Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General and Minister for Emergency Management. Will the minister update the House on the recent flood and fire events that have affected five out of six Australian states?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for that question and for the opportunity to rise on my first day in this parliament as Attorney-General and Minister for Emergency Management. I just want to take the opportunity to say that I am very proud to serve the interests of the Australian people as Attorney-General in a Labor government. I will be guided by my principles and values, formed—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that those opposite have no principles and no values, which is why they are laughing, but I will be served in this place by principles formed from long years of legal practice.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister may well have set a very low bar through his statement about his own worth, but I find offensive what he said to the opposition. I would ask him to withdraw it. He is not the only person here with principles, in spite of the fact that he thinks he is.

Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. As has been ruled on numerous occasions, general throwing out of issues is not something that can be withdrawn. The Attorney-General has the call and has the right to be heard in silence.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his question. The member for Blair saw firsthand the damage caused by the 2011 Queensland floods, and he stood side by side with his community as they rebuilt. Floods and fires have affected communities around the country, but I want to focus on the state of Queensland, the state that the member for Blair is from, and that is because of the truly devastating impacts that there have been in the state of Queensland. The scenes following ex-Tropical Cyclone Oswald down the Queensland and the New South Wales coasts have been truly devastating—in the Bundaberg region in particular. On Australia Day, that area bore the brunt of this storm, with a series of separate tornadoes and more than 7½ thousand residents forced to evacuate their homes.

Our government has moved very quickly to ensure that support was available for those most severely affected. We have activated our disaster response plan. In Queensland more than 300 Australian Defence Force personnel have been deployed to assist with the emergency response and recovery efforts led by ADF Joint Task Force 637 Queensland Flood Assist 2. We have paid almost $47 million in recovery support directly into people's bank accounts following requests from 40,200 applications from Queensland, with every eligible adult receiving $1,000 and $400 per child. The Prime Minister has also activated clean up and recovery grants of $25,000 for primary producers, for small businesses and for not-for-profit organisations in Bundaberg, North Burnett, Fraser Coast, Gympie and the Lockyer Valley. There are a further 53 local government areas eligible for help including personal hardship assistance, concessional interest rates, loans and freight subsidies for primary producers.

As Australians, we take pride in our ability to pull together in a time of crisis. We have seen the mud army—referred to already today—of volunteers return to lend a helping hand, and I would echo— (Time expired)