Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to join here this afternoon and support this condolence motion that has been moved by the Prime Minister. I want to say that as I speak I am speaking on behalf not only of myself but of the people of Maranoa, the constituency that I represent, which covers some 45 per cent of the land area of Queensland. In many ways they know so well of the tragedy of drought and of flooding rains. What we have seen in my electorate in the last 12 to 18 months and, more particularly, in the last six to eight weeks is—in my memory, certainly—unprecedented.

I want to first take the opportunity to extend my sympathies to the family members and near friends of the 23 people who lost their lives in that tragedy in Toowoomba, Grantham and the Lockyer Valley. I went down through that area only last weekend, down through Murphys Creek, to see the clean-up that is going on and to see and appreciate just how high the water was in that part of the Lockyer Valley. It is a frightening thought to imagine that there were people caught in there at a minute’s notice—some without any notice. It was just a frightening thought.

The events of 10 January were unprecedented, and they have been described by many as an inland tsunami. I think that describes it pretty well. When you hear the stories that have been put this afternoon by many in this House—the member for Groom, members on the other side of the House, the member for Wright in his contribution—you start to appreciate that this was a tragedy that was of mammoth proportions. When it takes the lives of innocent people—young people and old people—you do feel for the communities that will live with the effects of the loss of members for many years to come.

I was speaking only last week to a person in my own constituency of Maranoa at an induction ceremony for the school leaders at Allora. She was a relative who was going to the funerals of two people in the Lockyer Valley last week. I shared my thoughts and extended my sympathies through her to the people that she would be honouring and remembering at the funeral service in the Lockyer Valley.

The television images of those cars being washed away in Toowoomba, and the events that we saw on television of people being rescued from Grantham in the Lockyer Valley and down through there, will live with me forever. It certainly makes you feel proud to be an Australian to see the effort that was put in by the emergency services, the defence people, the police, the councils, the volunteers and just people across the street in many areas, helping their fellow Australians in such a time of need. I will never lose the vision of that image—those cars being swept down like toys in the bathtub, knocking over trees and signs. It was just frightening. I think it shows us all the mighty power of water and the mighty power of nature; when she speaks she leaves us messages as well about what we need to look at in the future. There were certainly messages that nature has delivered in this tragic event and, of course, the floods that have followed.

This is the second such event—although we did not have any loss of life in my electorate—that has occurred in 10 months in Maranoa. In March of last year we had 500 houses inundated in Roma, Charleville, St George, Thargomindah, Quilpie, Meandarra and Surat, where communities were cut off for six weeks. There was the same response from the people and, I must say, from the former Prime Minister—who has just left the House—where I was able to communicate to him about his personal attendance through a mobile phone given to me. It was quite extraordinary. I was able to do that this time as well, and I will talk a little bit about that during my contribution this afternoon.

In the last 10 months we have had two events of such magnitude, so that you might say we had a bit of a training run in March and April of last year. We have small businesses still trying to recover from that, and yet they were hit again this year. Some of those small business people are saying that their business revenue is back to 60 per cent in 10 months. They have said to me that they want to keep their employees employed because they are part of the community. In small towns that is so important; a job lost may mean that there is a teacher lost at the school because those numbers are so critical for keeping up the numbers at our schools in these very small communities—so many are quite fragile.

Many of them just have not had the business activity in Roma and the western part of my electorate dating back to March of last year—they are still recovering. And, of course, there are still some houses that have not been rebuilt. Part of the problem there is the insurance companies. We tried to name and shame some of them last year, but some of them are just immovable. I know that in my own home town of Roma we have a number of people who feel that they have been unfairly treated by insurance companies. They are taking out a class action against these insurance companies, and I support them. These companies are discussing whether it was stormwater that came or if it was floodwater. They have got hydrologists with conflicting answers; the council has got one answer and they have got another one. I am left speechless that these very large companies have not seen fit to even make ex gratia payments without necessarily accepting a liability.

In Roma and Charleville, and in Cunnamulla to a lesser extent, because it is really protected by a levee bank, the churches and charities have done a wonderful job, as have the local small businesses in some cases, where we know there are people who are pensioners on fixed incomes with no insurance on their houses because the insurance company has failed to honour insurance that they believed they had. I hope we are going to be successful with this class action, and I commend the work of those volunteers that went into a couple of houses and rebuilt them. Local businesses have provided new refrigerators, air conditioners, stoves, washing machines and tanks. They have repainted whole houses and supplied whitegoods and browngoods—a fantastic effort. But when you deal with a large insurance company and they cannot see fit to even match the charity of your own community it leaves me cold.

