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

It's commonly said that the Brisbane River is a river with a city problem. If you actually have a look at where the cities and towns in South-East Queensland are established, they're on the main rivers. We don't call the places in and around Brisbane the Lockyer Valley and the Brisbane Valley for nothing. There are rivers and creeks that lead into Brisbane River that cause enormous damage. They've become part of emergency management folklore—things like the Lockyer Creek, Bundamba Creek, Bremer River et cetera.

South-East Queensland has had massive floods over the years. The photos from places like Ipswich and Brisbane show that the impact in 1893was enormous. The water levels from 1893 would mean that, in my office in Riverlink Shopping Centre, in the old Tarpaulin Building, we'd be sort of swimming on level 1. As a kid, in 1974 Cyclone Wanda came in from the north and crossed near Maryborough. On 25 January 1974 floods came up from the south and smashed South-East Queensland.

I mention Cyclone Wanda because Cyclone Alfred came in about 50 years later. In South-East Queensland places like Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Ipswich were a lot smaller in those days. Nearly one in six people in the country are living in South-East Queensland, so it's a lot more densely populated. We don't normally get cyclones in South-East Queensland, but the impact and the aftermath of that one were very untimely, when you consider the fact that we are still dealing with the aftermath of the 2022 floods. We're now dealing with the aftermath and the flood impact and the cyclonic impact of Cyclone Alfred in South-East Queensland.

In my electorate, Blair, when I was a kid in 1974, in my parents' house the water was eight feet over the roof. I've had to deal with, as a federal MP, floods—in descending order of devastation—in 2011, 2022, 2013 and now 2025. We've got nearly 1,300 homes and businesses and cars where there are insurance claims, according the Insurance Council of Australia, in my electorate.

There's the damage to roads, bridges, parks, footpaths and community infrastructure. The federal government and the state government are going to have to work very hard with local councils, like Ipswich, Somerset and Brisbane, to repair that.

But it's also the damage to and the impact on people's lives—the devastation. I know of and have met people who've been flooded in flood after flood after flood—the ones I've referred to before. They're people in my home city of Ipswich, where I was born and raised and have lived all my life and raised a family and worked. They're in places like Bergins Hill Road and Videroni Street and Lindsay Street. They were flooded again, and I met people as I doorknocked those areas.

I want to pay tribute to the many people who've helped them. I want to pay tribute to the Salvation Army at Bundamba; to the Malayali friends, as they call themselves; and to the various associations around Ipswich. They provided great support—for example, to one particular family, who were seeking refugee status in Australia, on Bergins Hill Road. These are people who have been living in these communities.

I mentioned Bundamba. That's where I went to high school, at Bundamba State Secondary College, so I know the area well. There are other people who are still looking for assistance to have their homes resumed, voluntarily, by the local council, so that they can be in a situation where there are no floods in the future.

I want to pay tribute to the Ipswich SES. I was pleased to put on a barbecue and provide food for them, as they were working during the floods and in the aftermath of the floods. The SES—the State Emergency Service—is a magnificent organisation. It's a volunteer organisation. They give help and assistance, in terms of staging, logistics, coordination, planning, warning people and evacuating people. We also had intrastate people, from the Townsville SES, come down, and interstate people from South Australia and elsewhere, and from local areas, like Marburg, Rosewood, Esk and Goodna and others—SES volunteers—come down and help around Ipswich as well. They just did a mighty job, as did the rural fire brigades, the police, the emergency management, the local hospitals—particularly Ipswich Hospital—as well.

The damage is going to be about $1.1 billion, or more. I think it will be more, as time goes by. We saw businesses inundated around West Ipswich and Bundamba and places like that.

There's the Ipswich Men's Shed. I was pleased to provide them a morning tea after they'd cleaned up. I want to thank Terry Carter and the whole crew down there. The Ipswich Men's Shed is the biggest Men's Shed in the whole region. I thank them for what they do. They really provide friendship and fellowship and great assistance in terms of mental health as well.

The Ipswich Knights Football Club's football fields and fencing et cetera were badly damaged. It was great to deal with people like Troy Beahan from the club and to provide volunteer assistance to help them clean up on a Saturday.

For the Blackstone United Dragons Football Club, I want to thank Rod's Towing in particular, for the relocation of the equipment container. It's just simply a massive equipment container. It was put back in its proper place. It had damaged the football fields, the goal posts, the fencing and a whole range of things.

It goes to show: you just can't go in floodwaters. As they say: if it's flooded, forget it. It's too dangerous. The force of the floodwaters makes a huge impact.

The floodwaters nearly got into Ipswich basketball's stadium again. Poor Toni Calwell, the president, was stuck on her farm and couldn't get back; fortunately, she and her family were safe.

I also want to thank the councils in Ipswich, in Brisbane and particularly in Somerset for the work they did and the emergency management—the leadership shown by mayors, councillors and CEOs, as well as the work of council staff. The council staff do a fantastic job. They're multi-talented. We don't pay them enough. We really don't. The way they get in, help and volunteer in the work they do with the places of refuge and evacuation. I was pleased with the $6 million we're providing for Ipswich Showgrounds—that's the main evacuation centre and place of refuge. That was again open, and people went to it. The school in Lowood was used by the Somerset Regional Council.

The coordination and help between all levels of government was phenomenal. I also want to thank the Minister for Emergency Management, Jenny McAllister. Her office and the way she communicated in a bipartisan way to everyone were fantastic. I can't talk enough about how important NEMA is in terms of evacuation, coordination and recovery. I know that there's people still doing it tough in my community, and we have provided assistance. I would urge anyone in Ipswich, Somerset and the Karana Downs region to reach out. We have the Australian government disaster recovery payments available if you've been flooded and suffered major damage to your home or your assets. It's $1,000 for adults and $400 for children. Of course we have the DRFA, the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, and that funding is available as well. I'd urge anyone who's been flooded and affected by that to reach out to my office on 0732015300. I urge anyone to look at help. There are a lot of people in our local community who are doing a lot of good work.

Just because they weren't inundated and the water didn't come into their home or their unit—and I've met many people who've had that happen—there are people who've had food spoilage, power outage and wind damage and rain damage from the cyclone, with water ingress particularly entering through roofs, doors and windows. That's impacted them, and that's why there are claims. I'd urge the insurance companies to listen to those recommendations of the House of Representatives inquiry chaired by the member for Fraser's report, Flood failure to future fairness. Act on that. I want there to be no absence of future fairness in the way the insurance companies deal with our local area. I want to thank everyone, and we've pulled hard together. My office is there. I'm here to help anyone that's been affected.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Sunshine Coast locals that have endured the clean-up and the difficulties as a result of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which made landfall on 8 March 2025. I've recently moved to the Sunshine Coast hinterland from the coast, in the beautiful town of Mooloolah. On 8 March, Mooloolah received 462 millimetres in 24 hours. That was Mooloolah and Diamond Valley. That's the annual rainfall of Melbourne in 24 hours. I described it as like living under a fire hose for 24 hours. We were okay in our place, for anybody who's asking, but some people weren't. In the town next door to us in Eudlo, they got flooded in. Eudlo has neither town water nor sewerage. There were parts of Eudlo that were really badly affected, but people couldn't get into Eudlo because Eudlo was cut off at the worst of the flooding. When I went there the very next day, what I saw was really quite heartbreaking. There were a number of businesses that had been flooded. There were homes that were flooded and, because there is no town water or sewerage, they had septic tanks that popped out of the ground, spilling and leaking raw sewage into people's homes. It wasn't just a matter of flood waters racing through people's homes; it was sewage as well. That's tough. I door-knocked all of the homes that had been impacted. Thankfully, I was able to muster a team of volunteers that helped me help people in Eudlo to clean up, and I want to give them a shout-out. I hope I don't forget their names. There were Sam Elms, Deb Taylor, Pat Cleary, Cameron Radatz—and there was a gentleman that I hadn't met before whose name I can't remember, but he helped take stuff to the rubbish in his ute. You know who you are. I'm sorry I don't remember your name. But it was that community spirit that brought people together to help the people of Eudlo.

