Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate:

(a)

acknowledges with great sadness the devastation occasioned by this summer’s natural disasters including unprecedented floods, Cyclone Yasi and bushfires;

(b)

extends its deepest sympathies to the families of those who have lost loved ones;

(c)

records its profound regret at the impact of this summer’s natural disasters on the economic and social well-being of affected communities;

(d)

records its admiration for the courage shown by so many in the face of these disasters;

(e)

acknowledges the enormous effort of defence personnel, emergency workers, and so many volunteers in responding to these disasters; and

(f)

pledges the full support of the Australian Parliament and community to assist affected areas to recover and rebuild.

Almost two years ago, the Senate met in sorrow to offer its condolences to the victims of Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires. It is with profound sadness that we now gather to mourn the loss of life caused by another extreme weather event. The floods that have swept across Australia have been the most devastating in our recorded history. At least 35 people are believed to have lost their lives in Queensland and nine people remain missing. Two further flood related deaths have been reported in New South Wales and Victoria, both sadly involving young children. Many Australians are mourning these lost lives as we gather here today. Their sense of loss will endure long after these words of condolence are spoken and the essential task of rebuilding is complete. Today we acknowledge all who have lost their lives in this summer’s floods and extend our sympathies to those who mourn their lost loved ones or await news of their whereabouts.

This summer, residents in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania have all experienced the frightening reality of rising floodwaters. Some communities have experienced more than one flood in the space of months or even weeks. Homes have been lost, businesses destroyed and lives turned upside down. Electricity, gas and water supplies have been cut and communities have been left with the legacy of shredded roads and collapsed bridges. In Queensland, the state hardest hit by this season’s terrible floods, more than 70 population centres and hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. In more recent days, residents in the north of Queensland have been confronted with the full fury of Cyclone Yasi, leading to further loss of life and even more physical destruction.

Floods and cyclones are not the only natural phenomena to threaten lives this Australian summer. Just this week, bushfires have threatened lives and destroyed more than 60 homes in the Perth foothills. Common to all extreme weather events across the nation this summer has been the resilience of affected households, businesses and communities; the courage of emergency services and defence personnel; and the selflessness of volunteers who have lent a hand to those in need. The Prime Minister recently announced that she has written to the Queen seeking approval for a new medal to honour those who have performed heroic and selfless acts and who have volunteered their services during recent times of crisis. Subject to approval, the first awards will be presented next Australia Day and will include recognition of those who reached out to others during the Black Saturday fires two years ago. The selflessness of individual volunteers during the current summer has been reflected in the generosity of individuals and businesses who have donated and continue to donate to the various appeals established to help people affected by flood, cyclone and now fire. The total raised by one appeal, the Queensland Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal, now exceeds $201 million. Many donations and offers of assistance have been received from overseas and we thank our friends in the international community for their support.

We also thank our friends in the media for the work they have done this summer alerting Australians to the danger of flood, cyclone and fire and bringing us the stories of heroism and heartbreak that characterise natural disasters of this scale. It is appropriate to acknowledge in particular the role ABC Radio has played conveying essential safety messages to people placed in danger by this season’s unfolding natural disasters.

It is important for Australians affected by these disasters to know that the parliament and the government are by their side. The Commonwealth is working with state governments to provide a range of assistance measures to individuals, businesses and primary producers. These measures include personal hardship and distress payments for individuals, concessional interest rate loans and freight subsidies for businesses and recovery grants for primary producers and small businesses. Much of this assistance is provided through Centrelink, whose staff have worked long and irregular hours to ensure that people get assistance in their time of need.

With three-quarters of Queensland declared a disaster zone, preliminary estimates indicate that the Commonwealth will need to invest more than $5.5 billion to rebuild flood affected regions alone. Recovery and reconstruction is not a short-term task and this is not the time to debate the government’s plan to fund the task ahead. What Australians want to hear today is that this Senate, representing every state and territory in the federation, is united in its resolve to support affected individuals, families, businesses and communities. It is the Australian way to help each other in times of need. Countless individuals with mops and brooms in hand have started the task; governments must help finish the job.

