John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise on this motion of condolence with regard to the natural disasters that our country has experienced over the last few weeks. My eldest son, David, and his wife Tammy, along with their three-week-old baby boy, live in Cairns, as well as my only daughter, Rebecca. On the Wednesday of the morning that Cyclone Yasi was to arrive in Cairns, it was a frightening experience to talk to the children and to sense the fear in their voices about what was going to happen. Thankfully, all there came through well.

But, in relation to the floods, we saw frightening scenes on television at Toowoomba, Ipswich, Brisbane and out through the river system. The Condamine has been flooded several times this summer—including at St George, as of course my colleague Senator Barnaby Joyce is well aware.

I would also like to refer to northern New South Wales. On 11 January at Tenterfield, just south of the Queensland border on the New England Highway, they experienced some 220 millimetres of rain over several hours, which effectively cut the town in half. Many houses were inundated with water. The Dumaresq Valley flooded, and the damage that has caused to farms down that valley, and the loss of income, has just been huge. Some say it was larger than the 1976 flood; some say it was on par. It was pleasing to note that last week Senator Joe Ludwig, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, visited that area between Tenterfield and Bonshaw, along with the member for New England, Tony Windsor. All I can say is that the loss of income to the farmers has been huge. One farm I visited, when we went up there to a meeting at Mingoola, had lost 8,000 bales of hay—at $10 for a small bale, that is $80,000; two four-wheel motorbikes—probably another $10,000; and 200 tonnes of pumpkins—$360,000, at $1,800 a tonne. It was quite amazing to see the damage to the road, the washout of the bridges, the approaches taken out—not two metres long and two metres deep but probably 50 metres long and 10 metres deep, like a river just carving out a whole new river system alongside the bridges. I saw 2,000-litre fuel tanks five metres up in the trees and the pumpkins hanging off the centre pivots like Christmas decorations. The damage has been huge, including hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of fencing. I was doing some quick calculations the other day. Just for a five plain-wire and one barbed-wire fence you are looking at $2,000 per kilometre to replace. The cost is huge, and these people have lost their income for the year. Their concern is, of course, like most on the land: how do they pay the bank?

It was not only the hay area and the irrigation areas but the wineries up there that were affected. I pay a special tribute to Nick De Stefani at Reedy Creek Winery, who coordinated so much in the area. A helicopter came in and evacuated 19 people and then proceeded to drop supplies to those others who were stranded. Nick De Stefani’s winery, Reedy Creek, suffered huge destruction of their grapes—no doubt a huge loss of income for the next 12 months for them. I also visited Zappa winery. Cassegrain Wines also have wineries in the Tenterfield Valley. The loss to these industries has been huge.

I commend those who have done so much to help their neighbours in a time of huge demand, when Mother Nature was certainly very severe on our country. As Dorethea Mackellar would say: a land of droughts and flooding rains. How true that is. The Tenterfield Shire estimates a damage bill of between $2 million and $3 million; the Inverell Shire, damages of around $900,000. We know the infrastructure will get going and will be repaired. But my concern is for the industries along there—the farmers, many of them young farmers. We know the average age of a farmer is around 57 or 58 these days, but these young people have had plenty of setbacks before in their lives. They will need some assistance. Let us hope that some interest rates subsidies of some form are forthcoming to help these people get through their financial troubles. That is probably their greatest concern. As I said, the infrastructure, the roads, will be repaired. The loss of bitumen was amazing—just torn up and washed away. This is in northern New South Wales. Much of the concentration has been on Queensland, where so much damage has been done. There is also Victoria and Western Australia, where there are now fires. Cyclone Yasi in Queensland caused a huge amount of damage to places like Cardwell, Tully, Mission Beach and elsewhere. For the farmers up there, with the banana farms and the sugar farms—especially when sugar is at such a tremendously high world price—it is devastating to see the loss of income.

I will be brief in saying thank you to so many volunteers who helped their fellow Australians at a time of need. We know that all of us in this place support the actions to help these people get back on their feet, the businesses back on their feet and the infrastructure repaired. We do have to give these people some assistance so they can get through their financial woes and be there next year. No doubt that Aussie spirit will help them, but some financial assistance with their interest rates would be of great help. Let us hope that that is forthcoming.