the town. It must have been one of the most reassuring sights imaginable in those dark days. The efforts of our Defence Force, our emergency services and the thousands of volunteers who came to help—in fact, came to help wherever disaster struck across Australia this summer—deserve our everlasting gratitude.

After Queensland I visited Carnarvon in the mid-north of my state. While we are all so thankful that there was no loss of life, the description of how the floodwaters in the days before Christmas rose so suddenly, giving no time to escape, no time to prepare, was so eerily familiar.

Across this great nation, from the depths of our hearts, we mourn the loss of life. From the loss, the devastation and the suffering we shall draw the means of survival and we will work together to rebuild the shattered lives of our fellow Australians.

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