Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The situation with the floods in the Riverina has not yet been averted. There are still communities on very grave flood watch alert in the Riverina and the situation is quite critical in those areas downstream where sandbagging has been done and people have been evacuated and now they are just waiting, watching, hoping and praying. Elsewhere in the Riverina there is not one nook, not one cranny of the electorate which was not affected by the rains of the weekend before last. Rainfall which fell was anywhere from 250mm right up to a record 400mm which was dumped on Marrar and other parts of the Riverina. It had a very serious effect on all of the ephemeral streams, and certainly the Murrumbidgee River, from which the electorate takes its name.

There were places evacuated, including Hanwood, Gundagai, Lockhart, North Wagga, The Rock, Tumut, Uranquinty and Yoogali, just after that initial weekend downpour of rain. The Rock is not in my electorate, it is in Sussan Ley's Farrer electorate, but it was very severely flood affected, as was the community of Lockhart in the Farrer electorate. Elsewhere we have had floods in Northern Victoria in Nathalia, and the situation has been quite critical. While we have had the very worst of weather we have also seen the very best in human nature and people have rallied together magnificently for the cause. I am going to single out the State Emergency Service's regional controller James McTavish. James is a former army officer and he has had a lot of experience with flooding, certainly he was involved heavily in the relief efforts in the Queensland floods of 2010 and 2011, as well as the Moree floods of more recent times. He was a calm and reasoned person in a time of crisis. It was through his wonderful direction and coordination that we have avoided any serious injuries—any injuries whatsoever to speak of. Certainly, there were no fatalities. That is a tremendous thing, because I know in the 2010-11 Queensland floods we had a huge number of deaths, including many in the Grantham township. We averted that.

At 9:30 pm last Monday night, James McTavish made the call for the extraordinary move to evacuate the central business district and central Wagga Wagga area. It meant that 8,000 people needed to move homes in the middle of the night. He called on the efforts of the Army, the Air Force and the Navy. We are blessed to have those three services present in our city. They went to work doorknocking. The alert went out on telephones and word spread very quickly that central Wagga Wagga was being evacuated. It as an extraordinary move. It was a big call for the SES to make and certainly a big call for James McTavish to make, but he made the right call.

As events turned out, the flood did not go over the levee bank, which is structurally positioned to withstand a flood of 10.7 metres. The flood peaked at 10.6. We were 10 centimetres away from disaster. Wagga Wagga dodged a bullet. There were suspect areas of the levee bank, one where a wombat had dug a hole and one where another hole had appeared. The trucks went in and dumped a heap of dirt and there was much sandbagging and reinforcement of the levee bank in those areas. There were other patches where the levee bank, which was first constructed in 1962 and obviously upgraded since then, was at risk. We ended up being 10 centimetres from disaster. Had the water started to go over the top of the levee bank it would have taken probably only five minutes for the levee bank to give way. Pretty soon we would have had a 100-metre wide gaping hole with the muddy river water swirling through in the middle of night, and had that call not been made it would have meant a huge loss of life.

There has been criticism of the SES and, unfortunately, of the decision to evacuate Wagga Wagga. But it was the right decision to make and anyone who wants to criticise should consider themselves very lucky that we have someone such as James McTavish in the position of SES controller. He made that brave call and it was the right decision.

The Premier of New South Wales, Mr Barry O'Farrell, visited on Tuesday. When he arrived in Wagga Wagga he had an aerial tour by helicopter. When he landed in the area near the local emergency control area, hundreds of people had swarmed in to start sandbagging. It was an amazing scene. I have never seen anything like it in all my life. There were children from as young as seven and eight, school girls, school boys, people right up to the age of 80, people who probably properly belonged in nursing homes were out there holding bags open whilst men and women, some of whom were pregnant, were busy shovelling sand. It was just like a scene out of a disaster movie.