I conclude my contribution to this debate by acknowledging that for some families it is too early to contemplate the next stage of their lives. There are still people missing in the wake of the Queensland floods. My heart goes out to family members who are waiting for news of their loved ones. On behalf of the government, I extend my profound sympathy to the families and friends of those who are lost and missing in the floods and offer support for the recovery and reconstruction task ahead. I commend the motion to the Senate.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That greatly loved poet who captured so much of that which is unique about our great country, Dorothea Mackellar, summed up Australia’s capacity to deliver brutal weather events in her moving tribute My Country, penned some 100 years ago. In that renowned poem she talked of Australia’s ‘droughts and flooding rains’. She spoke about our country’s terror, of ‘flood and fire and famine’. That word picture of our country by Dorothea Mackellar 100 years ago has rung especially true this summer for many Australians. While she may not have specifically mentioned cyclones, I am sure that those who were confronted by Cyclone Yasi will say it was appropriately covered by the descriptor ‘terror’ in the second verse.

Whilst devastating weather events have always been part of our history and experience as a nation, it does not make it any easier for those who actually experienced the floods, the fires and the sheer terror of the cyclone. So on behalf of the coalition, the alternative government, I extend our deepest sympathy to those who have personally felt and experienced the full front and the terror of the recent natural disasters—floods in every state, fires in two and a cyclone. To those who have lost loved ones, to those who fear the worst for loved ones who are unaccounted for, to the injured, to those who have lost their worldly possessions and to those who have lost their livelihoods we extend our sympathy and support.

Here in this modern marvel, our Parliament House, with its full air conditioning and other creature comforts, we are far removed from the experience that so many tens of thousands of our fellow Australians experienced in recent times and, indeed, are still experiencing. It is appropriate therefore that this parliament take time out to extend sympathy, to reflect and ponder, to salute our emergency service personnel, our police and our defence personnel, to acknowledge the spirit of the private and mostly anonymous volunteers who excelled, to embrace and highlight the thousands of acts of selflessness we have witnessed and to appreciate the generosity of those who have donated to the flood appeal, which already represents about $10 per man, woman and child.

It is also appropriate to thank our national broadcaster, the ABC, for its role and, also, our commercial media, which lived up to their community service obligations. As is so often the case, we see our nation and her people at their best in times of adversity. Regrettably, and thankfully to no great extent, we have also witnessed the worst of behaviours with looting and other undesirable acts of preying on our people in their plight and time of need. I trust the courts will keep in mind the community’s overwhelming sense of disgust at such behaviour.

We have witnessed leadership at its best by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane and the Queensland Premier. Regrettably, we have also witnessed cynical public utterances. While more needs to be said about this appalling behaviour, now is not the time other than to note its regrettable occurrence.

As the weather stabilises again and the clean-up, the repairs, the rebuilding and the new starts are made, we need to recognise that the task of rebuilding will be with us for days, weeks, months and, indeed, years to come. The clean-up, the rebuilding and the repairs will not only entail the infrastructure of road, rail and community facilities; it will also entail private housing and businesses and, most importantly, the rebuilding of shattered individual lives and communities. I fear the tragedy of a delayed impact on many of the survivors—families torn apart, fractured emotions, shattered self-esteem, feelings of guilt and the nagging thought, ‘Could I have done more?’ All those people deserve our support and will need our help for many tomorrows to come.

So while we pause to mourn the dead, to comfort the injured and to sympathise with those who have lost their worldly possessions, the coalition also stands ready to support the survivors, the fellow Australians whom we have the honour of representing in this place, to get justice from their insurance companies, to get justice from their banks, to obtain understanding from the Australian Taxation Office, to gain support from employers and to ensure that government support is properly targeted and administered. In times like these, it is far too easy to talk the big picture and the broad brush. Our task is also to concentrate on each individual and on each community, focusing especially on the smaller population centres where the capital to rebuild the local supermarket or pub will be the determining factor as to whether that township revives or dies.

The insurance companies and the banks bear a very real responsibility here. Their decisions, made in air-conditioned high-rise offices, will determine the future prospects of families, businesses and communities alike. There will be those whose real estate assets have plummeted in value or those uninsured who have had their homes washed away—will they be able to rebuild; will they be allowed to rebuild? If not, what can they do with the block of land they own? There will be the local publican who leases flooded premises where the owner cannot raise the capital to rebuild; or indeed the owner of the pub whose lease was a retirement income stream; or the business which was not impacted at all physically but sells its product into a devastated area and has lost its market; or those who have or will lose their job as a result; or the widow whose lifetime of memories in pictures and photo albums no longer exists—all those reminders of happy bygone days simply and brutally obliterated.

