Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about some of our heroes of the 2022 floods in the electorate of Ryan. I was in my community in the 2011 flood event as well. It was difficult to see many of the same people who had gone through the earlier flood event going through it again in 2022. The electorate is diverse and people were affected in different ways. The communities of Moggill, Bellbowrie, Pullenvale and Brookfield were cut off by floodwater for a number of days. People in Fig Tree Pocket, Indooroopilly, St Lucia, Toowong and Auchenflower were inundated by the river as well as by the rising creek levels. People in The Gap, and further afield in Mitchelton, were inundated by fast flowing creek water while the rain was falling.

No matter how residents were affected, they have shown tremendous spirit and resilience. It has been a sincere pleasure, during my time as the member for Ryan, to be able to join them in their community spirit as they seek to rally around those residents who have been badly affected by the flood. In doing so, I want to pay testament to some of those community members who went above and beyond the call of duty for their fellow residents during the flood. I put out the call to the community to ask them to nominate people who had particularly assisted them but perhaps hadn't sought any credit. Of course, they don't do it for the recognition, but they rightly deserve it all the same. These were people who saw a need and, rather than waiting for somebody else to do it, simply pitched in and got it done themselves. So I would like to acknowledge a few of those.

First of all, there is Damian Reynoldson. He is described by his neighbours as a family man and a quiet achiever. He has a friendly and compassionate nature, with many practical skills. With the support of his wife, Christie, Damian became known as 'the Witton Island hero.' His skills supported and enabled many in the flood-affected Witton Road-Twigg Street area to deal with the challenges thrown at them. For a time, as you can imagine from the name 'Witton Island hero', their little part of the world, those two streets, became an island cut off from the rest of the community, with floodwaters all around them. Moving furniture; getting essential supplies by boat; cleaning with pressure cleaners, shovels and brooms; and providing portable generators for power—the list goes on and on. These were some of the things that Damian was able to procure and assist his fellow residents with. Congratulations and thank you, Damian, the hero of Witton Island.

Now to Anthony 'Herbie' Herbert. Herbie mobilised the blue and green army of GPS players, juniors and their parents to pitch in and help residents affected by the Enoggera Creek flooding. Herbie's fellow residents said he 'seemed to be everywhere'. He was carting around possessions out on the footpath, manning hoses, emptying pools of their mud—he told me he became quite an expert at this, unfortunately—and reassuring people that this was the worst part and, from now on, it was going to get better because they were all working together to chip in, piece by piece. He was there from first light until well after dark each day and until the job was done. So, well done to Herbie and all of those GPS players who went out to assist their community.

And now to Shane Ehrhardt. Will lives on Macquarie Street in St Lucia, which is notorious for flooding. His property was flooded on the Sunday, leaving him no way to leave. But, thankfully, his apartment was still above the waterline when he went to bed that night. On Monday morning, with the water still rising towards his apartment, he had no choice but to evacuate. But the SES, as you can imagine, was busy helping others whose homes were currently being flooded. So Will and his family had a few hours of nervous waiting, watching the water continuing to rise and feeling helpless. Will's work colleague Shane suddenly appeared, coming to the rescue on their back stairs. He was climbing out of his own kayak that he had paddled to the apartment, holding a thermos of coffee. Will said that he had to hold tears back as he saw Shane. While Will and his family prepared their belongings to paddle out, Shane, not content with the rescue that he was already undertaking, popped out to rescue a pregnant woman and her partner who had called for help. After Shane came back and took Will and his family to safety, he then calmly got back into his kayak and paddled off. Shane ended up spending about five continuous hours on the Monday finding strangers in Macquarie Street in St Lucia who needed help, leading them and their belongings onto the kayak and paddling them out. Will said, 'Shane is a private person and would die if he knew I was writing about him here.' Well, goodness knows what Shane thinks of me reading him into Hansard! Will said: 'I bet he didn't even tell most of his friends what he did that day. He is my hero and probably a hero to many who met him for the first time in his kayak and will never see him again. Thank you, Shane.'

Nathan Purcell is a young electrician with a new business, but he didn't hesitate to jump in by helping neighbours in his area to clean up or by doing countless electricity checks so that people could plug in gernies and fridges. Residents would mention a friend down the road who had lost power, and Nathan would be there within five minutes to check the electricity so that they could get their power back on and they could get back on with their lives and the clean-up. Thank you for your efforts, Nathan.

Brad Colliss, the owner of the local Bellbowrie fruit shop, kayaked across a cut off road to his own shop to open it up, even though the shopping centre itself had lost power. Customers who didn't have cash on them—there was no power so there was no EFTPOS—were told they could pay later, or, if they were struggling with the flood, to just take the food that was there. This spurred on an incredible sense of community spirit that saw people paying it forward and leaving extra money to help others. Wendy nominated Brad and said: 'I know in the scheme of things this is only a small event while people lost their homes, but it certainly contributed to people's good mental health in sad times.' Well done Brad, and thank you for giving away your product.

Dan 'The Tinnie Man' Hill acquired the name The Tinny Man because he spent a number of days using his own tinnie and his own fuel to ferry stranded community members across Moggill Road when it was cut off. His efforts reunited families, got people to important medical appointments, got essential hospital workers to their shifts and delivered essential medicines and supplies. When I met Dan out on Moggill Road, at the time we was taking aged-care workers across in his tinny, so they could cook and care for those at the RSL home at Pinjarra Hills who had been cut off by the flood.

Likewise, I would like to thank the SES western group and all of the SES workers in the Ryan electorate. The 40 volunteers of the SES western group based in Toowong completed over 1,100 hours of service to the local community between them during the flooding event. Members assisted and volunteered their time for initial sandbagging and flood mitigation response, completed temporary repairs and evacuated residents who had been inundated—all while their own depot was going underwater. It was an absolutely extraordinary effort.

These are just a few of the local 2022 flood heroes who have been nominated by their own community—by those they helped—because their efforts just meant so much to so many people, and I am so very proud of our community. I know what the community went through was horrible and will stay with people for a long time. But it should also stay with us that those residents rallied around each other and pitched in where they could.

Likewise, I would like to thank the ADF and those members of the Defence Force who came out of Gallipoli Barracks in the electorate of Ryan to help others, particularly with the clean-up around St Lucia, Auchenflower and Toowong. The way they turned up in such great numbers day after day, to break the back of some of the most gruelling work meant an awful lot. A lot of them were sacrificing time away from their families. A lot of them had their own homes affected by flood, but they put that to one side so they could do their job and help others. Such is the spirit of our ADF.

We know that the hardest time is not the flood; it's not even the initial clean-up, because there are a lot of people around then. We learnt that in 2011. The hardest time is when everybody has gone and residents, all of a sudden, find themselves by themselves with an uninhabitable home, trying to rebuild their lives. I want to remind them that we are here for them all the time if they need anything at all. There are plenty of people in our community willing to help. I encourage them to reach out, and I will stay in touch with them.

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