Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Sunday savage storms hit Sydney, and thousands of homes and businesses in my electorate have been without power, phone lines or mobile reception for most of the week. Fallen trees have blocked roads, flattened cars and damaged houses. Floodwaters have blocked roads and flooded houses and businesses. The SES in my community has had 861 callouts, and over 180 volunteers from the SES have been there to assist in the clean-up, assisted by many of the local RFS brigades. The was even an SES team that travelled up from Wagga on Tuesday, and a Fire and Rescue strike team that have been involved in the clean-up. Ausgrid, today, are working to repair and restore power to 31,000 homes across Sydney, including in my electorate. Many businesses have had to shut their doors due to phones and power being down, and many had also had substantial damage to their property. Tomorrow I am going to be visiting a number of the communities on the Hawkesbury River who've faced the flooding and also a number of the suburban areas of my electorate which have been damaged by falling trees. I'm very pleased to say that yesterday Minister Littleproud and Minister Elliot agreed to joint federal-state disaster assistance for my electorate. That funding will be available for councils, small businesses, primary producers, not-for profits and certain individuals who meet the relevant criteria. At a time when so many in my community helped support the bushfire recovery effort, those same people are being called on to help clean up the storms, and I thank them.