In future days this parliament will debate how best to assist those who have been so devastatingly impacted. Different approaches will be considered and discussed, as they should be, and there will be passionate debate, as there should be. I do not presume to speak on behalf of all senators but on this occasion let me try. Irrespective of our passionately held views, one thing those impacted on can be assured of is that we are united in this place in our desire to help. That will not be in dispute. The only question is: how can we best help? And that too is as it should be.

Our nation will rebuild. It is in our DNA. When bushfires, droughts, floods, heatwaves, big freezes, cyclones and landslips assail us we do not simply walk away. If we did, we would have abandoned large tracts of our great country over the centuries. The fact that we have not bears testament to our intergenerational resilience and determination. As our forebears replanted, restocked and rebuilt, so will we in 2011 replant, restock and rebuild. We inhabit a continent that Dorothea Mackellar poignantly described as having both beauty and terror. The good news is that the terror our continent inflicts is only momentary whereas her beauty is constant. We rebuilt after the Gundagai flood of 1852, which took 89 lives. We rebuilt after the 1916 Clermont flood, which took 65 lives. We have rebuilt after cyclones, fires, landslips and drought. I trust that in years to come our successors will look back on 2011 as another chapter in the story of Australia where we excelled ourselves in helping each other to rebuild after the calamities of fire, floods and cyclones. In the meantime, let us remember in our prayers the deceased, the bereaved, the injured and the devastated and let us draw strength together from our forebears who, when confronted with similar or even worse ordeals, simply got on with the task of rebuilding—and the coalition stands absolutely committed to doing its bit. With that spirit, with that commitment, with that resolve, our fellow Australians’ lives, both individually and in community will be rebuilt.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with the previous speakers in supporting this motion wherein the Senate acknowledges the extraordinary destruction, death and anguish that have come to so many parts of this great country of ours in recent months through floods, cyclones and fires. The total toll can now be measured in more than 40 lives; more than 40,000 homes destroyed or inundated by flood waters; and a monetary cost of at least $12 billion in damage concentrated on a small part of the Australian population. Through this motion the parliament hopefully will bring forward the great warmth and comradeship Australians have for people in such distress and share the burden of doing what we can in reparation for those people who have lost so much.

Nothing could be more terrifying than the news, following the floods through Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley earlier this year, of the swiftness with which that extraordinary event overtook the people in its path, leaving them helpless and in some cases watching as their families and communities were destroyed in front of their eyes—that is, those who survived. It is beyond our ability to give reparation for the horror faced by people in those circumstances, as indeed it was beyond our ability, when as a nation we watched and wondered and slept badly, if at all, on the night that Cyclone Yasi crossed the coast, to feel the terror of so many people, even though forewarned, as Yasi cut that massive naturally destructive swathe.

In a healthy and great democracy like ours, it is natural for all of us to want to put our shoulder to the wheel in getting assistance as rapidly as possible to aid and abet that of state governments, local authorities and the meritorious work done to assuage the extraordinary difficulties faced by so many people in the wake of these destructive events. It is also a time to pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of people who have contributed, volunteered or gone to the aid of neighbours, friends, families or people they did not know in these extraordinary circumstances. It brought out the best in humanity. We know some of the stories of selflessness and assistance in the midst of terrifying circumstances, but I bet we do not know a lot of them yet—and they will emerge. We must congratulate all those people who came together to minimise the impact of these disasters.

Senator Abetz mentioned the flood at Gundagai, where he said that 89 people died. That little township was swept away from an island in the middle of the Murrumbidgee River in a horrific flood in the middle of the night when, by the time the residents recognised what was happening, they had nowhere to go. Of course the township since then has been built higher in much safer circumstances and has survived a number of floods without that terrifying loss of life. In the future as a nation we must help to plan local communities to make them safer from the repeat of the events we have seen in recent years in this country such as bushfires, floods and cyclones. We know from the records that 300 people, including 100 Indigenous Australians, lost their lives in the great cyclone of Cairns in 1899; over 400 people lost their lives in the disaster of the Cataraqui going ashore in a storm off the west coast of King Island 50 years before that; and we have seen catastrophic bushfires, the worst of which just two years ago took 170-plus lives in Victoria.

