Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've got a great story to tell, but before I do, a couple of days ago in here I referred to Senator Bridget McKenzie from the Victorian Nationals as the 'minister for rorts', and it's come to my attention that really upset her. She didn't say at the time, so, because of my respect for that chair and all who sit in it and for the Senate, I will withdraw that.

On a happy note, I had the privilege to bring back my skills, my craft, my trade as a furniture removalist-truck driver last week when I did one of my Fitzroy furniture runs to Fitzroy Crossing and through the valley. Last week I met with my dear mate Carl Cardaci, the founder of Centurion Transport, who helped me get it up there and back. A few days before I left Canberra and we loaded three trailers of kindly donated double, king- and queen-size mattresses, all brand new, or the oldest may have been 30 days old. Some of these mattresses come in at about 10 grand a mattress, but they were all donated for the victims of the Fitzroy floods. As we know, we lost 92 homes, and all those homes were homes for Aboriginal people. You can imagine the strain on our Aboriginal families in the Fitzroy Valley and their stress from not being able to get back to Fitzroy. Now there's housing going in, as they've just put some housing in there. We're furnishing those homes and working closely with Marra Worra Worra.

I want to thank Justin Cadaci and Spencer Dewar, from Centurion Transport. Thank you so much, guys, for your kindness and generosity of throwing in a prime mover, two dollies and three trailers, plus the fuel card. I've got to tell you it's no mean feat; 5,200 kilometres of fuel is very expensive. They didn't bat an eye lid because they're part of the Kimberley community. I want to give my very special thanks to my very dear friend Nick D'Adamo and his team at KEYS The Moving Solution. I'd like to say I loaded it all on my own, but at the tender age of nearly 64 I'd get in the way. But I'd puff and pant and have a beer when we'd finished. I also want to specially thanks a very special person, Don Bantock. He owns the Bedshed franchises at Osborne Park and Midland. With his skills and his reach within the bedding industry, he's brought along a lot of other people who have helped and donated as well. Don, you are one of life's diamonds, so thank you so much. For the joy that you bring to Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, I can't thank you enough. He's been with me to Kununurra and to Fitzroy. The other day I went to a community in the valley, and they're dying to meet you, mate, because 10 of your beds went to the 10 houses in there. I spoke to the senior TO, the chairperson, and I asked her, 'What were you sleeping on before Don donated this bed?' She said, 'A piece of foam.' You can't imagine how much joy and pleasure that brings to people in the Kimberley.

We haven't been alone because so many other people helped: David Quinlivan, from the OBH, the Ocean Beach Hotel, donated many of those beds. We also took 110 single beds to the valley. We had great support from Sleep-Ezy with hundreds of brand-new mattresses donated by them—fantastic, thank you. The Hire for Baby business in Perth is run by Paul and Karen Melling. It's a hire business that does cots and change tables and all that. They shut their shop and they contacted Ben from my office. They couldn't wait to donate cots and change tables. You can't imagine how far that goes through the valley and how greatly appreciated it is. We went to the Baya Gawiy Early Childhood Learning Unit, and they're dishing out the cots to the mothers in need. Carl and I really appreciated that. Ocean Protector, a federal government ship that runs down to the Antarctic, are changing their beds. They're going to donate 60 beds to our mattresses program to get to the Kimberley and give people there an opportunity to have a good night's sleep. David Jones—thank you, David Jones—donated 30 high-quality bed bases and bedheads. You can imagine how good that was because in the last three years, I think, we have put 800 beds through the Kimberley and we'll continue to keep this going. Carl's in, Justin's in, Nick's in, Don's in—I can't ask for more than that. It gives me an excuse twice a year to get my boots on and head north and do what I love doing better than what I normally do.

Also, in saying that, I want to give a special thanks to a very dear friend of mine, Christy Cain, and his lovely wife, Anna. Anna rang me some four or five months ago. They had a beautiful marble kitchen with all the good stuff, but it was two or three years old, and Anna decided she wanted a different kitchen. She rang me and said, 'I've got this kitchen; do you want it?' My first reaction was, 'Hell, yeah.' So we went out and picked it up. It was marble. I'll tell you what: it was good-quality stuff. It was heavy. It was thousands and thousands of dollars worth of kitchen. She said, 'What are you going to do with it?' I said, 'I'll work with my Aboriginal mates up in the Kimberley and we'll work something out.' I rang Clinton Wolf, my friend from Marra Worra Worra, and said, 'Mate, what do you want to do with this kitchen?' He said, 'You couldn't have come at a better time. We're building a safe house for the kids that don't enjoy the same safety that our kids and a lot of other kids enjoy.' So that's going to be put in. The chippies are up there in Fitzroy. They're measuring it all up. They helped me to unload it last Monday or Tuesday. What a great donation that was. Thanks, Christy, and thank you, Anna.