I want to send a big shout-out to Neal Heinrich from Chilli Bins. On Monday 8 March, I rang Neal and said: 'Mate, we've got a real problem. People have had floodwater going through their homes. We're going to need to get a lot rubbish out of those homes.' He donated skip bins. The streets of Eudlo were lined with skip bins. They've now all or just about all been taken. Anybody thinking about throwing anything in there: if you're not from Eudlo, please don't. I do want to make a shout-out because he took a nanosecond—I think before I even finished my sentence. Neal said: 'Yep. When do you want me? How can I help?' Neal from Chilli Bins: thank you so much for your generosity. It was really quite amazing.

I want to send a shout-out to the mayor, Rosanna Natoli, for her leadership during the flooding and the weather event. I was able to speak to the mayor and secure free green waste disposal and rubbish disposal for the people from Chilli Bins and all the Sunshine Coast residents to be able to take their green waste and, in particular, flood waste from Eudlo to the tip free of charge. Thank you, Mayor, for your leadership and your assistance in that regard.

It wasn't just Eudlo that was impacted, though; it was also the town of Palmwoods. Its cricket club and soccer club went under. The cricket ground was five feet underwater. It effectively destroyed their cricket nets. That happened on the Monday. I went to the cricket ground on the Sunday, and they were playing cricket. I could not believe it. The ground was five feet underwater on Monday, and on Saturday and Sunday they were playing cricket. To the grounds staff at Palmwoods Cricket Club: you guys are legends, you're amazing and I take my hat off to you. To the soccer club that was also damaged—all of the so-called floodproof fencing, which we know wasn't quite floodproof—we'll work with you to rebuild that. Hopefully, we'll be able to get some disaster management funding for that replacement.

I had the privilege of working closely with Ann Leahy, the state disaster management minister, who was terrific, but I also want to send a shout-out to the federal disaster management minister, Senator Jenny McAllister. I phoned Jenny in the lead-up to the disaster and talked to her about what we were looking at happening. I spoke to her several times afterwards and I encouraged her—in fact, I wrote a submission to her—to list Eudlo, Palmwoods and Nambour as a flood affected area to get people that emergency assistance. Jenny, you were quite remarkable. Politics was put to the side immediately, and that's as it should be. Thank you for your really good work. I do also want to send a shout-out because I, along with thousands of other Sunshine Coast locals, sandbagged for days because we thought that the coast was going to get hit. As it turns out, we got 462 millimetres in the hinterland, and the coast got about 30 millimetres. That's Mother Nature. The community of the Sunshine Coast really hooked in, and we all sandbagged together, preparing for the worst but hoping for the best, and we're thankful.

I do want to take this opportunity to highlight to the country the issue of the Bribie Island breakthrough. In January 2022, as a result of Tropical Cyclone Seth, Bribie Island was broken through from the Pacific Ocean into the Pumicestone Passage. For more than 3,000 years Bribie Island has protected areas like Golden Beach from storm inundation, but, as a result of that storm inundation from Tropical Cyclone Seth in 2022, the people of Golden Beach, Pelican Waters and southern Caloundra were staring down the barrel of oblivion. I'm not overstating it. Without the protection of Bribie Island, they were faced with a significant risk of storm surge. Thankfully, it didn't hit. We dodged a bullet. We, as a collective, need to ensure that we do whatever we can to restore Bribie Island to ensure that the people who live in Golden Beach, Pelican Waters and Caloundra South are not impacted by future storms. We know a cyclone impacts this area every four years.

I was really pleased to see that on Monday the state member for Caloundra, Kendall Morton, and the Crisafulli government announced a study to be done as to what we can do to ameliorate these risks so that people don't have the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads for years and years to come. I want to acknowledge the great work of Jen Kettleton-Butler and the Pumicestone Passage Catchment Management Body, who held a community meeting on Monday night. More than 620 Sunshine Coast locals attended this meeting to show support. All three tiers of government need to act—and we need to act now, or as soon as we get the results of this study—to see what we can do to ensure that people's homes, businesses and livelihoods are protected. I will do whatever I can whilst I am in this place to ensure that, if the federal government is called upon to provide financial assistance, we do that. I make that commitment that I'll do whatever I can to help.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a few things to say about natural disasters today, and I begin by acknowledging the devastation to Queensland and—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11 : 28 to 11 : 44

I have a few things to say about natural disasters today, and I begin by acknowledging the devastation to Queensland and New South Wales by what was severe Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which claimed at least one life and caused serious injuries, including a road collision involving Australian Defence Force personnel during the height of the storm. The storm was remarkable because it hit the heavily populated South-East Queensland area, which is not unprecedented but has not happened for a very long time.

What my constituents in Mallee have also found remarkable is that what was meant to be called Cyclone Anthony—for reasons that may be uncontroversial, or maybe they are—to avoid embarrassment to the Prime Minister, was renamed Cyclone Alfred. That change has raised the eyebrows of quite a few of my constituents. Had it been Cyclone Peter, would the name have changed? We will never know.

My concern today is about the federal emergency management arrangements for regional Australians. Despite a royal commission on these matters, we seem to still have inconsistencies in how regional Australians are treated depending on the type of disaster and the state they live in. That is why, as the member for Mallee in north-west Victoria, ravaged by bushfires over the Christmas New Year's period in the Grampians and across the Little Desert region, I can say my constituents are also raising their eyebrows or even expressing their unhappiness—and I think that's putting it mildly—that they are not getting the same treatment as those in Queensland. Bushfires in the Grampians region began in December 2024, resulting in a period of evacuation and closure of towns to tourists. But category D funding, under the combined federal-state disaster recovery funding arrangements, was not announced until 11 March—almost three months later.

Before I go into detail, let me put on record my appreciation to the Minister for Emergency Management, who made herself available during the Grampians and Little Desert bushfires and worked constructively with me on many of the matters I am raising today. The Allan Victorian Labor government has been utterly incompetent in its handling of communities affected by bushfires like Halls Gap in my electorate. Disaster recovery funding arrangements—or DRFA for short—require a premier or chief minister to write to the prime minister seeking DRFA support. When flooding hit Townsville earlier this year, Queensland Premier David Crisafulli was very quick in seeking DRFA support and got it within weeks. Despite my repeated public calls and letters to the premier and Prime Minister about the Grampians fires, it took three months for equivalent DRFA funding to come their way—and I say 'equivalent' loosely. For Grampians communities, particularly Halls Gap, who lost their peak tourism season and in some cases one-third of their annual income, the critical question has been about financial support for lost income.

If time permits, I will return to the topic of insurance, but businesses have been unable to afford or secure business interruption insurance in the event of fire. Hence, they have turned to the DRFA. I was disappointed that ABC Central Victoria threw the question at me, 'Shouldn't those businesses just pay for it themselves rather than insurance for lost income?' It illustrates how disconnected the ABC has become from regional Australia. Fire insurance is not that easy to come by. Insurance companies run a mile from risk even though that is their job. Flood-affected Townsville businesses are eligible for concessional loans of up to $250,000 and concessional loans to support recovery and rebuilding to cover, among other things, loss of income and continuity of operations. Essential working capital loans are also available up to $100,000 to help businesses cover costs like salaries, wages, creditors, rents and rates. I don't know how much of that is a state government initiative and how much is DRFA, but it is the outcome that matters—and the inconsistencies. I'll come to what the Albanese government has offered Grampians businesses in a moment, but remember those figures of $250,000 in concessional loans for Townsville flood affected businesses and $100,000 in working capital loans. For those affected by Cyclone Alfred, the same disaster assistance loans of $250,000 and essential working capital loans of up to $100,000 are available. So in Queensland, under the LNP, there is the same outcome for flood affected businesses that lost income or are in hardship due to natural disaster.