We are a more populous country than we were but we are a very innovative country. We have technologies now that our forebears can only have dreamt of, including forecasting wherewithal. We have to acknowledge the services of people who face the hazards of forecasting, of SES personnel and of people who have done whatever they can to get people out of harm’s way, and we have to acknowledge also those who have rebuilt after previous disasters in a way which has minimised the impact of harm. I refer here, for example, to the cyclone proofing or defensiveness of modern homes built in this country since the era of Cyclone Tracy. There is no doubt that hundreds more people would have lost their lives without these technological breakthroughs and without the work of people dedicated to minimising the impact of such awesome events as we have seen in recent times.

Our heart goes out to those who are suffering and will continue to suffer from the impact of these events. We hope that there maybe some respite from it so that we as a nation can move on and hopefully make ourselves safer from such events in the future. The Australian Greens join with other members of this parliament in assuring all those who have been victims of these events that we will do, and are doing, what we can in the political arena to assist the rapid deployment of aid and facilities through not just money but also the remarkable services of public servants, the Army, the SES, the police, medical personnel, people in local government and others throughout this nation. They are deployed to those jobs at our behest and for the benefit of our fellow citizens right now.

Finally, a word on the natural environment, which we look to after the human factor is, as best it can be, attended to. There is no doubt there has been a lot of havoc on the Great Barrier Reef in recent times, a lot of destruction of the great rainforests of Queensland and the wildlife and ecosystems there, and the same applies through the areas which have suffered flooding and fire damage elsewhere in the country. It is part of our harrowing job, but a responsibility we must take on, to see that we do whatever we can to minimise the impact on this nation’s great environmental amenity, because our employment prospects in the future and our economy—as well as our feeling of wellbeing as citizens of this great country—depend on us doing just that.

I thank the government and the opposition for their lead in this debate. I join with them. I add the support of the Greens in bringing comfort wherever and in whatever way we can to the victims of these events and a commitment to see that everything is done that is humanly and politically possible to lessen the burden on the shoulders of those citizens who have been unfortunate enough to be most affected by this series of floods, cyclones and bushfires in Australia.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise solemnly to speak to this motion on natural disasters and I start with a quote:

Mr McErlean grabbed a rope, tied one end to a post, the other around his waist and set out to rescue the woman and two boys but the fast-moving water swept him downstream.

Another rescuer, known only as Chris, pulled Mr McErlean to safety before tying the rope to himself and approaching the car to grab Jordan.

But Jordan wanted his brother to go first so Chris took Blake, handing him to Mr McErlean part way across before heading back to the car.

‘I had the boy in one hand, the rope in the other. I wasn’t going to let go but then the torrent came through and was pulling us down,’ Mr McErlean said.

‘Then this great big tall fellow just came out of nowhere, bear hugged us and ripped us out of the water. When I got back I turned to look at this guy [Chris]. He looked at me and we knew it was over. The rope snapped and the car just flipped.’

Chris, who had been holding Jordan’s hand until it was torn away from him, flew metres in the air before locking his legs around a post in the centre of the road,’ said Mr McErlean.

‘The others were just gone, just disappeared,’ he said.

I think the story of Jordan Rice unfortunately personifies the terror of the flood. The terror, and the bravery, of Jordan Rice was no greater and no lesser than the bravery of the others who perished. It seems beyond belief that at this point in time we would be talking about 22 people perishing in South-East Queensland—35 if you look from 30 November; people who literally could not believe their eyes.

We have heard terrifying stories of creeks that had been mere trickles rising five to six metres in just 10 to 20 minutes. Stories have been conveyed to me of houses taken away by the floods where grandparents had been minding grandchildren. This is the sort of horror you just cannot grow used to. But it happened in Queensland and it has now also happened in other areas due to the cyclone, and also now due to the fires—perhaps there have not been the deaths but certainly there has been the same horror and the same fear. It has brought out the best and the worst, and this period continues.

