Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you are a Queenslander—you will understand what I am going to say. In Queensland, this year particularly, we have had some fairly wild and quite variable weather about the state. We heard in the parliament today the reference to the metres of rain which have fallen in Mackay. We have had very significant problems from monsoonal troughs coming down from the north across the state and bringing wild weather and lots of rain. We also have cyclones of course. So it is very important that our regions in Queensland have accurate weather information. Mr Deputy Speaker, in case you have not caught up with this—and I am glad the member for Capricornia is here because she may not have caught up with it either—the Rudd government has announced today that it may close the Bureau of Meteorology offices in Cairns, Townsville and Rockhampton and in Launceston. That is an outrage.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Hall interjecting

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Shortland, together we have to rail against that, because we cannot have our communities in the north not protected and not served by the very professional people of the bureau. They provide an on-the-spot professional service. They are able to advise the local media in real time as to what is happening and what is expected to happen. I am advised from a Senate estimates committee that the first bureau to go, if it is to go, will probably be Rockhampton. We have to fight against that. We cannot allow that to happen. We cannot allow the Rudd government to shaft the north, because that is what this is about. The radio crosses are so important because—

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Hall interjecting

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Shortland, have you lived through a cyclone, as I have? Have you been in the position where you need vital weather information locally? When you have a cyclone coming in across Halifax Bay in Townsville and it is bearing down on Townsville with 200-kilometre-an-hour winds, you need to know something about it. That is why it is important that the Rudd government be made to understand that we will not sit idly by. We will fight this tooth and nail. We will make sure that the weather bureau stays in the regions of Australia and certainly in the regions of Queensland. I back the statements made by Senator Ian Macdonald, senator for Queensland, who said today that the closure would affect the ability of the Townsville region to prepare for extreme weather conditions. I hope we can get some bipartisan help on that and I look forward to having a discussion with the member for Capricornia.