What has the Albanese government offered Halls Gap, Grampians and western Victoria fire affected businesses? It has offered a business bushfire recovery grant of—wait for it—$5,000. That's it. There is also a business recovery advisory service that they're apparently spending somewhere in the vicinity of $20 million on. Who knows how that will operate? There are no $250,000 low-interest disaster assistance loans or $100,000 essential capital working loans. Why not? Under the former coalition government in 2020 we provided Victorian bushfire concessional loans of up to $500,000 to those who had, among other things, a significant loss of income due to bushfires that started on the 21 November 2019. Did Premier Allen in this instance simply not ask for that kind of support from the Prime Minister? We will never know. Plainly, the support is not the same for Victorians faced by bushfire as opposed to Queenslanders faced with flood and cyclone. Either all disasters are equal, or some disasters are more equal than others, or all Australians are equal but some are more equal than others. How can you read it any other way? All I'm asking for today is a fair go for all Australians affected by natural disasters.

I want to go back to insurance. Insurance costs for some Halls Gap businesses have almost quadrupled since the Pomonal fires in February 2024, with one business paying $55,000 for public liability insurance, which even then does not cover external fire and does not provide business interruption insurance. There are 120 businesses—or there were—that simply cannot get insurance in Halls Gap even though there is no instance in history where fire has struck the Halls Gap township itself. I am working continuously with locals, the insurance industry and my coalition colleagues to look at solutions to this emerging wicked problem. Under the Albanese Labor government, insurance costs across the nation have risen by 35 per cent. These fires, combined with the impact on global reinsurance markets of recent wildfires in Los Angeles, may push up insurance premiums further and make policies even less accessible.

Insurance pricing requires accurate data regarding risks and mitigation strategies undertaken at the local level, but in Victoria there is no transparency around the performance of Forest Fire Management Victoria and other responsible agencies against mitigation targets—no transparency. There is market failure in bushfire insurance for Halls Gap. As in other areas of public policy, market failure activates potential government intervention. The Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation was expanded in 2022 by the former coalition government to provide insurance for insurers of cyclone risk in northern Australia without the profit margin of the private market and with a risk guarantee provided by the government. While it's early days, there are signs the pool is starting to address its aims. It is time to look at this model in other Australian contexts.

Spending in Halls Gap has dropped by 63 per cent since fires began compared to the same period last year. At the one-month mark, $13 million in business earnings had been lost. Can you imagine the desperation of those businesses? As the fires have persisted, an estimated $8 million further has been lost. The Grampians typically attract between 1.3 million and 1.7 million visitors annually; however cancellations are now extending through to May 2025, and the projections of loss in that region are between $34 million and $103 million over the year. The sustainability of small businesses in the Grampians is my focus, and I plan to keep fighting for it.

Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to rise to speak in relation to Tropical Cyclone Alfred, and then ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred as it continued to cause devastation across the Gold Coast. Firstly, I think it's worthwhile mentioning that I really think this was one of the best prepared-for disasters that we have faced in the Gold Coast region. I put that squarely down to the leadership of Premier David Crisafulli and his team, who took a genuinely fresh approach to the way that they communicated the need to prepare.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:55 to 12:07

I was just saying how wonderful our Premier of Queensland was particularly in the lead-up to this natural disaster, Tropical Cyclone Alfred. There was a noticeable change in tone and language. I think that the confidence that the premier gave to the people of Queensland really resonated, and they acted and followed his leadership. I'm very fortunate that the premier is also a local member within my electorate, and we were able to go and visit some businesses in Paradise Point just to see how their preparations were going. Everyone was being very earnest in what they were doing to prepare.

With the next layer down, I've got to say that the work by the Gold Coast Disaster and Emergency Management Centre was absolutely outstanding. For the majority of the time, Councillor Donna Gates, who's the deputy mayor at the moment, was acting mayor and was chairing the disaster coordination. She did an absolutely outstanding job during that period of time. When Mayor Tate returned from leave he then took over that role. Councillor Gates; CEO Tim Baker; the Gold Coast Disaster and Emergency Management Centre manager, Mark Ryan; and local recovery coordinator, Cath Drinkwater, all did an absolutely stellar job. I was fortunate enough to visit the disaster management centre with the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, and also my colleague the member for Moncrieff and see the operations in full swing. For those of you who are familiar with the way that disaster preparedness, recovery and response activities are, you can ramp up from virtually no staff in that building to hundreds of people working in a coordinated and very effective way in a quick period of time. To see the level of activity, the level of energy and the way that the teams were going about doing their work was extremely impressive.

I also want to give a shout out to the Energex workers and the first responders: the police, the ambulance and the SES. They all played an enormously importantly role in responding to this event and in the recovery that followed. As I walked around the disaster management centre, I was fortunate enough to see many of my old council friends there, because the council staff are effectively the backbone of what goes on, including our planners and engineers. For example, I saw Trish Apps, who was there in the deputy role; Jeremy Wagner; and Alisha Swain, who's one of the senior managers, all doing their bit to contribute to the way that this disaster was prepared for and responded to.

I went out to the car park and bumped into some of the work crews who'd been out all night for many nights in a row, putting out road closure signs, cutting down debris and trees and making roads and pathways safe. To those guys and girls who were out there with chainsaws, signs and sandbags in the rain, thank you for what you do, because that makes an enormous amount of difference to the way that all of our residents feel as these events unfold.

We were very fortunate, because the impact probably wasn't as severe as what was expected. But that's not to say we weren't impacted. We were still struck by major flooding and erosion. We had days and days of loss of power, loss of internet, loss of mobile phone services and, of course, school closures. For many people in my electorate, this was only just over a year after a very nasty tornado ripped through on Christmas Day. To be quite honest, this was all too much, too soon for many of my residents—but we got there. We got there together. People got through the power outages. They got through the school closures. We went for days where there was no milk and bread on the supermarket shelves.

I must say thank you to my dear friends, Sam and Greg, who are our neighbours, who split a generator across the dividing fence between our two properties. That is the kind of thing that got everyone through this time around. People took the preparation very earnestly, and I think that paid off.

We shouldn't lose sight of the impact that this event had on many of our schools and our schoolchildren. I visited, for example, Biggera Waters State School for a cleanup working bee. Kylie, the principal, and her team were doing a wonderful job to get the kids back to school as soon as they could.

Later in the week, I went to Woongoolba State School, which is one of the oldest schools on the Gold Coast, formed in 1878. It's a small school, but they had pushed so hard to try and get back to normal in the cane lands, where we had water across many roads. Jacobs Well village was still without power for a couple of days, at that point. To the principal, Michael, thank you for efforts and leadership, because that means a lot to our local community out in your part of the world. To all of the people in our community, thank you for preparing so well and for being so good about it.

We've seen vision across our country and probably across the world in relation to the erosion on our beaches. I was fortunate enough to visit the beach last weekend. It looks bad, but we will get through that as well. It has been scarped along the beaches previously, from other weather events. We can get that back to being the beautiful, pristine Gold Coast beach that we're famous for. But they're still usable. Credit to the Gold Coast city council, who were able to get those beaches open—most of them on the following weekend—for some sort of safe use by the public.