I spoke with my office in Roma this afternoon and we looked at the BOM website before we came in. Normally we welcome rain in the electorate, but since nine o’clock this morning we have had just on 50 millimetres. We have not started praying for sunshine, but we had a week of sunshine and thought that things were drying out. Yet we have not been as affected as further in the electorate. I just want to mention that it goes on, and we are not through the wet season yet.

The flood event of March of last year started to emerge again in November of last year in my electorate, out in Blackall and Tambo through to Longreach and down through the very far western shires of the Barcoo, Bulloo and Diamantina. They have been cut off since November of last year. I think that the Cooper Creek at Windorah has only been open for one day since 23 November last year; no goods in and no goods out. The only way in was by air or by a very long route around via Mount Isa to try to get in when a little window of opportunity opened up and the roads were open to bring avgas, other fuel and food supplies into those very far western communities.

It does not make television viewing because it is happening in very small communities and it was not making television news at that time in November of last year but it started to come east and on Christmas Day and Boxing Day the heavens really started to open up. Whether it was at Dalby or on the inner downs, the floodwaters were just unprecedented in their height and volume and in their persistence. I will talk about that a bit more in a minute.

After the mid-December events in the electorate of the member for Flynn and in mine in the Galilee Basin east of Barcaldine, I had a call from the Governor-General who wanted to come to my electorate of Maranoa. I was absolutely delighted. She said that she would like to go to some small communities and talk to some farmers. I give great credit to Her Excellency for making the time to come to small communities of 200 and 300 people. We went to Alpha and Jericho first to see the recovery that was going on there where the flood had happened 10 days ago, but to see the devastation also.

We were able to talk to the P&C president. The school was being cleaned out and they were desperate to make sure that they could get their school to open on time. It is so important to be able to get the kids back to school on time. The P&C president said that they had lost something like $15,000 of materials and goods that they had raised as a P&C in the community. They are little things, but mean so much. I am only hopeful that the grant money and the Premier’s relief fund might at least provide some money to replace some of the things that P&Cs have provided over the many years and that have been lost in this flood. They are not insured through the state; they take their own risks. But they are just little things.

I wanted to touch also on the $1,000 that was available to people who have been inundated with water, isolated for more than 24 hours or off utilities for 48 hours. I did speak to the Prime Minister’s office when I first saw those guidelines. In Jericho I saw the real value of that. Some have said that it is pretty generous. I said that they are the same guidelines we had to establish—and the Leader of the Opposition acknowledged that during his contribution—as we had in western Queensland last year. We cannot have two classes of people receiving Centrelink benefits. So the same guidelines were established for this event.

We had the Barcaldine Regional Council there acting as an agent for Centrelink to start to help people to fill out these forms. This is a typical example of where it really helps: some people were coming back from holidays and they could not get through Emerald. They had to stay in motels to the east of Emerald—two nights accommodation that they had not planned for as part of their holiday, $400, extra food—and they eventually got home. That expense was on their credit card and they wanted to make sure that they had paid it off before the following weekend because the husband had to go to Brisbane for a cancer operation. I paint that little picture which I also told to Minister Plibersek who rang me very kindly—I always thank the ministers who have done that—because I think it explains a lot about where that money goes and whom it helps. There may be some who are claiming it dishonestly, but the overwhelming majority of people need it and it will help them to get through a very difficult period emotionally as well from what they have seen lost in their own lives and from their homes. That is just a little picture.

We were there with the Governor-General who was able to give great comfort to this very small community. I think her gracious presence both there and when we went to Condamine was just so appreciated by the local people, in that the Governor-General of Australia would even think or make time to come in to a small community. When we were going to the Darling Downs area I said to the Governor-General that I wanted to take her to a food producer on a feedlot. We went to see Simon Drury and his wife, Kylie, and their four wonderful children. They have a family business as food producers. I often talk about them as food producers because these are the people who feed us daily across this nation. Kylie and Simon’s family are just one of many. They provide the food and fibre for us. They feed another 60 million people around the world with our exports, but that is another story.

I wanted to go there because I had seen the vision of what they went through at very short notice having to get cattle out of a feedlot because the water was rising so quickly. We have heard the stories of water rising quickly. These cattle were caught and they had to cut the fences and swim them out. It almost terrified me, but they were out in boats with a helicopter above them trying to steer the cattle out of the feedlot to high ground.

They had started the clean-up of their house. It was built 100 years ago and it had never had water into it in 100 years. It is on stumps, as so many Queenslanders are. The water went through that house and it rose within hours not days. Not only was it just above the floorboards, it was halfway up the walls of that house. Simon and Kylie told me that they were in the house and they had a boat outside. They had to pass material out through the windows to put it up on the roof to try and save some of the things that are precious to all families. When they were going through the clean-up they were in good spirits saying, ‘There’s something up in that tree that will probably remain there and that’ll remind us of how high the water was.’ Ten days later the floods came again. They had cleaned up the house. They had kicked off the feedlot again, and the floods did the same again and went through the house. Emotionally, quite apart from mentally trying to deal with these issues, that is what people are going through.

