Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with a great deal of pride in my home state of Queensland that I rise to speak on the Prime Minister's statement on the recent natural disasters which have plagued our country once again. We have seen the people of Queensland come together once again in the worst of circumstances to lend a hand and to lift each other up from the wreckage brought upon our great state. As Leader of the Opposition said a little earlier, 'the worst of mother nature brings out the best in human nature'. I can say from my experience in the 2011 floods in my own community that is exactly what we saw across our country and across Queensland.

I particularly want to acknowledge that the member for Hinkler, Mr Paul Neville, lives in an electorate around Bundaberg that was particularly hit by the recent floods, the worst floods on record. The stories that he shared with his colleagues in parliament are ones that will not easily be forgotten. He told a story in the coalition party room of when he visited the house of a lady in her nineties who had no family to speak of to assist her. She had lost absolutely everything. He said she had about 10 per cent of her possessions left. Mr Neville, the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Nationals in the Senate, Barnaby Joyce, pitched in for a day to help this lady clean out her house and organise her belongings. It did not fix any of her problems, but it was a step in the right direction. They were there to give her some support in an incredibly difficult time.

As someone who lost a family home to fire when I was growing up, I know how devastating that experience can be, both psychologically and mentally. With floods you do not know how much you have lost or your path to recovery, because when a house burns down you lose all your possessions and you grow to accept that. You realise you have to rebuild and move on, but with floods you do not know whether the house can be rebuilt or you can live in the same house when it has been cleaned up. The psychological trauma extends for a very long time, and to see that across our communities is devastating. But to see the human spirit come through and individuals come together is something we should be proud of. I am proud to call myself a Queenslander and an Australian.

I turn to my own community. We were not as badly affected as we were in the 2011 floods, but there was a great deal of uncertainty and some minor damage across my electorate. I want to pay particular tribute to the state member for Pumicestone, Lisa France, the member for Morayfield, Darren Grimwade and the councillor for Division 1 in the Moreton Bay Regional Council, Gary Parsons. We were helping people when the floods and particularly the storms in my electorate were occurring with devastating winds. We were talking to locals and helping where we could. We went to the SES depot on Bribie Island where there was pouring rain and winds were gusting at 140 kilometres an hour. We asked the SES volunteers where they needed help and resources. They said they simply needed people to fill sandbags. We said we could do that, and they said they needed more people than the three of us. I said I could help out with the and I really want to thank my community because I put out some messages on Facebook and on Twitter through my office and very quickly we had a very large number of volunteers, more volunteers than could feed the sand-bagging machine out there to help in our communities.

So the three of us and a great deal of very compassionate locals filled hundreds of sandbags in very difficult conditions that afternoon. When I got home late that night, after having been out everywhere and with the wind still blowing, there was an SES volunteer across the road from me on the roof of the local pub in incredibly dangerous circumstances putting a tarp on the roof. I thought: to be doing that after the day that we have just had really shows their commitment and their service to our community. I am incredibly proud to say that I have people like that in my local community.

I will quickly touch on the residents of Dale Street in Burpengary. In 2011 Dale Street was very badly damaged by flooding. It is an area very close to a river bank that consistently floods. After the 2011 floods I spoke to the mayor, made a submission with a range of recommendations to the commission of inquiry that was established in Queensland, one of the most important recommendations being a flood buy-back scheme similar to that of the Brisbane City Council. If properties are consistently flooded the residents of that area obviously struggle to obtain insurance or else pay incredibly high premiums. They cannot sell their property and they are trapped in a cycle of misfortune.

Unfortunately, the progression to develop a flood buy-back scheme for the Moreton Bay Regional Council has not got to the point I would like it to. While I acknowledge that the council, the mayor and the councillors have made some progress in developing this scheme, I call on them to progress it as far as they can, to use this as an opportunity to put a new emphasis on developing a flood buy-back scheme for the Moreton Bay Regional Council. It is something that will fundamentally change the lives of people who are in a very difficult, effectively inescapable, circumstance. I would say to them, 'We are here to support. I know my state colleagues are here to support. We really do need to see this program developed in the Moreton Bay Regional Council, and there is already a scheme well and truly established in the Brisbane City Council.'

I spoke to the member for Ryan, Jane Prentice, during the floods that we have just had and she said her frustration was that locals did not want to sell their properties to the council. I said that my frustration was that the council did not want to buy those properties. There is a version that already exists and is something that we can easily adopt. We need to ensure that people can have a safe and happy existence in our local community.

I will conclude by saying that even though we were not as badly affected as we were previously, in my community I saw once again incredible generosity from locals who supported not only local relief efforts but especially those in Bundaberg. I saw friends helping complete strangers, neighbours helping neighbours and I am incredibly proud to represent such a generous community. As Tony Abbott said, the worst of Mother Nature really does bring out the best in human nature. I am very proud to call myself a Queenslander today.

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