But you see the best in people in the worst of times. Wagga Wagga people rallied magnificently to fill up sandbags faster than was possible, because we ran out of dirt. Pretty soon the sand was replaced by loam. Trucks then had to go onto farms elsewhere to find anything we could put into the sandbags to put in front of shops and businesses in the central business district and in front of homes in the area, which looked as though it was going to be inundated. We were very lucky in Wagga Wagga. Not so lucky were the people of Ungarie. When I went to West Wyalong on the Monday morning to do constituent interviews, Ungarie had been evacuated overnight. Ungarie is not a prosperous community and their homes received a huge amount of water from Humbug Creek. It is not the first time in recent years that Humbug Creek has overflowed, but the 300 residents of Ungarie had been evacuated and were being housed in the West Wyalong sports stadium. Despite the fact that some of these people who, as I say, are not the most prosperous of people, got out with only the shirts on their backs and despite the fact that kids had lost their toys, families had lost their precious belongings, had furniture destroyed and everything else that is associated with flood waters, these people had a marvellous resilience and a marvellous upbeat manner about them. I was just amazed, and also at the work of the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and St Vincent de Paul, who moved in very quickly and helped those people—found them clothes and bought them food. The West Wyalong community responded magnificently as did communities right throughout the Riverina.

The Premier arrived and offered any state assistance that he could muster for the people of Wagga Wagga, as well as Ungarie, obviously, and also Tumut and Gundagai, which had also been flood affected and where businesses and homes had been inundated. We do not get too many prime ministerial visits in Wagga Wagga—in fact, I could almost name them on one hand for the past 50 years—but the Prime Minister visited Wagga Wagga on Wednesday, and the community was very pleased that she made her presence felt. After the briefing from James McTavish and other SES people we went into the nearby emergency control centre, where the Prime Minister was greeted by a woman who, despite having her North Wagga home completely inundated, had manned the fort there at the emergency control centre. She told the Prime Minister just how important it was to be with her colleagues at this time of crisis; much more important than to try to get whatever she could out of her home. She said, 'Well, it is gone anyway so I might as well be here with my colleagues.' That sort of summed up the spirit of the Wagga Wagga people.

The Prime Minister had an aerial tour by helicopter to see for herself the damage caused. Then, while she stood on the Wiradjuri Bridge as the swirling muddy waters of the Murrumbidgee went underneath, she promised that she would do whatever she could from a government point of view to make sure that the people of the Riverina were not forgotten and, indeed, that the people of Farrer—as my colleague joins me here in the Federation Chamber—were not forgotten.

To that end I do hope that the argy-bargy that is currently, unfortunately, existing between state and federal governments is sorted. Try as I might to sort out emergency payments for people via Centrelink they have not been forthcoming. I am not putting the blame on any government in particular, but it is a situation that just needs to be sorted. It is a situation that the opposition leader called on to be sorted today. I am sure the Prime Minister knows full well the extent of the damage caused; she saw it for herself. She saw the heartache in people's eyes. I saw it in her own eyes and I believed her when she said that she would do whatever she could to help the people of the Riverina and elsewhere in this flood calamity. I just hope that this situation between the state and federal government is sorted in the next 24 hours so that those emergency cash payments to families and individuals can come through, because some people do not have a cent to their name at the moment.

Certainly, the people of Griffith had a situation which they have not faced before. The Mirrool Creek, which between the early 1980s and 2010 had not had a trickle of water in it at its source in the Temora district, all of a sudden became a 15-kilometre raging torrent—a lake moving steadily towards the Griffith area. Once it got into the irrigation channels and canals it created mayhem. Yenda had to be evacuated, it caused severe flooding around the Barellan area and the Griffith suburbs of Hanwood and Yoogali were not spared either.

