Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Moreton for that question and tell him and the House that this week I spoke to a lady in his electorate, Maureen Machin, who is a 51-year-old former Queensland Rail worker who lived on her own with three little dogs. She was ringing to thank us for the $1,000 payment that she received. She was telling me about getting her little dogs safely out of her home and to the local petrol station, going back to try to get some stuff out of her house and finding out she could not salvage anything. She had to swim out of her home. She dog paddled across a two-metre-high back fence and she was washed down the road. She ended up in the night, in stinking water, carried along by the flood, in the QEII stadium evacuation centre, which is in the member’s electorate. She was there for about a week. Centrelink workers tracked her down and encouraged her to apply for the payment. She had not initially realised she was eligible, but the Centrelink workers doing their outreach found her and encouraged her to apply. They helped her fill in the form. She used that $1,000 to pay for her immediate needs: food, clothing, a phone so she could contact friends to reassure them she was okay and medicine for one of her sick little dogs who are her only companions. She said: ‘I felt blessed. There was an acknowledgement that people were down. I felt like someone had a hand on my shoulder, saying, “Keep on going.” Your needs become very basic when you’ve lost everything.’

As well as the QEII stadium where the Centrelink workers were—there were 13 staff there—there were other staff in recovery centres at the Yeronga State School and St Aidan’s Anglican Girls School in Corinda. The previous member asked about BER school halls. I am happy to inform him that the member for Moreton has told me that both of those recovery centres were in BER school halls. Of course, over 100,000 people in the Brisbane local government area which covers Moreton have benefited from the payments paid through Centrelink. More than 20,000 of those were for children. They are part of the half-million payments that have been made across the country, most of those within two days of claiming, so that people have some money to buy something to eat; to pay for a motel room; to buy necessities, clothes and a mobile phone so they can stay in touch with people.

I heard from another fellow. Barry Kopernik and his wife, Raelene, in Rockhampton who told me that they spent every dollar of their payment within one kilometre of their home. It is not just paying for the basics that they needed but also injecting money back into the local community, supporting local businesses that need that support more than ever. I am happy to report that Phillip Coorey, with his normal perspicacity, described the government’s response to the floods as, ‘The flawless roll-out of a disaster plan, including emergency Centrelink payments and mobilisation of the military’. Indeed, Centrelink aimed to and, I believe, was successful in supporting Australians when they needed it—supporting them during a time of national disaster as all Australians want to help during this national disaster.

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