We went into Condamine then, and I thank the Australian Army from Oakey who arranged for us to go in on Black Hawks. Condamine had to be evacuated with 45 minutes notice. The order was given from the emergency services of Queensland and the mayor, Ray Brown, had a very difficult job having to ensure that people would move. Many people said, ‘Oh, it’s never been here before.’ It was a very difficult time, but thank goodness they got them out. They started to put people in at five or six o’clock in the afternoon and they got them all out during the night. They evacuated them to an evacuation centre at, I think, Miles. We were there as part of the clean-up. We had to go in on Black Hawks; there was no other way in. People had come from near and far to once again help clean up the town. The Governor-General was, as I was, able to talk to people. But, do you know, it happened again. They had to be evacuated again. They had cleaned up, they had moved back, they were starting to establish the water systems and the electrical connections, and the floods came again and they had to be evacuated a second time. It was unprecedented.

Emotionally, people at the time were dealing with it, but I know that down the track it is going to linger with them: those memories of having to leave, to come back and to see the vision of their little bit of Australia—their home, their business or their hotel. I remember talking to a cattle producer and feedlotter there. A lot of their property was under water. They were able to get most of the cattle out of the way but they lost two very good stud bulls. They are breeders of very high value and genetically superior shortland cattle. She said, ‘Yes, well, we lost a couple of bulls but we can breed more bulls.’ She said that the tough thing—and this was sometimes the picture you would paint to try and convey it to people on the other side of Australia who are not in the area and wanted to know what was happening—was when she saw a cow standing out there with a calf beside it and the calf could not get a drink. I said, ‘Why couldn’t the calf get a drink?’ She said, ‘Because the udder was in the floodwaters.’ She said that upset her as much as anything. On losing a couple of bulls, she said, ‘We’ll breed some good ones again,’—and they will—but the picture you can paint with that tells a story.

Kylie and Simon Drury, with their family, were evacuated from Condamine twice. You wonder where people get that strength, but they were so appreciative of the Governor-General coming there. I know that they will forever cherish the moment when the Governor-General came into their feedlot, just as the people of Chinchilla will cherish when we went in there. Parts of that town had been evacuated. The Warrego Highway was cut for days and days, but at the time we went in it was actually sunny. The Black Hawk did two circles over the town of Chinchilla and half the town came out to see us land on the football field. Once again, it was the Governor-General’s visit, and they appreciated the fact that the person in the highest office in this land would come to their town to comfort them and talk to the emergency services people, the counsellors and the children. She gave great comfort to all of the people wherever she visited. Last week I also had the Governor of Queensland, Penelope Wensley, in my electorate. She came in without any publicity; she did not put out press releases. She wanted to talk to the chambers of commerce and the schools, as they were starting last week. I thank her for that. She also wanted to talk to Landcare groups so that she could also have an understanding of what was happening and how the recovery is occurring.

I want to mention something else, as the devastation of our roads has come up quite often in our discussions here. The member for Groom mentioned the Toowoomba range crossing. I want to mention the other road. The Toowoomba range is terribly important to my electorate because the Warrego Highway feeds from it. Cunningham’s Gap is where the first crossing of the Great Dividing Range was in Queensland. It was raining there yesterday and again, I think, this morning. It has one lane open. One thousand trucks a day go through Cunningham’s Gap on the Brisbane-Sydney run. It is an extraordinary trade route. There are now people there trying to stabilise the road. It is actually slumping, sliding down the hill. I said, ‘Are you sure it’s slumping?’ and they said, ‘Yes.’ I want to go and visit it personally, but they are pumping as much concrete in as they can to try and get it stabilised. Whether they will I do not know, but it presents a problem for the future. There is only one lane open and that is really putting a brake on the trade. There are delays in moving between Brisbane up into the southern downs and out through Goondiwindi right through to Sydney—it is a major trade route. It is something, along with the second range crossing, that we must look at. It cannot be just a second range crossing, because this is the vital link for that trade route for trucks to Sydney.

I want to mention Dalby too. Dalby had five floods, and we were getting to the stage where we were asking, ‘When will this ever end?’ You would just start to see it cleaned up again, everyone would just start to do their job again, and the flood would come through again and houses would be inundated again. It was extraordinary emotional pressure that people had been under, yet they would come up every day. I think the common thread of what they have all said to me is: ‘We’ll be all right; we’ll fix this up.’ It is that Australian spirit: we have still got our lives; we can rebuild what we have lost. It is that very stoic Australian attitude. It is almost a trademark of what it is to be Australian.