There were a lot of concerns by people in Yenda that they were evacuated too soon. That has been a problem that has been acknowledged by authorities in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. It is something that we will need to look at after all the waters subside and the clean up is done. Certainly a lot of people in Yenda were most annoyed that they had to leave their shops and their houses when the water was not really at its height and not really threatening, and then a period of dry time lasted for hours and hours. The area was cordoned off by police and local government officials and these people were not allowed to get into their homes, which caused some consternation which was expressed very passionately at regional community meetings held in Griffith. However, that said, there were no injuries or deaths in the Griffith area. It is better to be safe than sorry. The SES made the call they felt was right at the time. The important thing is that nobody was hurt in these dire flood events.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, visited Wagga Wagga yesterday and I was very pleased to have him there. He went to great pains to go there. In fact, I tried to talk Mr Abbott's office out of his coming to Wagga Wagga as I felt that people had been overwhelmed by the whole exercise. A lot of people were very fatigued. They had been out fighting the good fight against the floods. A lot of people had lost everything. Others had lost nothing but had the inconvenience and disruption of having their businesses affected and were making a lot of noise and fuss and bother about the fact that their lives had been disrupted. I tried to tell Mr Abbott's office that I thought it would perhaps be best to come at another time. But he was insistent on coming and, as it turned out, I am glad he did. Rather than it being some sort of media stunt or circus with a flyover using valuable SES equipment, helicopters and resources and rather than getting into people's way Mr Abbott rolled up his sleeves and offered to help. After a briefing at the SES he and I went out and helped the people of North Wagga. We walked right around the suburb dropping in on people.

One of the people we met was an elderly fellow by the name of Allan Bell, who became quite emotional. Mr Abbott said, 'Gidday, mate, can I give you a hand?' Mr Bell appreciated it but then, upon the awful realisation that he had lost everything and also with Mr Abbott there and I suppose the glare of some of the national media who were there, he broke down and was quite emotional. And you can understand that. His feelings were reflected by people right throughout the city and throughout my electorate and also Sussan Ley's electorate of Farrer. We got in and lifted some things out and moved some fencing. We then went to the neighbour's place and pulled out carpets and got quite dirty. I know that the opposition leader is a driven man but he is also almost a machine in some ways. He got in and did a lot of heavy lifting and anybody who thought it was a media stunt I can guarantee you that my arms and legs are not feeling today as if it were a media stunt. We got in and helped and the locals appreciated it. They appreciated the fact that the Prime Minister came, they appreciated the fact that that Premier of New South Wales came, and they certainly appreciated the fact that the opposition leader got in and got dirty and helped out with a lot of the mop-up operations.

The clean-up operations are going to take many months. A lot needs to be done right throughout the Riverina. I was at great pains to point out in any media interviews I did—and I did them right around the countryside, and I will come back to the media in a minute—that this was not just a Wagga Wagga flood, even though by Wagga Wagga flood standards it was very high. It did not reach the record of 10.97 metres, in 1844, when there was hardly anybody in Wagga Wagga, and it certainly did not reach the four peaks of 1870 and earlier. Fortunately it did not reach the big peak on 30 August 1974, when the Murrumbidgee River topped at 10.74 metres. Many people still living in Wagga Wagga will recall that flood. The good folk at North Wagga remember that flood, because they too were inundated then.

But Wagga Wagga people are very resilient, as are Riverina people. They are very resilient and brave and they will bounce back from this. A lot of scorn was poured on the climate people who told us that the dams were never going to be full, the rivers were going to run dry and it would never rain again. There was a lot of comment about those sorts of things. People said, 'Well, look at us now.' It certainly is, as Dorothea Mackellar said, a land 'of droughts and flooding rains'.

A fundraiser will be held in Wagga Wagga—but it will be a regional fundraiser, I am pleased to say—next month. Already many bands and musicians have promised their assistance. We are going to need a lot of government assistance as well as financial assistance from locals and corporate bodies to assist those people who have lost just about everything.

What needs to be done with the levee bank? It needs to be heightened and strengthened. We cannot afford to take the risk of having to evacuate the city again. We certainly cannot afford to take the risk of a bigger flood than 10.7 metres coming down and destroying our beautiful and magnificent city. We also need to examine the releases from Burrinjuck into an already flooded Murrumbidgee Valley. In 2010, the Burrinjuck was allowed to flow out. We need to look at the capacity levels of Burrinjuck and manage that dam better so that we are not allowing huge releases into an already flooded system. As I say, we need to get cash payments to those who need them desperately, and we need to sort out that situation between the state and the federal government in the next 24 hours.