That work will continue for many months, but I know the objective is that those beaches be back to tiptop condition in time for the Easter school holidays. We look forward to welcoming many people from around Australia to our neck of the woods.

Finally, I wanted to mention that Queensland is an incredible state with an incredibly diverse range of events. Right now, there is a huge amount of water lying across parts of inland Queensland and up north. I think the rain will continue to fall for a few days to come, and the flooding will likely worsen. To those people affected by current events, all of us Queenslanders are with you. We've seen that when these things happen, whether it be cyclones in North Queensland, flooding in Townsville or rain events on the Gold Coast, we are able to all band together to make sure our communities are looked after as best they can be. To those impacted by the current events further north, we're thinking of you, and, if you need anything, we're here to help.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm so proud of the way that our community responded to Tropical Cyclone Alfred and ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. As the cyclone was bearing down on Brisbane and the community started to face what could be the severe consequences of a cyclone making landfall in Brisbane, we put a big callout for volunteers across our community to help, at first with the sandbagging and knocking on doors to let people know that their houses may well be at risk of flooding. Frankly, the response was overwhelming in its positivity. Hundreds of people signed up in the course of just a few days, which allowed us and my colleagues, Elizabeth Watson-Brown and Stephen Bates, to coordinate one of the biggest volunteer efforts I've been involved in, mobilising hundreds of volunteers across our electorates—at first, just to pack and deliver sandbags. In fact, when the community volunteers got there, the lines for those sandbag operations were sometimes four or five hours long. We got them down to 30 or 40 minutes, and that's thanks to the incredible response from our communities across the Brisbane metropolitan region.

We met a lot of incredible people along the way. People who had lined up for four hours to pick-up sandbags for themselves had, by the time they got to the front of the line, decided to stay for another three or four hours to help pack sandbags for other people. A disability support worker, who was technically on leave, waited four hours in line to pick up a bunch of sandbags for all of the disabled people she was supporting and then drove around to drop them off across the electorate.

I could spend this entire time covering the incredible stories from our community, but what also became clear over the course of this crisis, as we moved from sandbagging to dropping off food to members of our local community who were particularly vulnerable and in the clean-up afterwards—hauling flood damaged furniture onto the street and taking green waste to the tip for the people who otherwise couldn't do it—is that, time and again, when these climate crises hit, the people most acutely affected are those that are most vulnerable, those who are already struggling in our society.

Three stories stand out for me to illustrate how dire the consequences are going to be for the most vulnerable in our society unless we do something serious about climate change—not just do something serious about climate change but also start to take the impacts of climate change seriously and spend real money and resources on mitigation and protecting our most vulnerable.

One person I spoke to was a single mum with a kid who was six years old, and that kid is disabled. She was already homeless and sleeping in a friend's room. That room flooded as a result of the cyclone, and she had nowhere else to go.

In another case, one of our amazing volunteers, Will, was knocking on people's doors to see if anybody needed help, when he encountered a completely overwhelmed single mum with three kids who couldn't afford to go to the supermarket, not least because her local one was closed. She was at the brink of tears, and all that her kids wanted was Macca's. I will shout out to Will, because out of his own money he went and grabbed Macca's for that entire family, and it was a lovely interaction. But, by pure chance, we knocked on her door. She could have been left completely overwhelmed and alone.

Finally, there was a disability support pensioner who had spent most of her income on rent. When we were asked to stockpile enough food to last three days, she realised she didn't have enough money to buy enough food for one night, so we ended up dropping off a food hamper for her, but, again, there are a lot of people that would have fallen through the cracks. Time and again it is our most vulnerable in our society that are impacted. This feels particularly unjust because the major driver for so-called natural disasters like this are the coal and gas corporations who continue to make billions of dollars in profit and do not suffer any of the consequences of the climate crisis that they're causing.

We know for a fact that one of the major impacts of climate change in Australia is going to see serious damaging events like Cyclone Alfred move further south. The Coral Sea temperatures where Cyclone Alfred formed in January and February were at record highs. The temperature that you need for a cyclone to sustain itself is more than 26.5 degrees and for one of the first time is ever those with a sea temperatures off the coast of Brisbane. We know for a fact that scientists say that, as a result of climate change, cyclones are going to be more intense, they are going to come further south, they are going to move slower, they are going to hold more energy and they are going to dump more rain. We know for a fact that warming temperatures are going to see the atmosphere hold more moisture and dump more rain when we have these events, just like Queensland may well be facing again as we speak. Again, the consequences are borne by the most vulnerable working people in this country while coal and gas billionaires and big corporations make off like bandits.

It bears repeating again and again and again: Australia is the second-largest exporter of fossil fuels in the world. In this budget there are $50 billion of tax handouts for fossil fuels. Coal and gas corporations often get away with paying $0 in tax and this government has approved over 30 new coal and gas projects, directly contributing to the climate crisis that is going to make things like Cyclone Alfred more frequent and more common. What will it take, genuinely, for this government and both sides of politics to wake up to the fact that Australia will be one of the harshly hit when it comes to climate disasters and climate change and global warming? It is being driven by the refusal from both sides of politics to face up to the fact that it is coal and gas driving this crisis, it is coal and gas profiting off it, it is coal and gas donating to the major political parties and it is coal and gas that seems to run the policy of both major parties when it comes to climate change.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's 2025 and here we are again—can you believe it? I realised, to my horror, last year that it was exactly 50 years since I started uni in 1974. That was certainly a big year for Brisbane and for me personally. I started studying at University of Queensland that year. The Brisbane River had flooded the week before we were meant to start university. It was the first huge Brisbane River flood that I witnessed in my lifetime and I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember just how devastating that flood was for all of Brisbane but especially for my electorate of Ryan. It was truly devastating, and the memory lingers.

Those memories have lingered a long time, and little did I know then that, as devastated and exhausted as we were, we would need to experience that over and over again—three more times so far in my life. There have been four devastating floods in my lifetime, and it is exhausting. In 1974, much of the UQ campus went under, and in every riverfront suburb people shovelled out the mud, threw out their furniture and possessions, and started the heartbreaking process of cleaning up, repairing and rebuilding. We architecture students were dispatched—this was our first project in architecture—with clipboards to record housing type, construction materials, flood depth and observable physical damage. I went straight to an area in my electorate called Fig Tree Pocket to smell the mud, to talk to people and to see the terrible damage. What we registered, beyond the physical damage, was the personal damage, the loss and the heartbreak that such catastrophic climate events can week. It was devastating and it has stayed with me. It produces PTSD every time we have reports that we might have another climate disaster event coming, every time that rain starts pouring down. I'm not only one in Brisbane who experiences that. In '74 it wasn't the last time that we smelt that Brisbane River mud and saw the devastation.

This deep appreciation of the power of nature and the importance of climate on life in Brisbane has really been one of the drivers for me in my previous career and in this new one. Fifty-one years ago, in the face of unprecedented disaster, neighbours became friends and worked together to weather the storm. We know that, unfortunately, that '74 flood was just the beginning. That was the year of the first big Brisbane flood in generations, and there have been too many since: in 2011, when I was looking after my aged parents; in 2022; and now, just weeks ago, in 2025. Each of these floods brings their own challenges. The 2022 flood was during that election year, and now, in another election year, we have just experienced another devastating climate event. It's not a natural disaster. It should be considered an extremely unnatural disaster.