I want to thank my own staff, because a staffer who has only recently joined me had to wade through knee-deep water to get home and was the last person across the creek as they were not going to let anyone else across. I guess she otherwise would have been in the emergency evacuation centre that night, but it is always good to get home, even though the water came right to the edge of her home. Our staff, in all cases when in flood areas, have also carried the burden of that phone call saying, ‘Where is the member?’ and, ‘We haven’t got this; we haven’t got that,’ and ‘Who do we contact?’ They have done a marvellous job and I say that for all members of parliament who have been out there in these flood times.

I also had many calls from members on both sides of the House. I really do thank them because, at times, you get to a stage after five to six weeks when you start to wonder, ‘When will this end?’ You get emotionally drained and then you get a call from a member or, out of the blue, from Minister Ludwig or Minister Plibersek or Minister Shorten and they give you their mobile phone numbers. I tell you, it bucks you up to think that we are all in this together, and that is how it always should be and always has been, I know. I thank them for that. It is not about photos of politicians helping people, it is about making sure that we do our job and, as a collective parliament, that we all do our job to help those who so much need our help.

I want to also commend the work of Premier Anna Bligh. She has done an extraordinary job. She has communicated the message in a confident manner. She has been out there almost daily, day and night, night and day. She has been confident about what she has said. She has given people great comfort and, because of the way she delivered messages, we thought that she was well in command and that we were being led well, which she was elected to do. I give her great credit for the way she has managed the disasters as they have unrolled across 70 per cent of Queensland. First of all it was 200,000 people and 40-odd per cent of the landmass of Queensland and now it is nearly all of the state, so I say ‘well done’ to the Premier.

I want to also thank the mayors in my electorate who had to be the leaders and make sure that their communities were safe. I thank emergency services, the electrical people, Ergon, Telstra, the SES, the volunteers, the churches—they were all there—and AgForce and their leadership at this time. We all had to work as a team and everyone has done a magnificent job. I thank Ray Brown, David Carter, Rob Loughnan, Ron Bellingham, Graham Schur, Donna Stewart and Peter Taylor. They are mayors who have a job to do as mayors in their own communities normally, but this was a time when they had to make sure that everything was working well because, at the end of the day, there were lives that could have been lost. In my own community we did not lose a life and that is to the great credit of everyone who worked in a well-coordinated team and who knew what was going on all of the time.

People have come from all around Australia and they have also come from overseas to help our communities rebuild. There is a town called Texas, which is on the border of New South Wales and Queensland, east of Goondiwindi and west of Stanthorpe. Three years ago the World Cup Polocrosse was held in Warwick and a team from the United States of America came out. They were from Texas in the US so they wanted to see Texas in Australia. Those people have again come out from Texas in the United States of America because they heard that Texas in Australia in my electorate had suffered badly and they are now out here helping to rebuild and clean up. So I thank those Texans who have come out to help the people of Texas in my community.

I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Nationals who have both visited Maranoa. I was in constant communication with them, as I was with the minister’s office. I guess one of the enduring memories for me was in Dalby when, after the first clean-up, I was standing in the house of Mrs Pat Hands, which is up on stumps. She is retired and is on a single income. The house had actually moved off its stumps. The insurance people had been to check it and I think they were still making a decision as to whether it could or would be rebuilt. Of course, since that time, it has been flooded again to the same height. Mrs Hands said—and I think this says a lot about so many of the people we represent and a lot about Australians and their family homes—‘Mr Abbott, I know it’s not very much, but it’s my little palace.’ It is her little bit of Australia—it is her palace—as everyone’s home and their backyard is their own piece of Australia.

It is important that we as members of parliament never lose sight of the people we represent no matter how trivial sometimes it may seem. We have to make sure as a nation that we do as much as we can, erring always on the side of generosity, to help the Pat Hands and the so many hundreds of thousands of people across Queensland and other parts of Australia, including the fire victims now in Western Australia. We need to make sure that we can help them to rebuild their little palaces or re-establish after what has happened in the disasters across Australia this summer.

In conclusion, I think that the true spirit of Australia has shone right through, and Australian humour has also shone through, Mr Speaker. There are lessons to be learnt. We are open for business and I invite you to come to the electorate of Maranoa because we are open for business. You have heard about people going to the Whitsundays to promote tourism. Well, I say come to the outback, perhaps to the Birdsville races, or the Longreach Hall of Fame for the drovers reunion, or the Melon Festival next weekend in Chinchilla. They are great events and this is how we can all help our communities and continue to show our support as they rebuild. We are with them for the long haul. I thank the House and I support the condolence motion.

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