I spoke about the media. I have to say that the media responded magnificently, both the commercial media and certainly ABC Riverina, which is managed by Christopher Coleman. My two sons, Nicholas and Alexander, and I went in and helped evacuate the radio station at ABC Riverina. There was a headline for you: 'Conservative politician helps rescue ABC'. Certainly they were appreciative of the fact that they were able to get up to higher ground—indeed, to one of the evacuation centres at Wagga Wagga High School—and continue operations from there. Chris and his team did a magnificent job to keep updating people, from Gundagai down to Carrathool and Darlington Point and all places in between, on when they might expect river peaks and what to do in that dreadful time.

The New South Wales Volunteer Rescue Association, an organisation which started in Wagga Wagga in 1950, when we had a particularly wet year with many, many floods, was magnificent, as was the Rural Fire Service, the police, the SES, the three branches of our Australian defence forces and all the local government bodies right throughout the Riverina. They were magnificent. Unfortunately, they spent a lot of time manning cordoned off areas and they copped a bit of abuse because of it, including of SES and VRA people. That was unfortunate. Sometimes patience gets tested in these times of crises. Some people copped a mouthful of abuse when perhaps a helping hand might have been better.

But we will learn from this flood. Next time around, we will be better prepared. Certainly, I cannot speak highly enough of those people who chipped in and helped. It was an unprecedented event. You do not get 400 millimetres falling on a weekend and not cop a flood of this magnitude, but we will come out the other side stronger for it. I just hope that, in the weeks and months ahead, people pull together as they have in the last week or so to help those who have lost everything to mop up and clean up. I thank the House.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to commend the member for Riverina on his contribution, which was obviously detailed. On behalf of this side of the chamber, and as a Queenslander—with the member for Chifley, being from New South Wales, having to leave the chamber—I particularly know what it is like to have been flooded. My home town of St George has suffered three significant floods in the last two years. In my electorate of Moreton 5,200 properties had water go over the floorboards. So I know how horrible it is. I know that the busy task of cleaning up has only just begun. It is easy for politicians to come out and see it at the start. I was lucky enough to go out to St George with the Prime Minister. I think it was the first time in 160 years that the Prime Minister had ever been there. Unfortunately she had to go back there almost a year later because of another flood. I know that it takes a long time to rebuild. I would give this word of advice to the member for Riverina, the member for Farrer and others: three months on from the disaster, the busyness of cleaning up and getting life back in order can often be the most dramatic time in a community, when people realise all of those photographs, all of those memories—all of those things that are so much a part of a person's life—have been washed away down the river. That can be a very dramatic and traumatic time for people, so I urge him to look out for those signs in his community. Once the community workers and the volunteers and the bands and the benefits have gone, that can be a time when a federal member really has to walk around his or her community and offer their support.

Thankfully, there were no fatalities. I listened with interest to the member's comments about the levee. I know those opposite sometimes have a problem with the other sort of flood levy, but a levee with a double 'e' is something. When you see that 10 centimetres can make a world of difference to a community, it is certainly to be looked at as much as possible in terms of protecting a community. It is always great to see that community spirit come out when times are tough. It is the great Australian tradition—or maybe it is the great human condition—that we do step up when times are tough. And, as I said, people will have a watching brief in the three months ahead. The thoughts of this side of the chamber are with the people of New South Wales who have experienced those floods and I wish them well with their rebuilding efforts.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to join with my colleague the member for Riverina. A support the kind words of the member for Moreton and others in this place who represent communities affected by the flooding we have seen across New South Wales and Victoria in the last few weeks. Over half of the local government areas in Farrer have been declared natural disaster areas by the New South Wales government to date and I thank them for their speedy declarations. While these disaster declarations release some funds for the clean-up and the recovery ahead, many families and households need immediate financial assistance until they can get back on their feet. An Australian government disaster relief payment makes available through Centrelink an immediate emergency payment of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child.

