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

It is shocking that just a couple of weeks ago we were devastated by the scenes from northern New South Wales, and today again we're seeing the footage of what's happened to Lismore. After those poor people have probably just started to get on top of the devastation of the last lot of floods, to be facing the same devastation again really is beyond words. It is beyond words to think about how difficult things must be in northern New South Wales at the moment. I want to send a particular message to those who have been evacuated and those who are struggling in Lismore, Byron Bay, Ballina and all of the towns surrounding those centres.

Of course, northern New South Wales is not the only part of Australia that's suffered devastating flooding in recent weeks, and I think all of us who are speaking in this debate would join in sending our heartfelt best wishes and support to every community that's been affected in Queensland and in New South Wales—in northern New South Wales, in Western Sydney and in other parts of Sydney. Even in my own electorate, in the centre of the biggest city in the country, we had some spot flooding, and we had families and businesses affected by that. So this is an incredibly widespread series of events. My heartfelt plea to all of those who continue to be affected is to stay safe, follow the advice of police and emergency services to stay out of floodwaters in particular, and look after each other.

I was in South-East Queensland with the member for Blair and the member for Moreton immediately after the worst flooding in their electorates. I have to say that it was confronting to walk through streets covered in mud, to walk onto the front lawns of homes covered in mud, and to walk into homes and see the watermark way above my head. In fact, in the homes that we were visiting, the water had completely filled the downstairs area and we were looking at watermarks upstairs. So these homes had been flooded above ceiling height. These families had just cleaned up from the last flood a few years ago and were just getting back on their feet, only to suffer this devastation again. It is incredible what human beings can endure in circumstances such as these.

I truly wish that more of the $4.8 billion fund that the government had set aside for disasters had been used. The Emergency Response Fund has now been in place for three disaster seasons and has gained $800 million in interest at a time when that money should have been used to build culverts, levees and emergency evacuation centres. It's clear what a lot of these communities need, and they're quite happy to tell you what they need: they need to stay safe and have a place to go when things get really bad. That this fund exists is beyond understanding. Apparently, it's like a term deposit: 'We're not going to touch it until we grow up.' I don't know what the problem is and why the rollout of this fund has been so slow, but it is completely unacceptable. Labor have said that, if we were in government, we would spend at least $200 million a year of a reconstituted fund on those projects, which would help keep communities safer, as opposed to the impacts we 've seen through these most recent disasters.

Local members, both government and opposition, have been working phenomenally hard in their communities to try and help them recover. I had the Human Services portfolio in 2011. I was ringing local members in Queensland, both LNP members and Labor members, and asking, 'Do you have the help you need?' Local members are phenomenally connected to their communities and arguing for what their communities need for recovery.

But I'm not sure if anybody's had quite the experience that my state colleague Janelle Saffin had. Her home has been completely destroyed and she had to swim for her life to get out of her flooded property. All members of parliament are working well in their communities, but Janelle, it seems, is lucky not to have lost her life. She is in the Lismore area. Having been in Lismore after past floods, I know the toll it takes on local communities who, let's face it, struggle at the best of times. People who are running small businesses in country towns like Lismore aren't living a life of luxury; they're working very hard every day. I know that these most recent two flood events, back-to-back, will really take their toll. I'm grateful to all of the people who are working hard in communities that have been flood affected. People in an official capacity are there— our emergency services personnel; our Defence personnel; and the public servants who are going up from the Department of Human Services and others agencies to help people get the payments that they need just to buy nappies, buy medicine, get their prescriptions filled. I am grateful to all of them for doing that work of helping people. There is also the example of volunteering that we see after natural disasters. Every single time, you see Australians turning up without question, with no thought for themselves, not stinting in their labour to help their neighbours. I saw this with the member for Blair and the member for Moreton when I was visiting their electorates. I ran into people I knew there. They were a long way from home and were covered in mud, literally hosing out people's homes—washing the mud out of lounge rooms. Thank you again to all of those volunteers as well.

I will finish by saying this. On that trip to Brisbane, one of the places that my colleague the member for Blair took me to was Ipswich State High School. It's a fantastic, brilliant high school that is brilliantly led. Their oval had been completely covered by the floods. Their school hall was in a pretty poor condition, and was even before the floods. I was really happy to announce, with the member for Blair, a $2 million investment in a new community sports hub for that school. These kinds of practical investments are really the things we will need to do to help communities rebuild, to help them reconnect with one another and to help them recover from what has been a really devastating incident, coming on the back of these natural disasters that seem to become more frequent and worse with the passage of time.

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