We're tired. We're over it. We have to rally each time something like this happens, and it's the community that has to carry the burden of it. We knew 51 years ago that climate change was making floods worse. We knew it. What will it take for politicians to get it? How many more times will they show up for a press conference as the floodwaters recede, patting people on the back like they're in it with us. That is just a slap in the face. That is offensive—shaking broken people's hands with their right hand, while taking fossil fuel donations with the left. It's outrageous—fitting in an SES visit between corporate lunches and new gas approvals. How many times will we have to pick up the pieces again before this government stops supporting coal and gas? We've had it.

While the major party turns up the heat time and again, the community has to pull together to help each other. This year, again, that amazing and marvellous community spirit, borne out of the of the adversity of '74 and continuing unbroken, helped weather those storms. My amazing team and I helped thousands of people in Ryan. We all pulled together, as did all of my Greens colleagues in the various adjoining seats across Brisbane. We all pulled together and helped wherever we could. We must keep working together as a community for a better future—not just cleaning up the mess, but actually striving to stop these messes happening.

Let me tell you what actually happened during Cyclone Alfred. While both the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister were at fundraisers in Sydney, we were on the ground in the community. I'm so incredibly grateful for everyone who helped out down at the Toowong temporary sandbagging depot. My colleague from Brisbane was there. We were able to mobilise many Greens volunteers down there for the whole time that that sandbagging depot was open. They weren't just there for the photo-op. Their efforts, and the efforts of other volunteers from the community, reduced the wait time from several hours down to around 30 minutes, because we got organised there. Many of those volunteers there were doing 10- or 12-hour shifts, multiple days on end. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Brisbane who got sandbags thanks to the efforts of those volunteers. We also coordinated deliveries of sandbags to those who couldn't otherwise get them.

I was really struck by the story of one man who lives along Moggill Creek, and who was flooded in 2022. He left his property in Brisbane a few days before the cyclone was predicted to hit—and we had more warning this time—resigned to the fact that his property would inevitably be flooded again. But he heard that our volunteers were able to get sandbags to him, so he came back to Brisbane to place them around his property and protect the entrances to his house.

There are countless other stories like that. My office alone responded to about 100 call-out requests. Some of them are still happening. We're helping with the clean-up to this day. That simply would not have been possible if the community hadn't mobilised so well during this time. There were incredible shows of solidarity as well. One example is of a woman who came back, after celebrating Iftar with her family, to give all of the volunteers sandbagging at Toowong homemade fried rice to thank them. People were so grateful. A group 30 people from a nearby apartment block came and sandbagged together. Apparently one of the residents asked if anyone wanted to help out over the apartment intercom. Someone had a ute, so they came down and filled up three loads for their neighbours. It was this amazing community spirit that was brought out in this disaster.

This is climate change. We are living it. The science is clear: climate change is causing warmer oceans, which in turn, means more frequent high-intensity rain events, more frequent floods, and it means more intense cyclones that are fuelled by warmer waters, as my colleague from Griffith just outlined. These weather events are directly fuelled by the major parties approving more coal and gas mines that will continue to warm our planet and our oceans. That is a disaster, and we need to deal with that disaster right now.

Stephen Bates (Brisbane, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start by saying, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to the people in Brisbane for their help preparing and recovering from Cyclone Alfred. In the wake of heavy wind and flooding, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to every individual and volunteer organisation that stepped up. The resilience, community spirit and unwavering dedication were truly inspiring.

In the two weeks that followed the heavy wind and rain, here's some of what we were able to achieve through my electorate office: we had 158 volunteers, 223 volunteer shifts and 892 volunteer hours. We moved eight tonnes of green waste clear from gardens, driveways and verges. Four-hundred meals were served to residents in power affected suburbs, and dozens of personal drop-offs of care packages for residents with mobility issues were made as well. As always, I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our emergency responders: the SES, Queensland fire and emergency services, paramedics and frontline workers, who all worked tirelessly to keep the community safe. Finally, to every Brisbane resident who followed the safety advice, checked in on loved ones and showed resilience in the face of adversity—thank you. Your courage and unity reminds everyone that together we can overcome anything. Unfortunately, these extreme weather events are only going to become much more common.

The climate crisis is something we are already feeling; 2024 was the hottest year in recorded history and the hottest for Australia's oceans. Month after month, we're in a world that is hotter, wetter and more turbulent, with extreme weather events happening more and more frequently and with frighteningly more intensity. Tropical cyclones have long been a reality for many in Australia and the Pacific, but climate change is making them more intense and destructive, and they're moving further south. As our climate rapidly changes, the waters off Australia's east coast are becoming exceptionally warm, providing the perfect conditions for stronger winds, heavy rainfall and larger storms. These cyclones now intensify faster, reach higher wind speeds and produce greater rainfall. They can also maintain their strength for longer and move more slowly, increasing the devastation in affected areas. With sea levels now 20 centimetres higher due to the continued burning of fossil fuels, storm surges and coastal flooding are becoming even more dangerous. According to the Climate Council, over a 24-hour period between 9 March and 10 March, Brisbane received a record-breaking 230 millimetres of rainfall, while lower Springbrook in South East Queensland recorded a staggering 814 millimetres between 3 March and 9 March—that is 80 per cent of Brisbane's average annual rainfall.

As ocean temperatures continue to rise, scientists are warning us that cyclones will track further south along the east coast, threatening densely populated areas that are unprepared for this kind of extreme weather. Most homes and infrastructure in Brisbane are simply not designed to withstand cyclonic conditions. Australians are already experiencing more extreme fire conditions, longer and more intense heatwaves and heavier rainfall-driven flooding due to pollution from coal, oil and gas which is driving climate change.

The financial toll continues to mount with insurance costs skyrocketing. There are homes in my electorate that are already entirely uninsurable. Australians are now paying $30 billion more for insurance than they were just a decade ago—that's more than double the rate of inflation. Families, renters and retirees shouldn't have to pay skyrocketing insurance premiums for a climate crisis that they did not cause. The filthy rich coal and gas companies caused the climate crisis, and they should pick up the tab. In yesterday's budget, far from making fossil fuel companies pay anywhere near their fair share, the government has handed over $56 billion in subsidies to them. Meanwhile, the Albanese government has continued to approve new coal and gas projects since coming to power. This will make the climate crisis worse, make these disasters more frequent and make insurance more expensive. The shameful watering down of environment laws rammed through the House yesterday may well pave the way for even more coal and gas projects.

We need a government that puts the environment and climate before the entitlement of the fossil fuel industry. Our communities are sick of cleaning up again and again from the impacts of climate change while governments don't do enough to combat one of the greatest crises of our time. The only way we will see real action on climate change is with a minority parliament with the Greens in the balance of power.

Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a frightening last thought from the member for Brisbane—the Greens with the balance of power in a minority Labor government. I couldn't think of anything worse as a nightmare scenario than that being the case when we return from the federal election, apart from the fear that my community felt during the effects of Cyclone Alfred.

I've never felt closer to my community than during the storm when so many sent me text messages and photos of the erosion along the beachfront in the electorate of Moncrieff and beyond. As we know, Cyclone Alfred severely impacted the Gold Coast across all three electorates of McPherson, Moncrieff and Fadden to the north, with 130,000 homes and businesses losing power, including my own. I was in a situation where I was at home, alone. My partner was elsewhere and couldn't get home on a flight. It was quite harrowing with the wind, the rain and the noise that could be heard from the inside of homes. Of course, I felt for all Gold Coasters who then went without power, and very many of them—again, including me—were faced with a situation where there was no power for some time. Some Gold Coasters were without power for five days or more. I was only without power for about 36 hours. The work involved in preparing your home and working through the impacts of the cyclone as you're inside your home—stuffing the windows and doors with towels and, in the aftermath, cleaning all of that up—but also losing the contents of your refrigerator or freezer impacts your family in this cost-of-living crisis that we're having at the moment. They've lost that and, of course, are going through applying for payments and making insurance claims at the moment.