I do not think anything can match the terror experienced at places like Murphys Creek, Grantham and Lowood. Driving through those areas and seeing the damage is beyond comprehension. These areas have been gouged out by the flood waters. Pads of concrete remain where houses once stood. Dead bodies of people were carted 80 kilometres from where they had unfortunately perished. This is what was delivered to this section of the state. In places like Toowoomba nothing really could have been done. It was a freak event; an urban flood sheeting off concrete and off roads. The consequences of this flood when it arrived in the CBD and in the middle of towns are beyond comparison.

There are many whom we will always remember; names and faces of Australians we will remember. When you see a house that was not much of a house to start with—not an opulent house but a house belonging to a person whom you would say was struggling—that was completely devastated by the floods and on the front of that house an Australian flag is hanging, you know there is a spirit there and that they will offer their support to the people around them. This disaster will have an immense effect on the psychology of the people in these areas. People are having to deal with their grief. People are still missing. I think seven are still missing at this moment. In the future there will be a plaque, a memory or a story, but for the people involved it is their lives.

Llync-Chiann Clarke, 31, and her two children aged five and 12 were caught in a rural fire brigade truck when it was hit by a wall of water on the Gatton-Helidon Road. All three were found dead inside the truck. Imagine the terror of the children. How would they fathom what was happening to them? How would they understand going from being on terra firma, on grass near a road not associated with flood, and in an instant the topography changes to a roaring and terrifying mass of dark water and everything that goes with that? Imagine the fear in the eyes of children and the fear of the parents as they try their very best to save them. We hear stories of cars going past with people inside screaming. These stories leave an indelible image and it breaks the heart of even the most hardened person. It is outside of what we can reasonably perceive as happening to people whose faces and accents we know. We know the houses they lived in but they are not there anymore.

Pauline Lesley Magner, 65, was found dead on the bank of a creek near the sawmill in Gatton. Selwyn Hector Schefe, 52, was swept away in his home on Monday and his body was found on Thursday. Everything has been put asunder. Who would have thought that someone could be in their house and that their house would become a trap. Who would have thought that you could be in a house that could subside in a flood. The vision of the floods as they tore through houses is beyond comprehension. Whole paddocks were turned into a tumultuous sea of water. This happened on both sides of the range. The body of Robert John Kelly, 30, was found in his upside down Toyota Landcruiser in Myall Creek, Dalby. People in these situations would have been terrified. These people and these events are what we are remembering at this time.

We saw the evacuation of whole towns. That has never happened before in Australia. In towns like Condamine and Theodore everyone was moved. When these people move back we have to be conscious of what they are moving back to. What did they have to start with? How do they get their lives back on track? Let us not forget other areas such as Bundaberg, Rockhampton—massive floods went through Rockhampton—Emerald and my home town of St George. In St George, we were unfortunate in that it was our third flood in the last 10 months. But through that people had begun to prepare themselves better and gain a better understanding of how to deal with the situation. Those who got flooded before got flooded again and, in some instances, fortunately, the damage was not that great because they were still repairing from the last flood. Some people however had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of their own money renovating their own house only to see it flooded again. Crops were lost. You have to keep a financial lifeline going in these areas. You must keep commerce going in these areas. Without a job people have nothing. Just in my area tens of millions of dollars in crops have been lost.

On the good side, it showed the best in character. I remember looking at people around St George. The thing that went out everywhere—and I am sure it was the same in all towns—was that you did not have to ask for help; it just happened. As one so aptly put it, ‘People turned up like black flies.’ As soon as they saw the problem you did not need to ask for help—they just arrived. People would arrive to go sandbagging. People would drop off their bobcat or their excavator to help you build a levy. People who were already doing it tough with the bank would say, ‘Don’t worry, I will lend you some plant to try to make sure that we keep the flood away.’ People would turn up at people’s places and say, ‘We will try to muster this section of your place and see if we can get your stock to a place where they are not going to perish.’

It was not that people were expecting great laurels for it; it was just the way people worked. Later on we saw people turning up in Brisbane—in fact, so many people turned up that they had to start to tell them to turn around because the numbers were so great. This is the positive side of the story. People from Brisbane, Rockhampton and Emerald would just turn up and help. They did not need to be asked; they just did it. Something bound them together that said that they were all in this together and that they will empathise with you by doing more than just watching you on television—they must get to where you are and help you.

