Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Communities in my electorate were also among those affected by the deluge and the floods at the end of February and the beginning of March this year. Homes and businesses in Hill End, West End, South Brisbane, Kangaroo Point, Norman Park, Coorparoo, Stones Corner, Hawthorn, Bulimba, Morningside and other areas were all affected by the rain bomb, as it's been called, and by the floods that followed. I want to take this opportunity to thank multiple organisations and individuals for their efforts during and after that weather event and those floods. I know that my fellow representatives would be equally grateful to all of these groups. Let me start with community centres, locally based charities and emergency relief organisations.

West End Community House (Community Plus) was a great place for people to get hot meals. Food was being exchanged there and we had services being provided there. Micah Projects is a terrific organisation. They supported a lot of people, including by setting up a temporary place of warmth and shelter where people could get food. They did that in cooperation with the Australian Hellenic Progress Association, the Greek community association, which has quite a famous hall. The Bee Gees once played there. The hall was used for emergency relief during the floods in West End. Orange Sky laundry were of help in the floods. Red Cross, the Salvos, Meals on Wheels and Foodbank, who are based in my electorate, did so much work during the floods. The same is true of FareShare, a big commercial kitchen which turns Foodbank food and other donated food into ready-made meals. A rapid response team turned out to support workers who were helping others with the floods and to support the community. Backbone, the arts organisation, the East Brisbane Bowls Club and the 'Save our Bowlo' campaign set up a temporary relief place at East Brisbane, which was also affected by floods, to assist people who needed a hot meal. There is a photo on my Instagram of Sally, who was serving meals on their first night there—and I've got to tell you the food smelled absolutely delicious. At the YMCA Cannon Hill Community Centre, at the former Cannon Hill bowlo, Wendy and Alison and the volunteers were helping with food exchange but also with things like collecting toiletries. They ran a toiletries donation service for people affected by the floods, which was really important.

There were also multiple residents groups. The Bulimba Community Centre, for example, helped out in the Bulimba community. Kurilpa Futures, on the Kurilpa Peninsula, did a lot of the initial volunteer coordination to make sure that people who needed help were connected with people who wanted to give it. The West End Community Association provided a sort of information exchange and clearinghouse for services.

I want to thank the workers in multiple government agencies in all spheres of government that provided support. That includes Services Australia—and another big shout-out to our local liaison, Frank, at Services Australia and Centrelink, and also to the executive, Michelle, who I spoke to on a number of occasions during the floods—Miyun, from the NRRA; and Andrew, the CEO of the Bureau of Meteorology, and all of his team, who were incredibly responsive and so helpful in getting ahead of us with all the information.

Those are all federal agencies, but there were plenty of other agencies as well. A big shout-out to Rhys, from Energex, who installed a new transformer down at Hill End. I was doorknocking—I was basically doing welfare checks during the floods—and residents were telling me that one of the problems with the electricity down at West End and Hill End was a transformer that was below the flood line. I harassed the state government about this and, next minute, Mick de Brenni, the minister, turned out the Energex guys to move that transformer. It was absolutely terrific to see them being so responsive. So I thank everyone from Energex. I thank everyone from Maritime Safety Queensland, who worked incredibly hard to look after the entire Brisbane River—and a shout-out to my good friend Matt, who works in MSQ. He was involved in getting that crane to safety—all Brisbane people know about that crane. I thank everyone at the Morningside sandbag depot. The team got up at three o'clock to come in from Ipswich, where they were also facing flooding, and other areas. They were lifting sandbags and helping the locals to look after the properties in the flood event. That was quite a big effort from them; it was just incredible. We had a great chat to Jerry in between forklift loads and sandbags. He said, 'Could you also just cook the barbecue?' We were very happy to do that. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the barbecue to work, first off.

I also want to add my thanks to the team at Buranda 'Guzies', Guzman y Gomez. I rolled in and said, 'Hey, could we have 20 different hot breakfasts, all with guacamole?' They dropped everything and got them out the door for us—at 6.30 am—to look after those depot workers. Thank you so much to everyone who travelled to Morningside to help the entire south of Brisbane with sandbags that day. It was incredible work from them and the people at 'Guzies'.