On the Gold Coast we had damage to infrastructure and to beaches. Whilst Cyclone Alfred hovered off the coast, he took our patience, but he also took our beaches. Southport Surf Life Saving Club in Main Beach was particularly impacted. We lost about 6.4 million tonnes of sand, which is the equivalent of 320,000 semitrailer loads. Some of the surf conditions were quite incredible, with a record-breaking 12.3-metre swell that was recorded off Main Beach. Residents across the coast felt at risk from those storm surges at very high tide, and we were very grateful that our rock wall was not penetrated during the storms. There was about two months worth of rainfall in 24 hours. The city informed me that there were 800 trees down across the city and some 2,000 jobs that were required and logged to fix that and get trees off the road, the paths and the powerlines to restore power. I thank all the emergency workers and also those that work for the City of Gold Coast for their continuing work which is being undertaken today. We do see the best come out in people at the worst times, and I want to thank my neighbours for sandbagging the front of my place while I was helping others in the community with serving our people and sandbagging their houses. I came home to a house that looked a bit safer than when I left, so I was very grateful for that.

I did convene a Moncrieff community cabinet before the storms to speak with faith leaders and not-for-profit community organisations across my electorate so that we could help the city with a list of resources that we could put forward that they could use in terms of meeting rooms, community halls and those sorts of things as additional resources for the city. I want to thank my community cabinet for coming together before the storms and again after the storms. I convened a meeting after the storms so that we could discuss how we could improve, the medium- to long-term recovery of our community and how we could best help with food security and other measures.

I want to praise the City of Gold Coast for the preparation and the recovery work, and I also want to assure Australians that the beach recovery is well underway. In fact, it's changing daily, and our city's mayor has outlined that by Easter we'll absolutely be ready for our tourists to return to our pristine beaches and, of course, our theme parks and tourism attractions, which are so very important to jobs and to hospitality businesses and tourism businesses on the Gold Coast.

We have a 'love Gold Coast' campaign that the city has launched. Spend $50 and get $50 to use across accommodation, experiences and dining providers. I also want to commend Premier Crisafulli for his very strong messaging. His clear and concise communication left no doubt—particularly for schools, for example, about when they were closing and when they were able to reopen—how the state was helping volunteers and the SES. It was so very important that that messaging was clear, and that was the clear message that I got back from schools in the following days when I was visiting schools and welcoming students back to school.

I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition for coming to the Gold Coast and meeting with the member for Fadden and with some local councillors, including the Mayor, Tom Tate, and Deputy Mayor, Donna Gates, at the disaster management centre. I want to thank them for their time and thank him for his time on the Gold Coast and for coming to visit us and interacting with all those people who were working at the disaster centre.

It's been a difficult time for many Gold Coasters, and we're still recovering. Our economy is also suffering, so, if you're a Gold Coaster, I encourage you to stay at home at Easter. I certainly will be staying at home and enjoying the benefits of being a Gold Coast resident, with our fantastic dining offers and our tourism experiences—everything from jet skis, boats and sailing to the surf clubs along the beach. I've certainly got nine of those in the electorate of Moncrieff, and they really need your support at this time so that they can get back on their feet and continue the work that they do of saving lives on our beaches.

To the faith leaders and those not-for-profit organisations in Moncrieff and the wider Gold Coast, thank you for what you do every day to help those families who are struggling, particularly right now with food security, paying their electricity bills and paying their mortgages whilst trying to recover from the adverse effects of Cyclone Alfred, which are far and wide across the Gold Coast.

I will just finish by saying that if you need any extra support and you're not sure where to turn, please feel free to contact my office. My team will put you in touch with someone who can help you directly on the ground. If you need some volunteers to help you clean something up or to move some furniture—whatever it is that you need done as a result of the impact of Cyclone Alfred—please reach out to us and we will help you in any way that we can.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start off by saying a huge thank you to the many organisations and individuals who went above and beyond in assisting the local communities impacted by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. It was the best of Australians that we saw, with so many communities rallying and services—more often than not, volunteers—coming to the aid and support of so many communities to ensure there was that level of preparedness to try to mitigate the likely severe impact of the cyclone.

It was really interesting to see the role the Bureau of Meteorology played in providing that early warning and ongoing information. Of course, no-one controls nature and it has a mind of its own, so the additional time provided through that early warning process allowed for greater preparation for so many of those communities. This highlights the importance of having that visibility, that satellite capability and that information to be able to predict when these events hit.

Unfortunately, as has been established by experts, many predicted patterns are changing as our environment is changing and warming. While cyclones are predicted to be less frequent, they are predicted to be much more severe when they hit, as a result of fast-warming water temperatures, which means we have supercharged amounts of humidity in the atmosphere. This makes for much greater downpours of rain and also weather events that will hit with a severity that puts at risk the safety of communities and would devastate them economically.

The aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred is telling. When you look at the budget recently delivered by the government, it took centre stage. It has to be part of our economic planning for the future. In the aftermath—this is for one event that unravelled over the course of about a week, but the cleanup will go on for much longer—we saw more than 300,000 homes losing power. There were some 644 properties with flood damage, including 112 with severe damage. Of those, 97 had been affected by flooding in 2022 and had not even been repaired yet.

The idea that these are individual events that will happen from time to time is simply not the reality anymore. We know these events come successively. They batter communities. They overwhelm capacity to respond. They will overwhelm the very well-meaning volunteer workforce that comes to the aid of communities. We need to move beyond that capacity. We have to put in place more security and preparedness for these communities. The infrastructure damage is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. The aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred underscores Australia's vulnerability as a continent to extreme weather events. I think that in the same week that we were talking about ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred we had other parts of Australia grappling with flooding and other parts grappling with bushfires. The reality is that we are incredibly exposed as a continent to these changing events. We're feeling the impacts of our warming climate, and, without interventions, communities will continue to suffer.

Whilst it's incredibly important that we continue to mitigate, we cannot keep making this problem worse, so we must act in terms of the mitigation piece and be ambitious on our emissions reduction. We must build in adaptation and resilience at the same time. Communities and individual households should not be left holding the bag for a national and global failure of policy over the last 20 or 30 years. That adaptation-and-resilience-building piece must become a priority. Sadly, the most recent budget completely failed to address those needs.

We need to take action now to keep our communities safe today and into the future. These are really big challenges. Whilst there will be a lot of focus—and rightly so—on the insurance industry, to make sure that those with premiums are able to fully get the benefit of having paid for so many years, the reality is that one in five Australians surveyed are underinsured or uninsured. That means that, when these events strike, quite a significant proportion of people in our communities stand to lose up to 75 per cent of all the net worth that they have accumulated during their working lives, because too often it is heavily focused in the family home. A recent Australia Institute report found that one in five homeowners are underinsured or not insured. That equals some $2 trillion worth of properties at risk, as the bulk of the Australian population lives within 50 kilometres of our coastline.

So I think it becomes an economic imperative for anyone wanting to form government to have a focus on building that resilience. We see the price of climate change risk costed in insurance premiums. That is a really telling industry, because insurance companies price risk on a yearly basis. So every year that change is happening—whatever you want to believe as to the causes, or whether you want to believe that we have an impact on it or not—those companies look at the financial model, they cost risk and they build it into that model. So, whether you want to believe it or not, you are paying for it; whether you are directly impacted or not, you are paying for it. This is how the model works. It exposes a huge issue in economic management for Australia. We have to look at that and deal with it, and bring everyone to the table to solve it.

