Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Family First, I join with this motion and express my profound sadness about the devastation caused by the natural disasters which have lashed our country—the floods, the cyclone and the bushfires. Family First also extends our deepest sympathies to those families who have lost loved ones and our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by these disasters. What we have witnessed over the past month or so has been a disaster on a scale that is unimaginable in modern Australia. The loss has been extraordinary. Many families and businesses have lost everything. It is almost impossible to fully comprehend. People who have devoted their lives to building their families, homes, farms, businesses and communities have seen them wiped out just like that. It is a disaster that is still unfolding. In my home state of Victoria we have faced more floods. Yesterday a Glen Waverly man died after falling from his storm damaged roof. It was another sobering reminder of the devastation that has hit our country and affected so many families.

Only a few days ago I was up in the northern parts of Victoria to see some of the damage firsthand and speak to some of those affected by the floods. Places like Echuca, Rochester, Kerang and Horsham bore the brunt of Mother Nature. The stories of the victims are nothing short of heartbreaking. It is difficult to imagine what these people must be going through—seeing everything they have worked hard for simply destroyed. I think the full ramifications of what has occurred are yet to be fully realised. The damage bill is growing every day and the losses are still being counted. The economic cost to agriculture from the floodwaters in Victoria alone is estimated to reach $2 billion. In Queensland the figure is even higher. Many communities are still cut off from power and other services. People’s livelihoods are up in the air and many people still missing. What this tragedy has also done, however, is reveal the true meaning of the great Australian spirit. No sooner had the floodwaters started to recede than thousands of volunteers came out in their droves to help their fellow Australians and to help their local communities. It was a case of Australians helping fellow Australians, not because they knew them personally or had some long-term connection to them, but because they were fellow Australians in need of a helping hand.

Not only have we had floods across the country, we have had cyclones and bushfires too. Only two years ago Australians were left shocked from the devastation caused by the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. It has been a difficult path in those two years trying to rebuild what was so quickly taken away. However, as each day passes, the people of Victoria have continued in their struggle to restore the affected areas and rebuild their lives. I can assure those victims of the recent disasters that our commitment will be the same. We are united in our resolve to see these areas prosper once again. The clean-up will be enormous but the resilience shown by the Australian people is inspiring. As a nation we will get through these disasters together.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to offer my condolences following the series of natural disasters that beset our nation this summer and to endorse the comments of my colleagues. I also want to comment on Senator Joyce’s very evocative description of what it was like on the ground in St George, which fortunately, in relative terms, was spared from the worst of it. I think the fact that the worst of times brought out the best in people says something about the Australian spirit of mateship and about people all doing their best to help each other.

The scale of the natural disasters we have faced has been such that many of us have struggled to put them into perspective. How do you quantify this much suffering? Does an appropriate method even exist? There are things that you can observe—regions affected, houses and businesses lost and, most tragically, lives lost. But even those shocking facts do not quantify the impact that natural disasters have had on those affected both directly and indirectly. I would like to offer my sincere condolences to those who have lost loved ones both in the Queensland floods, in the aftermath of the Victorian flood and also in relation to the life lost during Cyclone Yasi. I would like to make specific mention of the people of Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley area who seemed to be hit without warning and, as a result, incurred the most fatalities and loss. I would also like to offer my support for the families of the nine individuals who are still listed as missing. I cannot imagine what you are going through. I just want to say that our thoughts are with you as you endure this terrible period of waiting.

The floods in Victoria and New South Wales have been slightly overshadowed by the events in Queensland but their impact has been just as devastating to those affected, and I would like to specifically commend Premier Baillieu for the support he has given to his state during this crisis. And then came the cyclone—it is extraordinary to think that three-quarters of Queensland was declared a disaster zone due to flooding before Cyclone Yasi even struck, decimating parts of Far North Queensland. I visited the region only a few weeks before the cyclone with the member for Kennedy. I went to Innisfail, Tully, Atherton Tablelands and all around there. Like most Australians, I watched on with great trepidation as the ferocious Cyclone Yasi approached the coast near Cairns. I think like many people I kept tuning in that night, waiting to see what would occur and watching the live coverage. When viewing the aftermath in the media, I genuinely felt it was a miracle that there were so few fatalities. This was testimony to the preparedness of so many people in that region. But we should all remember that, while the initial impacts of these disasters have passed, their effects will last for many years. News cycles might move on, but it is a lot harder for the victims of these disasters to move on. Yesterday was the second anniversary of Victoria’s horrendous Black Saturday bushfires, during which 173 people died and 414 were injured. Two years on, I think it is worth noting that only half the houses that were lost have so far been rebuilt. Getting back on your feet takes time; it also takes money.

Later this week and in subsequent weeks, there will no doubt be significant discussions about the cost of rebuilding, who should pay and how they should pay. This occasion is not the time for those discussions. But one thing we can all agree on is that every state in need must receive the support required to get them back on their feet. We can question who should pick up the tab but no-one should doubt that the tab must be picked up and quickly. I think we also need to accept that natural disasters are likely to become more common—and that view is not just coming from environmentalists; it is also coming from global re-insurance firms who are factoring a more dangerous and volatile climate into their calculations and risk projections. As a parliament, we too need to expect an increase in natural disasters and to factor that into our planning. We need to be ready to deal with not just this disaster but whatever Mother Nature throws at us in the future.