This was incredibly powerful. It gave so many people a sense of succour and comfort to see that people were prepared to turn up without even knowing who they were helping. We always have the minor instances of people who exploit a situation, but they were so minor. The overwhelming story was one of empathy, shock and horror. Then it was the overwhelming desire of so many Australians to say, ‘What can I do to help?’ I was humbled in my own town to get call after call that went like this: ‘I want to be off the record. I do not want to be known. I want to put some money up. Can you tell me where to put it? What can I do to help?’

There were people from other states and territories who put substantial amounts of money on the table who said: ‘I just want to do something. I have seen this on television. I cannot believe this is my nation, but I want to do something to help. I just want to be part of a solution. I want to be somewhere of some effect. Do I turn up myself or do I just send the cheque? Or do I send something else? What can I do to help you?’ After such a tragic and terrifying event, this is what gave you the sense of a nation pulling together—that at times people will speak up for an area other than their own and say, ‘They are doing it tougher than us.’

I remember in St George when everybody saw what was happening in Gatton, in Lowood, in Grantham, in Toowoomba and in Murphys Creek. Everybody in St George stopped thinking about St George. St George, at that point, did not matter. What mattered were those people down there and what we could do to help them. These were the same people in my town who left a positive message when the bushfires were happening in Victoria. They had the same attitude: ‘What do we do to help those people down there? Do we go fencing? What do we do? Do we go down to clean out? How do we help?’ This is the positive story.

The people in our area would have disaster meetings at one o’clock to try to work out what the tactics were for the day. No-one in those meetings was self-aggrandising; they were just asking, ‘Where do I go in this maze to be of some use?’ The Army were great. They were doing whatever was in their power to do. Shift after shift, the SES were continually trying to help. They never got tired of it and never whinged about being sick of it and wanting to go home. They just said: ‘Oh well, if we have to work tomorrow we will work tomorrow. If we have to work the next day we will work the next day. If we have to work the next week and the next month we will work the next week and the next month.’ I remember seeing on Australia Day the SES boat cruising up and down our river, still carting people with the Australian flag flying out the back. They were just giving people a sense that everything was going to be fine and that we were going to get through this.

You have to thank the doctors who went out of their way to help. They were always planning and thinking ahead: ‘If this goes bad what do we do next? If the hospital floods where do we move the people? If the old people’s home has to be evacuated how are we going to get them out?’ Everybody was diligently being a cog to try to make it affect people as little as possible.

The media were great because you had to get the messages to people about everything from trying to evacuate areas to looking after people to getting other messages that you needed to get out—such as, when the floods go and the sandflies and mosquitos turn up, remember that it is also when Ross River fever and other things will turn up. They helped people to think over the horizon about what they were going to do next. It was essential to get those messages out. The ABC local radio was great at continually informing people about what was happening, where to go and what not to do.

People in general were also very good in that they were not going into areas—especially where there had been a tragedy and where people were affected by grief—and being unnecessarily intrusive in the lives of people who were going through the absolute depths of despair over the loss of family members, friends and people from the community. People were generally pretty respectful and gave them the space to find their own solace in their own time, in their own area and with their own people. This was a wider sense of the Australian community working together.

Now we also have the unity of politics. There is a desire across this chamber and the other chamber, and between all parties, to do something and to rebuild. We must rebuild the economy of this nation because the one thing that we do not want to have at the end of this disaster is people without jobs or people in towns with no economic future. We want to make sure we fix the roads. We want to make sure the tourists come back. We want to make sure the produce is moving. We want to make sure the mines are open. We want to make sure the planes are landing. We want to make sure we get back to where we were and move ahead as quickly as possible. We want to make sure we never forget those who were so tragically killed by the floods.

This will not be the last natural disaster we have, but it is one for our time. We are so lucky and so blessed that we did not have any fatalities from Cyclone Yasi. Why is that? Hopefully it shows that when you plan, when you are ready, when you see what is coming and you put all your endeavours into protecting human lives, there is the capacity to save those lives. There was nothing we could really do about the people in the Lockyer Valley. Those people at the epicentre of this disaster died because of a freak of nature. You cannot plan for five, six or seven inches of rain in a couple hours; it just happens. If we can do whatever is within our power in the future to mitigate the effects of future events like this then the purpose of this is not lost and possibly the lives of those who were so tragically killed will provide some benefit into the future. Maybe that gives some meaning. All those who were killed remain in our thoughts and prayers, as they will forevermore.