There must, of course, always be scrutiny of insurers to make sure there is no price-gouging and that there is compliance and quick processing. But the reality is that, as other jurisdictions and countries have found, insurers will choose to vacate a market if the risk becomes simply too high, or they will choose to just not insure for certain risks. In the wake of the LA fires, we're finding that a huge proportion of people impacted there in fact had only very recently found themselves to no longer have insurance. That leaves a huge problem, when so much damage is caused.

So it's a really high-stakes road map, and ex-Cyclone Alfred highlights the urgent need for immediate action to keep communities safe against climate change. I have called for a national framework for adaptation, which means legislating an independent climate-change risk assessment every five years to identify and address significant climate risks, because every community will have different needs. Some communities will need coolrooms and opportunities to escape heat; others will need to deal with drought, flooding, coastal erosion or bushfires. The risks are different in different communities, and we must have a national plan to address that. Obviously, going hand-in-hand with that, we must also legislate for the government of the day to have a national adaptation plan, outlining strategies, policies and proposals to mitigate the identified risks, complete with an implementation timeframe and monitoring indicators. This caring about communities can't just be left to whoever is in government, because it is the marginal seats that they care about.

There has to be a properly managed plan for that adaptation and resilience-building. Of course, it will cost—and that's why I'm calling for sustainable funding, with a $10 billion climate resilience fund, to secure that safety for our communities and to assist local government in doing the kinds of infrastructure changes that will build their resilience. That can be fully funded through the budget, by redistributing priorities so that, rather than continuing to do cream on top for mining companies through fossil fuel credits, we actually start to redirect funds to households and to local governments, so that they can be safe and lower their insurance premiums.

This plan is a comprehensive plan that I have put to both sides of politics who want to form government, because we know we can't leave householders holding the bag. Currently, they are paying for incredible increases in insurance premiums. Premiums have risen by 32 per cent since 2022 alone. This is an unsustainable trajectory.

We also can't leave local governments alone to deal with this problem. They are on the front line. When things fall apart or when events strike, it is local governments that have to deal with them. So we must put in place the capacity for local governments to build that resilience. And it can't be left to local residents to pay for it through council rates to local government. It is simply unacceptable that state governments are transferring onto our local governments a lot of these emergency-response fees and costs. And, ultimately, it is the individual residents who are paying for them.

We know the economic savings. There is a resilience dividend. For every $1 invested in resilience building, we save $11 on disaster recovery. In the most recent budget, it was estimated that the cost of ex-Cyclone Alfred would rise to $13.8 billion. We can do so much better if we start building adaptation and resilience.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time being 1 pm, the Federation Chamber is now suspended.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 15:59

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the tragedy that was ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. It did take a life. We should also acknowledge those soldiers, those brave troops, who were injured when two trucks rolled over near Tregeagle near Lismore, and certainly we thank the people who helped out at the crash site. Twelve or 13 Australian Defence Force personnel, who were injured after their military vehicles tipped over in flood-affected northern New South Wales, were released from hospital the day after. But 32 soldiers, 16 per vehicle, were assisting the community in the aftermath of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred when that crash occurred.

I don't know how many, if any, or if maybe all of them, were trained at 1st Recruit Training Battalion Kapooka, Blamey Barracks, Wagga Wagga, but I know the precision with which they are trained. The current Commandant at 1RTB is Colonel Gerard Kearns. I often say that the person who fills that role has the most important job in the Australian Army, because they are training the best of the best. Whether they are on peacekeeping missions, going into combat for and on behalf of our nation and others besides, or whether they're doing the sort of work that these soldiers were embarking upon and going to, it is vital work for our nation. We pay tribute to them. We hope there are no long-lasting effects from the injuries sustained in that accident.

I know the New South Wales police confirmed the two ADF trucks had not collided, and investigations continue. One vehicle had left the roadway and rolled several times into a paddock; the second vehicle tipped on its side in an attempt to avoid the first vehicle—those were the early suggestions from the investigations and inquiries.

But, needless to say, those soldiers were on their way to do a job. Those soldiers were on their way to help out. Our soldiers are always there, at the ready—prepared, as they are at Wagga Wagga—to do what they can for our nation. The emergency services personnel are always outstanding when these natural disasters occur. Previous speakers on this motion have mentioned the preparedness of the Crisafulli government, because they did put measures in place to batten down the hatches and to do what they needed to do to lessen the impact and the damage.

Now, we were fortunate that the early reports of this cyclone were not realised and that the damage caused, while significant, was not as widespread as early suggestions would have had it, and that, in Queensland and northern New South Wales, while they certainly did not escape unscathed, the actual damage wasn't as bad as first feared. That said, I know that there will be pressure now on insurers. I know that the clean-up continues. I know that, as previous speakers have also mentioned, many people these days are underinsured or uninsured. The government can't always be there to make up the shortfall when these sorts of crises occur, and it would be in people's best interests to ensure not only that they are insured but also that their home and contents insurance is of an adequate level so that, if something of this nature does occur, they are properly and sufficiently covered.

I also note that many speakers have commended the federal Minister for Emergency Management, Senator Jenny McAllister. I, too, have had a lot of contact with Senator McAllister in her capacity as minister in that important portfolio area. I too can inform the House that those discussions were above politics and were very professional, and she was there when I needed her. We've had some quite severe storms go through the Riverina this summer just passed. One, which hit Wagga Wagga, Downside and Cowra on 15 January, caused quite some damage, including the Downside Hall being almost totally demolished. Unfortunately, it had been recently refurbished, so all of the work in that regard was almost for naught, some locals would argue. But, thankfully the member for Cootamundra, who is also the shadow minister for crown lands, and the state government have seen fit to get the repairs underway. I commend them all for that.

To that end, I thank the Minister for Emergency Services in the state parliament, Jihad Dib, for also reaching out, as Senator McAllister did, on a weekend and at night—whatever was required—which I really think is very professional of him and of her. It's the least you do expect, but it's still that you are able to pass on to your constituents that ministers are on the job.

I'd like to thank Senator Perin Davey and Gurmesh Singh PM, the shadow ministers for emergency services in both the federal and New South Wales parliaments, for the work they did to also ensure there were people like assessors on the ground, making sure they were doing what they do, that insurers were on notice and, of course, helping out any in which way they could.

Speaking of insurers, the CEO of the Insurance Council of Australian, Andrew Hall of Cowra, has also been very much at the forefront whenever I've called. This is important, because insurers and insurance companies often come under fire when these sorts of things happen. But, I have to say, our discussions have been fruitful. Let's hope that insurers do the right thing.

I'm sad to say the property of Andrew Roberts, Glenrock, on Marrar South Road, was severely hit. The house lost its roof and he wasn't allowed to go back to his property because of fears around electrical wiring et cetera. The house absolutely looked like a cyclone had ripped through it, and some might argue that one had. He is right on the boundary of the Coolamon shire and Wagga Wagga City Council local government areas and, because he is just on the wrong side of the boundary, so to speak, he cannot claim any of the disaster assistance relief or any emergency services payments et cetera. Cyclones and storms don't discriminate; they don't follow boundary lines, and he's been left high and dry.

I'd also like to mention the Hilltops local government area that was hard hit on 10 February, when a hailstorm whipped through Harden-Murrumburrah, the twin towns on the south-west slopes. Again, the ministers came to the fore. I'd like to commend Rose Hamilton. She works at the Harden bowling club. She's been the licensee there for a dozen years. Despite suffering extensive damage at her residence on Whitton Lane in Harden, she was there mopping up and cleaning up the bowling club. Fair dinkum, if you saw this bowlo—the ceiling was totally missing. The hail that hit in that wide, yet very concentrated area, did so much damage. It looked like a snowstorm had completely blanketed the area, when that devastation occurred on that fateful afternoon. Thankfully, no-one was badly hurt or, indeed, worse.