But I just want to say this: Fitzroy Crossing—it's well known that I haunt the place. I haunt the Kimberley. I haunt the valley, particularly Fitzroy. A lot of other people love to go to the Kimberley in April, May and June, but they don't get past Broome. If they do, they'll pop into Kununurra, but they don't see the real Kimberley through the centre. The place is abuzz, and I'll tell you why it's abuzz: because the federal and state governments have done a magnificent job. I wouldn't care what colour those governments are, but these two have done a magnificent job.

We lost the Fitzroy River bridge, a single-lane bridge. It is the major link between Perth and the Northern Territory, going through to Halls Creek, Warmun, Wyndham, Kununurra and Darwin. You can imagine all that produce that couldn't come back. The road trains had to run across the Nullarbor, adding 6½ thousand kilometres to their journeys, let alone the cost. That bridge got wiped out in a once-in-a-100-year event, and it was a mangled piece of iron. I was up there looking at the mangled piece of iron in March, I think it was. I was back up there again in June and then again last week. The new bridge is nearly finished. The new bridge was supposed to be finished at the end of next year. All going well, it's going to be at least six months early. Thank goodness for that, but what a magnificent job.

I don't know these people, but I'm going to call them out: Georgiou Consortium. Georgiou—I've heard of them but I don't know them—with BMD Group are the nominated preferred proponents to form an alliance with Main Roads and design consultant BG&E to deliver the Fitzroy River Bridge. What a magnificent job they've done—24 hours a day, seven days a week. They've had storms and rains up there, unseasonal. It's shut it all down again for a couple of days. They're going non-stop, gangbusters. When I spoke to the manager of the project when I did the tour there last week, he told me proudly that 240 Aboriginal people in the Fitzroy Valley have been employed on that job, and some of them have been recruited and FIFOed to other projects down in Perth. How good is that?

Another great story is that, on the Dales, there were 130 Aboriginal people working on that job. These were people who hadn't had construction skills. The governments and Georgiou and the consortium just threw everything at it to get them up to speed and get them employed. What a great feeling, walking on that job with all those local faces.

To cap it off, there's a very dear friend of mine, a very proud Bunuba man from Fitzroy, Keith Andrews. Keith's had visions and dreams about his people and what he could do for them. It's sad that it took such a disaster to do this, but the bright side needs to be told. So I caught up with Keith the other day and I said: 'How are you mate? Tell me what you're up to.' He has successfully started his own business on the back of the consortium. It's called Countrymen Rubbish Removal. He employs eight of his fellow countrymen, and they are employed and engaged through the council now to actually clean up the place. They're so proud. They're just cleaning up. They're getting rid of the rubbish and old cars. Keith, in an even greater story, has been awarded, I think, the sewerage contract—Keith, if I get it wrong, I know you'll sort me out when I'm back up there next time—for the township, which is just a dream come true. We don't all dream about sewerage, but for Keith and his people it is a magnificent opportunity to run the sanitary requirements around Fitzroy.

That contract has been held by a major multinational consortium called Cleanaway.

Cleanaway have done extraordinarily well for the folk of the Kimberley all these years without being challenged. They've done it, and good luck to them. But then Keith approached them and said, 'Can I buy your tanker and your truck and all that?' and they said no. I thought that was pretty damn mean-spirited from a multinational corporation. For crying out loud, it was probably written off 20 or 30 years ago. It probably started its life in Sydney, made its way down to Wagga, ended up in Adelaide, found its way through to Port Hedland and then was given to Fitzroy Crossing. So if anyone knows anyone in Cleanaway, can they just put in a phone call to the GM and say, 'For Christ's sake, mate, what's the value on the damn thing?' Keith doesn't want it for nothing, but, God almighty, can't we extend that generosity and say thank you and well done to local people in Fitzroy who care about their people, their families and their community?