Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a fantastic opportunity to put on the record my thanks to so many in my community who were able to respond to Tropical Cyclone Alfred. Of all the things that I anticipated I would have to deal with as the federal MP for my area, a tropical cyclone in South-East Queensland certainly wasn't one of them. We saw flooding, we saw strong winds, we saw trees coming down, we saw massive blackouts, and mobile blackouts as well, across our community, and we saw multiple homes damaged and lots of business disruption.

I want to start by thanking those who went above and beyond during this crisis. I want to thank Redland City Council's disaster management team—particularly Mike Tate, who leads that team in ensuring a well-coordinated response. I had the opportunity to visit their disaster management centre during the course of the disaster. It was a well-oiled machine, and Mike does a wonderful job there. I want to thank our local Redlands SES units, which were, of course, busy clearing away all those fallen trees, allowing our Energex workers to restore power. I thank them as well for the wonderful job that they did. So many countless outages occurred over the course of that Friday and Saturday, and they were working around the clock to restore those.

Of course, there were the added challenges in my electorate of dealing with those issues on our bay islands and the challenge of getting out there. Those bay islands were cut off for many days over the course of the cyclone. I want to thank the SeaLink, the Amity Trader and the Stradbroke Flyer Gold Cats staff for the work that they did of keeping those boats operating till the last minute to ensure that supplies and emergency response could occur. I want to thank our Queensland police officers for the work they did alerting people to the danger and also doing those critical welfare checks on people afterwards; all our frontline health workers, including the nurses who assisted with the delivery of twin babies at Dunwich right at the heart of the cyclone; and Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics. I particularly want to thank the Australian Army 7th Brigade personnel who came out and assisted the Energex crews with their clean-up efforts. It was terrific to have their support, including one young private who was actually born and raised in the Redlands.

Council's volunteer community champions have acted as an extension of their disaster management arm. They are all volunteers and do a terrific job, particularly out on our islands. I want to thank local church groups who offered shelter, support and recovery assistance, the Rock Christian Church in Capalaba in particular. They were acting effectively as an evacuation centre at a time when council's evacuation centre had to be evacuated due to a tree falling on it. Redlands Community Centre champions support services and other services. They were a lifeline for many not just during the lead-up to the disaster but also in the recovery efforts. The crews of the Marine Rescue Queensland units at Dunwich, at Raby Bay, at Victoria point and at Redland Bay were providing all sorts of support and moving supplies back and forth after the commercial operations had ceased. I want to thank Queensland Fire Department volunteers and I want to thank Andrew Johnson and his team at the Bureau of Meteorology as well. The fact that they were able to pick this thing when it was way out in the sea and the fact that it was going to come back gave us lots of warning. Andrew was a true professional in his efforts to keep MPs updated over the course of that week. I also want to thank the National Emergency Management Agency staff for coordinating the resources and the response efforts of the federal government.

There are many others I want to thank, but I want to thank Minister McAllister as well. She made a terrific effort and was more than happy to take my calls at all hours and provide my community with the support that it needs. I want to thank my state colleagues Rebecca Young, Amanda Stoker, Russell Field and all of the councillors within the Redlands City Council area for the efforts that they put in. It was a phenomenal effort from all in response to quite an unusual situation.

While we've got a few moments, I wanted to touch on some of the lessons that I think policymakers should be taking away from this situation. I think we need more funding for island resilience. I'm pleased that disaster recovery and hardship support has been made available, but immediate relief isn't going to be enough. We need a long-term plan, especially for our island communities, which were amongst the hardest hit. They've got growing populations. They need stronger infrastructure. They need disaster mitigation work, and my LNP state colleagues and I will be pushing for a Redlands community recovery fund and business recovery grants to support those out on the islands.

We cannot allow makeshift housing to continue. Cyclone Alfred exposed the dangers of makeshift housing on our islands. We cannot allow people living in uninsurable, unsafe dwellings on public land in flood-prone areas like we have seen on North Stradbroke Island. Many of those homes lack basic services and are constantly at risk of disaster. A long-term solution is needed—one that ensures safe, legal and affordable housing for all residents. We also need to sort out the national messaging system. Unfortunately, we had a situation where Redlands City Council had to issue a take-shelter warning many hours before they actually wanted to. I think the fact that this new system hasn't been up and running and isn't expected to be up and running until 2027 means we need to fast-track that as much as possible.

The other lesson I think needs to be taken away by policymakers is the need for more hardening, more resilience and more backup for our telecommunications infrastructure. After Alfred, mobile networks failed across the Redlands, cutting off emergency communications when people needed it most. I've been working to improve mobile infrastructure over the course of my term, but reliable mobile coverage isn't just a luxury anymore; it's now a lifeline. I will work with the telcos—I've had some of the telcos in my office already today—and talk about what we can do and what the government's response should be to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

Finally, I think we need to keep an eye out for insurance price gouging. The fact is that cyclone risk has been built into insurance premiums in South-East Queensland for a long period of time. Many of the businesses on the islands have told me in the past about their excessive premiums due to the fact that cyclone risk has been considered. I will be asking the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to monitor insurers and ensure Queenslanders aren't burdened with unjustifiable increases in response to this disaster.

In closing, can I thank everyone who was involved. I thank the community for all the preparation that they did in the lead-up to that week. I think that the work we did saved lives, saved property and ensured that we didn't have the significant disaster that we were anticipating earlier in the week. Thank you.

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