I note the comments from the Prime Minister when she visited the electorate of Riverina last week and said that her government stands ready to do all it can to assist. Let me just underline that point again: 'My government stands ready to do all it can to assist.' While there is some precedent on this payment being reliant on an application from the relevant state government, this does not have to be the major determining factor. Indeed, the payment can be at the discretion of the Commonwealth Attorney-General in the event of a major disaster having a significant impact on individuals. I want to emphasise the term 'major disaster'. That is what occurred when flooding hit both Queensland and Victoria last year—both states received immediate offers from the then Attorney-General for a disaster payment from the Commonwealth.

So what does this government consider to be a major disaster? Well, I have a few examples. One property owner, Allan Carmichael, from Ivanhoe in the Central Darling Shire in the far west of New South Wales, received 21 inches of rain at his property Rosehill—that is, over half a metre of rain—during the flooding event. A week and a half later he and his family are still living in a caravan. That is a caravan they drove to Mildura to buy for $30,000-odd. Prior to that they were sleeping in the back of their Prado in the shed. The insurance assessor is due there on Thursday—that is, if he can actually get there across the flooded dirt roads of the far west. And, as of tonight, the Central Darling Shire is yet to receive a disaster declaration. Mr Carmichael and his wife have no access to state assistance and no access to insurance. And because the federal government does not feel inclined yet, they have no access to an emergency grant from Centrelink.

The entire town of Urana was ordered to evacuate during the rain event and I visited there last Thursday. The mayor, Margaret Buntin, picked me up from the recreation ground, where I was lucky enough to land in a helicopter, and drove me around town. Carmen, who runs the pub, was standing in the doorway exhausted. When I said, 'What do you need?' she said, 'I just need the phones to work'—and we set that in train with Telstra. Then I visited Ralph at the IGA. He had the shop open, which was pretty incredible considering where the water had been. And John at the takeaway food cafe said the water had come right up to the floorboards. Everyone was open, everyone was functioning and everyone was just getting on with it. The amazing thing that touched the hearts of the people of Urana was that the Rural Fire Service and the SES had travelled up from the South Coast, from Bega, from Bungendore, from Batemans Bay and from Merimbula. From those parts of the state, they drove trucks which took a long time to get such a significant distance across all those mountains. They came to Urana to help with the clean-up. I thank all those people from so far away. While they were helping with the clean-up, they had in some cases eight inches of rain falling in their own communities, so you can imagine where their minds were.

I visited Lockhart where 60 homes were inundated and 12, or approximately half, of the businesses in the main street were flooded. Lockhart has a historical society that runs a museum. Those who have visited Lockhart know it is a town that treasures its very rich heritage, its past and its pioneers. I went into the historical society's museum. In anticipation of the flood, they had put a lot of things up above a certain level. But the flood this year in Lockhart was 10 inches higher than in the 2010 floods. No-one could possibly have expected it to be that savage so, of course, a lot of things got completely drenched including some amazing collections of birds eggs, some of them from the 1930s which were okay. I looked down the corridor of the museum and saw some volunteers, older ladies, with hairdryers drying the pages of Lockhart's heritage and history because of the importance of preserving it. That, I have to say, is an image that will stay with me for a long time.

I then went to The Rock where 40 homes were inundated—that is 25 per cent of the homes of the entire township of The Rock. Ten businesses were flooded and three homes were completely destroyed. I think every single home, and there might be some 120, had some damage done, if not to the house then to the yard. I visited a lady who in December last year just moved back into her home after recovering from the previous floods and had lost it all once more. The stoicism and resilience of people in this position was quite incredible. Her daughter and her son-in-law were helping with the clean-up and were in another part of the town. It was one of those things that happened and they were just getting on with it.

