Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

This has been a really challenging time for communities in South-East Queensland and in northern New South Wales. Tropical Cyclone Alfred was not unprecedented, but it was highly unusual. It was category 2 cyclone bearing down on one of the most densely populated regions in Australia. I know that the thoughts of all Australians were with those potentially in its path. At one point during the event, 450,000 Australians had lost power in perhaps the most significant power outage in Australia's history. We saw, through this event, the hard work of emergency services personnel, ADF personnel, local government employees, energy and telco personnel, and thousands of volunteers to keep communities safe.

The Albanese government worked very closely with the Queensland and New South Wales governments to support the households that were impacted by ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred. For example, supports were jointly funded for people if they lost essential services, such as power, gas, water and sewerage, for more than five days; if they needed help to cover the cost of emergency essentials, like food, clothing and medicine; or if their home became structurally unsafe to live in. We have also, of course, provided Commonwealth-only assistance in the form of the Australian government disaster recovery payment and the disaster recovery allowance. The latter payment supports people who are unable to work for a period as a consequence of the event. We know that this will have a cost on the budget, and the Treasurer has made that clear in recent days, but we think this expenditure is worth it, we think it is critical and we will stand by the people of South-East Queensland and the people of northern New South Wales as they begin their journey of recovery.