Thank you also to the ferry staff, the public transport staff, all the Brisbane City Council clean-up crew and the people managing waste. There was a lot of waste out of these floods because of the inundation of so many properties, particularly around West End but also through Hawthorne and other areas. I can only imagine what waste crews were dealing with. I thank Urban Utilities staff, who we had to call on when there were a range of problems with the Urban Utilities infrastructure in West End, where the basements of the big apartment buildings had been flooded. I thank the department of communities staff, departmental staff from various other departments' ministerial office staff, transport and traffic people, SEQ Water—all of these different agencies who are working to keep people safe.

I give a big shout-out to my own staff—who did everything from hauling sandbags to cooking barbecues to cleaning up community organisations to washing dishes—as well for all the help they provided. And, of course, I thank the Australian Defence Force, who were working so hard to help the clean-up. I want to say thank you to all the local businesses who supported. They made donations, food and provided phone charging. Avid Reader even had washing machines and dryers at their bookshop. It was quite incredible. But there are too many businesses to name. They were all so supportive. Insurance industry workers and the Insurance Council of Australia: thank you for your engagement with the locals.

Thank you to our wonderful local churches and other religious groups, some from further afield as well—you know who you are—who provided hot meals, a place to shelter, a place to charge the phone and, in some cases, financial support to people who are doing it tough.

Thank you to our locally based media organisations, who were a crucial instrument during these floods to keep people safe: ABC Brisbane, 4AAA 98.9 Indigenous radio, and Jan Bowman from the Westender who was keeping everyone informed through the flood event.

I want to give a shout-out to a couple of unions: the United Firefighters Union, who let us perch a barbecue on Montague Road so that we could give people some hot meals who hadn't had a hot meal in a couple of days, including some people who had been in really serious distress; and the Electrical Trades Union, for their campaign Operation Energise to get electricians to help flood-affected people all through the inner south-east.

I want to give a shout-out to the Bulimba RSL as well. They cooked a barbecue for people who'd been campaigning on the big volunteer questions down at Bulimba, Hawthorne and Balmoral. They brought together everyone from businesses to community groups to just locals helping out, fed them all a snag and had a yarn with them.

Thank you to all of our SES volunteers, who have been absolutely sterling. We all saw the grief that our community felt when an SES volunteer from further afield, from Lowood, died. I'm sure Mr Neumann, the member for Blair, who is here today, will mention it. Our hearts really went out to her family. I think every SES volunteer and everyone who drew on their help was reminded once more how valuable SES volunteers are to our community and how grateful we need to be for them.

I want to say thanks to all of the current and former MPs and counsellors who helped out in the area. I want to say thanks to community members—everyone; mums, dads, kids—who went and helped out at places like Eastern Suburbs Tigers that went under, like the Brisbane Jazz Club at Kangaroo Point, like the netball courts at the Metropolitan Districts Netball Association in Coorparoo, all of the many different organisations that required clean-up. People went and did everything they could to help them out.

I give a big shout-out to Labor Party volunteers as well who were helping us to make sure that we were cooking a barbecue, knocking on doors to do welfare checks, holding stalls to provide information about federal support that was available and other forms of support that were available, and even turning up with their camp batteries so people could charge their phones.

One of our local councillors, Kara Cook, now has a campaign going on back-flow devices. I encourage everyone who's concerned about back-flow devices to have a look at her social media. I'm also running a survey of my own to get feedback about what needs to be done better in future disasters, and I welcome everyone's feedback. A lot of people are now seeing, really up close and personal, the impacts of climate change and they want to see real action on climate change. I'm hearing from people on that.

I'm also hearing from people about how to respond to disasters and what they would like to see in the future: things like making sure there's no differential between different states when it comes to disaster payments and making sure we have Centrelink personnel in the field without having to have an argument about it, so just basic responses. I want to give a big shout-out to the Northern Rivers, who my community is also deeply concerned about.

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