As I said, all these towns and local farms were also flooded in late 2010 and into early 2011. There were numerous other examples in Conargo, Morundah, Blighty. The town of Hay is bracing for flooding this weekend from the Murrumbidgee's downstream flows. There will be a community meeting tomorrow night to brief residents on the possible evacuation of their community. Boree Creek might ring a bell with some of my colleagues as the home town of the former member for Farrer, Tim Fischer. I want to mention Boree Creek particularly as an example of the emergency and, so far unreported, dangers so many communities faced the weekend before last. Soaked by 150 millimetres of rain in the lead-up, the same amount of rain again in one night—around six inches in the old mark—saw the entire town's residents evacuated at 5.30 in the morning. Over 80 per cent of the town went under and 21 out of 25 homes were inundated with up to a metre and a half of water. The SES was not involved here because their attention, understandably, was turned elsewhere. The Rural Fire Service captain and his deputy took charge that night as the normally serene creek broke its banks and flooded the town from the north. There was no official evacuation order or orderly exit here because there was no warning. It was just a couple of blokes who knew their community was in trouble and got them out of there before lives could be put at risk or lost. Do you know where they went in the early hours of the morning? The entire population of 75 residents in Boree Creek were systematically ferried up to the local Rural Fire Service captain Col Richens and his family's farmhouse four kilometres up the road on some higher land and that is where they stayed for the next 24 to 48 hours, the only safe haven available until it was clear to return and begin cleaning up the mess. Col has sent me the photographs and they are incredible.

Some people are now back home, some are staying with their neighbours and some people are paying for other forms of accommodation. Some have insurance, some do not. Some people will cope okay emotionally and financially and some people will not. I am going to Boree Creek at the end of this week for a local barbecue and fundraiser with the local Rural Fire Service and I am wondering what to tell them when they ask: what is the federal government actually doing to assist them after this major disaster?

I have been through all this before, in 2010. I have written letter after letter to the then Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, begging for assistance and making the point that just because you live in a really small town and you do not hit the national news and no-one has really ever heard of you, and just because no news crews and no TV cameras can get there, the things that happen to you are not any less important than the things that happen in major disaster zones. If we look at towns like Boree Creek, The Rock, Lockhart and Urana and Ivanhoe, in the far west—and Ivanhoe is just a tiny place on the rail line between Sydney and Broken Hill, not known, really, for anything very much; it is a beautiful part of my electorate and I love it, but I understand that no-one really has heard of it—it is so important that the scale of disaster is the scale that reflects the local community, its infrastructure, its people, its psyche, its heart and its soul. When you damage all of that to the extent that we have seen with these floodings, it does not matter if it was a cyclone in the north of Australia or a major event that covered hundreds of kilometres; it is still a disaster on an incredibly significant scale.

I know that at times like this everyone's heart is in the right place. I know that there is bipartisanship. I know that the Prime Minister, in visiting Wagga Wagga, cared very much about the things that she saw, in the same way that the Leader of the Opposition cared about the things that he saw, as we all would as members of this place. But we have to recognise that, where there is assistance that a government program can provide, we need to step in and, when it comes to the Attorney-General's declaration, we just need to sign the bit of paper, to make the declaration, to pick up the phone and talk to state colleagues and to just please, please, make it happen. I am going to spend a lot of the next few weeks—and I take the point from the member for Moreton and the member for Riverina about how when the excitement, if I can call it that, fades away there is just so much left to do. And that is when I will be there for the communities that I represent.

But I just want to be able to tell them that, yes, this small contribution from the federal government, a $1,000 Centrelink payment for each adult and $400 for a child, does not do much—in the case of the Carmichaels in Ivanhoe, who bought a caravan from Mildura which cost them $30,000, it is hardly going to make a difference—but it is just going to make a small difference. And it is also going to tell them that somebody here in Canberra, in our wonderful bureaucracy and in our wonderful government, cares that they have been hurt so badly by this thing.

I just cannot imagine how it must feel to be flooded twice in less than two years. We know the mental effects that that has on people. I have talked to mostly women—because probably the men do not want to say too much—who say that now, when they go to bed and listen to the rain, they cannot sleep, and that they cannot imagine living in the same house that they have lived in all their lives, in the same community that their parents have always lived in, but they cannot sell the house. After all, if you have been flooded twice, who is going to buy your property? Your insurance company possibly will not insure you. What do you do? You just sort of operate in a horrible place in your mind where you cannot relax and you cannot feel a sense of security, which must be really horrible.

So, while there is such goodwill in the parliament, I repeat the calls that I have been making and I know my colleagues have been making to the government to please help, because we do need help. Thank you.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 20:34.