Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyne for bringing this matter of public importance to the attention of the House. I support everything said here today on the scope of work that needs to be done to assist people in natural disasters. I also want to thank the Prime Minister for her many visits to my electorate in particular and also to Queensland, where she has made a number of visits to flooded regions. I also thank the Treasurer for his visits, most recently when we dedicated the Pillar of Courage at Goodna, a symbol of strength in the local region and in the middle of my electorate, which was heavily hit, as were so many other places. I will not go into the detail of that—I have spoken about it many times. That symbol at Goodna, the pillar, is a flood marker. What really shocked me about the pillar was that it is at the lower end of the scale of floods compared to previous floods. Hopefully we will not see such floods again. There is no question that natural disasters are a very familiar aspect of life in all parts of Australia. It seems natural disasters occur every year in some part of the country, whether they are flood, fire, drought or some extreme condition.

In recent years Queensland and New South Wales have been hit particularly hard, very much so in the summer—my electorate of Oxley, through the western corridor, the electorates of Blair, Morton, Brisbane, Wright and Maranoa. We have just heard the member for Maranoa speak about the devastating impact of three floods through his home town. We have also seen bushfires in Western Australia and in 2009 the most devastating Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria.

The current situation in Queensland is that St George has 46 properties flood affected and approximately 25 per cent of the entire town is without sewage services. The majority of evacuees from St George are staying in Dalby or at the RNA Showgrounds in Brisbane. It is a massive disruption to their lives—for many it will be for the rest of their lives. In Charleville the Warrego River is beginning to fall, thankfully, and Charleville Hospital reopened at 5 pm yesterday. So there is some good news among the disaster.

In Dirranbandi the Balonne River is still rising. The town is expected to be isolated for at least two weeks. When you consider the impact of that, being isolated from your home, your town and all your possessions—what is left of them—it is a long time. In Mitchell 23 properties have been assessed as being severely damaged, 88 are moderately damaged and 177 have other damage. There are 90 homes which remain without power.

In Roma 26 properties have been assessed as being severely damaged, 277 are moderately damaged and another 200 are suffering as well. The scale of the damage is enormous. For some it is not just their property; as we heard just a moment ago from the member for Maranoa, for some it is also their life. As we would all expect here, nobody will leave people in these regions on their own—it is just not the Australian way. We heard that often when talking to people around the community when we were assisting through the floods. There were a lot of people from different backgrounds and different countries who have settled in Australia who were out helping their fellow Australians and saying that the strange thing for them was that in their country that would not have happened but here it did. That extends right through from ordinary people to elected representatives and local government.

Government assistance is significant and should never be undervalued or underplayed. It will never be enough. You can never quite replace everything someone has lost nor can you rebuild everything. The Queensland state government in particular has worked exceptionally hard, as has the federal government, to ensure people are best restored to a decent position. Not everyone is lucky enough to say they are no longer affected in some way. We know that is just not the case. Those who are very unfortunate are affected a second or third time. It is quite a disaster.

The Australian government and the Queensland government immediately stepped in and helped Queenslanders in a range of ways, particularly the Australian government with the very quick and timely $1,000 for adults and $400 for children just to get people immediately back on their feet, whether it is to help restock the fridge with food, buy some clothes or get petrol for the car, if they saved the car, and so forth. The clean-up and recovery work is enormous and without the volunteer efforts of so many people it would just be impossible—we cannot contemplate how we could ever pay for all the work done. We can attach some value to the money that is put through from government—$150 million was given to more than 13,700 small businesses and primary producers through special grants. They were acted on as quickly as possible. I do take note of some of the concerns of the member for Lyne, and I am sure others, that it is never quite fast enough and we need to work faster. No-one is going to argue against that. I think we just have to find better ways of dealing with these methods of payment so we can acknowledge people's pain and suffering and try to restore their circumstances as quickly as possible.

The government also recognised that rebuilding would take some time, and we are committed to that rebuilding. The government advanced some $2.2 billion as part of a $5.6 billion reconstruction commitment to see work get underway on essential infrastructure like roads and bridges. We heard earlier from the Minister for Emergency Management that there are something like 9,700 kilometres of severely damaged roads in Queensland, let alone through New South Wales. You can imagine the problem where farming communities rely on one road only and they can no longer get in or out. It is not only a social impost but an impost on their businesses and livelihoods as well. That is quite significant.

The Queensland Natural Disaster Jobs and Skills Package is also there to help a whole range of workers who are affected as well. A lot of businesses have been lost. The owner of the business loses the business but all the workers lose their jobs as well. We have seen a lot of that through Queensland and New South Wales. Queenslanders have received some form of personal assistance in those circumstances. A range of other assistance packages have been put in place. The government continues to provide immediate assistance to people affected by these most recent floods and continues to work with the states and local government authorities to manage assistance through the NDRRA. We have heard about local government areas such as the Balonne, Barcaldine, Barcoo, Blackall-Tambo, Bourke, Carpentaria, Central Highlands, Cloncurry, Doomadgee, Flinders, Isaac, Longreach, McKinlay, Maranoa, Mount Isa, Murweh, Paroo, Quilpie, Richmond and Winton. Unfortunately most of those places are in the electorate of Maranoa—it is a real tragedy that one member has to try to deal with all those. A range of grants have gone out in those areas, and the New South Wales government is doing similar things.

Currently more funding is going out in direct assistance, and we should take note of the enormous amount of goodwill that exists between local government and the state and federal governments to work these processes through. It is never easy. It is a lot of money and we want to make sure it does get to the right people at the right time and does not just get lost in the system with bureaucracy taking over. You might be putting a lot of money into the system but people are not getting the immediate benefit. A lot of work is being done to make sure it is done right, and sometimes that does cause delays. We always regret that. I know we all work hard individually and collectively to make sure the assistance gets through as soon as possible.

For some good reasons I remain a supporter of the one-off levy, and particularly of what we did last time. I accept what the member for Lyne said, that there should be some sort of a fund, but I think having a specific levy where there is specific hardship is a good way to go. It is a good way to deal with a particular issue. Otherwise the funding comes from consolidated revenue—where it comes from anyway. All the money that goes out to flood affected communities or fire affected communities comes from consolidated revenue—that is the fund, in a sense. There is the moral hazard, the potential danger, that if a specific fund is set up that will have some consequences as well in terms of private insurance, business insurance and how individuals in our very generous communities respond. I am more than willing to have the debate. I think it is a worthwhile method to look at but we also need to be cautious on the other side of that so that we get it right. I congratulate the government, the minister and the Prime Minister and thank the member for Lyne for bringing these issues forward.

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