Again, the State Emergency Service personnel were very, very quick to act. We see the best of Australians in the worst of times. I note that federal and state authorities very quickly stumped up a recovery centre for those townships at the Harden Country Club and were very active and quick to respond, as you would expect them to be.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tropical Cyclone Alfred came down the coast, as we know, and certainly affected my area just an hour or so south of Brisbane where the eye of the storm was. I want to go through a bit of a sequence of events there. I'll also get on to what this did and what the event that we had in 2022 in my region triggered, some of the consequences of that and where we're still at with that.

The big difference for us with this tropical cyclone that was moving down the coast was that, unlike the event we had in 2022, we had a lot of warning. We were talking about this for four or five days, waiting for this to maybe occur. I know the member for Flynn, here from Central Queensland, is probably thinking, 'What were you worried about?' You have these things all the time, but tropical cyclones aren't that common in our area. For them to come down that far south is unusual. They happen about every 20 or 30 years, and some of the ones that have come down have caused quite severe havoc, so we were very, very concerned about it.

A lot of work went into preparing for it. The great thing is that we were preparing for the worst, but we were certainly hoping and praying for the best. As to the type of work we had done, we had the SES; we had Scott Tanner, who started to lead the recovery or the first responders for this event; Brendan Moon from NEMA arrived. A lot of politicians arrived from both state and federal governments. Everyone was actioning everything they could and getting prepared for what may or may not happen.

The good news was that, when the event hit, although there was certainly a fair bit of rain—on my property I probably had about 400 or 500 millimetres over four or five days—we had breaks in between that which meant that the water could get away and the flooding wasn't severe. There was still major flooding. All rivers got to their major levels or categorisations, but certainly the water got away and there wasn't as much severe damage as there could have been.

To give you some perspective on this, in the 2022 event—and I'll talk about Lismore at this stage—the flood was forecast to come through at 11½ metres when everyone went to bed, and it came through at 14½ metres. And that changed at two in the morning when everyone was asleep. Three metres of extra water was a lot of water and it was two metres higher than we had ever seen. That's why a lot of people were in danger and a lot of people were at risk of drowning through that event. This event that we just had was 9½ metres. So 9½ metres versus 14½ metres is a big difference. It's why the event certainly didn't cause the carnage that it could have.

I want to now talk about the 2022 event, what this event did and what it triggered and where we're still at with this in relation to disasters. What happened after the 2022 event was that we had two choices to make. Get your head around this: we had thousands of homes that were flooded—not a hundred, not a few hundred, but thousands of homes. In many thousands of them the water came up to the gutter, and people had to scramble out of their homes. Remember: water had never reached these levels before. We've had floods. As the member for Flynn would know, when you live with these things you know what to do, you know what to expect and you have plans. Everyone had their flood plan. Everything was built for a flood of around 12 to 12½ metres. Houses had been lifted. People had flood plans for their businesses. They had mezzanine levels in a business or they took cars or trucks or whatever to levels above the 12 to 12½ metres. Everyone did that in 2022—and everyone did that in this event too—but what happened was the water went two metres higher, which meant that people were sleeping in their beds when water started coming in at two in the morning and they were in danger. They couldn't get out of their houses. They couldn't go anywhere except to scramble to their roofs, which was dangerous. You had old people having to do this. You had children having to do this. You had people swimming underwater, literally, to get out of their house and then to get on top of it. You had pets. You had all sorts of stuff. To this day, it's quite a miracle for me and my community that only four or five people, very sadly, drowned, but one of them died before that night. The fact that only four people died was very sad but still a miracle.

Post that event, the community had a big decision to make. It was like, 'We now have to look at 14½ metres as the level that this can happen at.' The town is built for 12½ metres. There is a levy that is only built for 10½ metres that does some protection for the CBD. There are a lot of industrial estates. With all due respect, in my mind Lismore is a bit too big to fail and a bit too big to move. So a decision had to be made—what were we going to do? There were two choices. It's not rocket science. You either move everyone or you mitigate. What do I mean by mitigate? You do something that means the next flood will be lower because of the work that you've done than it otherwise would be.

A very poor decision was made three years ago. A decision was made by the NRRC, a state corporation, to move everyone. What did that mean? They identified 2,000 homes that they thought were endangered and needed moving. Three years on, if we are lucky, maybe half of those homes will get moved. What does that mean? If this tropical cyclone had been another event similar to what we had, people wouldn't have been any safer. The ridiculousness of it—this might make you, Deputy Speaker, cranky as it makes me—is that nearly a billion dollars has been spent to identify these houses, and they're going to buy back about half. It will be co-funded by the state and federal governments. You may well say, 'What does that achieve if you are moving only half of the houses?' and I would say: 'That's a very good question. It's not as much as that money should be doing.'

Another joke about this is the way this was designed to run. Work it out. If your sell your house as a buyback—they're buying back the houses for around $600,000—guess what? That doesn't stop you from buying a house that someone who can't wait for the buyback is selling on the private market for, say, $300,000. So you can buy back a house for $300,000 and have $300,000 left over to renovate it, because you want to stay there because your kids go to the school up the road and you work down the road. I don't blame people for doing that, but it's obviously a huge flaw in the scheme. I know a number of people who've done that. They sold on the flood plain and bought back on the flood plain and had a bit of money left over to renovate the house. What has that achieved for people's safety? Nothing.

Three years on, we have a situation where the CBD isn't more protected. A lot of people have had to go back into their businesses in the CBD and in the industrial estates. They've spent a lot of their own money to do that, and they did it because, in some cases, they had nothing else they could do. This is their business; this is their livelihood, and they've had to reinvest. But nothing has happened yet that has made their business safer in the CBD or in any of the industrial estates, and a lot of the people in those 2,000 homes will not get an offer for a buyback either. So we have a real dog's breakfast of a situation. This event triggered what a dog's breakfast it is, because not much has really happened to make a lot of people safer.

My community has been traumatised by this. I think we have collective PTSD, because this was the biggest disaster in Australia's history. The biggest disaster in Australia's history was what this region went through. All that got triggered—kids get triggered when it rains heavily. A lot of business owners and a lot of personal friends of mine were almost in cathartic positions on their beds on Saturday, terrified about what this event might have been.

Anyway, there is a solution to this, and I encourage people in charge of the state entities here and the state government, which will have to request this. When in government federally, we commissioned through the CSIRO a flood mitigation hydrology report about what the options are here. Basically, without going into where and how this would happen, the options are that you can hold back water, and, if you hold back water for a couple of days, you can let the water get away or then let it go so the flood is lower that it otherwise would be.

I think a metre to two metres off a flood would make our community safe and give it a future. People would invest in confidence. I'm told that taking a metre to two metres off a flood would cost about $2 billion. Before you go, 'Oh my God, $2 billion,' let me remind you and this chamber that that 2022 event was a $15 billion event. The federal and state governments spent all the money on disaster recovery, not on prevention. A metre and a half would cost $2 billion and mean that Lismore, the wider Northern Rivers region and the whole Richmond and Wilson catchments—so you're talking about places like Kyogle, Casino, Ballina and all the villages—would be part of this, making this region safer. That's what we have to start talking about.

At the moment we have a dog's breakfast of a situation. We're spending a billion dollars for a marginal return. It's why some of these people have moved on, and good luck to them. Mitigation is the only long-term solution for our region.