I would like to conclude by commending Queensland Premier Anna Bligh for the comfort and leadership she has given Queenslanders during this terrible period. Politics can be a thankless job and politicians do get kicked from time to time, and sometimes justifiably. That is why it is important to balance criticism with praise where appropriate. But today is a time to commiserate and to praise only, and I would like to praise Premier Bligh for the way she has helped the people of Queensland to prepare for and endure the floods and Cyclone Yasi. Having spoken to people in Queensland, there is little doubt that the Premier’s actions have made a tangible difference to many during the crisis.

We live in a land of environmental extremes. I believe man has had an impact on global conditions. The fact is that, when it comes to individual events, we cannot stop a cyclone and we cannot stop a flood. So we need to focus on being ready to deal with these disasters before they occur and with the cost of any aftermath. We might plan for the impact, but have we planned properly for the aftermath? For this parliament, that means the work is only just beginning. I commend this motion and again give my condolences to all those affected.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to this motion on natural disasters and, in so doing, echo the remarks made by earlier speakers in expressing the sorrow felt by all Australians over the tragic loss of life as a result of these natural disasters and their impact on Australia and, in particular, my home state of Queensland.

Having spent a part of my life in western Queensland and its far north, I know many of the towns and communities impacted by these events. So, like many in this place, when I heard the Police Commissioner talk of an inland tsunami moving through towns like Toowoomba and on into the Lockyer Valley, it was hard to comprehend. After visiting the communities of Grantham and Helidon with Mayor Steve Jones a few days after the flood levels had receded and only damage remained, I found it difficult to imagine that the water which had passed through the area had done so much damage. I know these towns and their people, and they are resilient. In the last few weeks I have seen firsthand their determination to get back onto the land, clean out businesses, restore homes and start the long, slow and painstaking task of rebuilding their communities. The people of Queensland should feel confident that those on both sides of the aisle in this place support them wholeheartedly. Undoubtedly, the loss of life has been the hardest blow for these communities to bear. I know that the whole Senate is united in its shock at the extent of the destruction that these natural disasters have caused. I offer my deepest and most sincere condolences to those families suffering the most—those who have lost loved ones. Your loss is being felt by the whole Australian community.

I wish to praise the work of emergency services personnel, both their professional ranks and the marvellous volunteer forces, along with members of the Australian Defence Force, State Emergency Service officers and the many, many other organisations, groups and individuals who, without exception or hesitation, went onto the front line. They diligently and skilfully went about their work, often putting their lives at risk to protect the community and the public. Through the tragedy we have been touched and uplifted by many great and generous acts of people who were looking out for others. These stories have provided relief and encouragement to us all.

It is difficult to adequately explain the scale of the disasters that have impacted a significant proportion of Australia. The floods have been one of the largest natural disasters to ever hit our nation. As I address the Senate today, areas are still being impacted by flooding, waters are still slowly receding and only now are we able to begin to come to grips with the damage the water has left in its wake. In Far North Queensland, along the Cassowary Coast down to Townsville, the extent of the scars of Cyclone Yasi is becoming clear. Over 80 per cent of Queensland has been declared a natural disaster zone. If you put that in perspective, that is 61 of 73 local government areas.

The damage outside of Queensland has been equally widespread. Many Victorian towns have experienced the most significant floods in living memory. New South Wales has also been hit hard. I have seen firsthand the effects of flooding in areas in northern New South Wales, particularly on primary producers in the areas around the Tenterfield Shire Council, and understand the impact that flooding has caused for those communities, not only the damage to infrastructure—to bridges and roads—but also the loss to primary producers and in some parts their homes. South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania have also been impacted by floods and flash-flooding events. Western Australia, first hit by flooding in Carnarvon, is now experiencing bushfires in the south of the state. These fires are destroying homes, but they are not breaking communities.

The story in Far North Queensland, the Cassowary Coast, Hinchinbrook and Townsville, is one that has been seen in other parts of the state as the region moves from crisis response to the first steps on the road to recovery. The effects of Cyclone Yasi are still being dealt with by the state government and some people, even at this point, have not even had the chance to return to their properties to assess the clean-up work ahead of them. Australian Defence Force and emergency services personnel, together with many individuals and their communities, are now lending a hand in those regions to support the work ahead.

The images of flood and cyclones have gone around the world. I acknowledge the support, sympathy and offers of assistance extended to the flood victims from more than 45 governments and international organisations worldwide. Just to touch on some of the areas within my portfolio, the impact on the agricultural sector has been extensive. It has impacted on not only the agricultural sector but also the fishing and forestry sectors. In mid-December 2010, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimated that the heavy rainfalls and floods that had occurred up to that point had particularly affected our winter grain harvest. After ideal growing conditions in most parts of eastern Australia during the season, the untimely heavy rainfall at the early stage of the harvest led to a downgrading in the quality of wheat and barley crops. However, the rains and floods that followed over Christmas and the New Year were more widespread and damaging than could have been anticipated, and last week we saw banana and sugar production damaged by Cyclone Yasi.

ABARES has estimated flooding in eastern Australia is likely to have reduced the 2010-11 agricultural production by at least $500 to $600 million, including impacts on the production of fruit and vegetables, cotton, grains and sorghum, and has presented some further challenges for the winter crops. Livestock production has also been affected through impaired transport infrastructure corridors, causing impacts on the movement and processing of livestock. I have had an opportunity to meet with key livestock production facilities in the state’s south-east—particularly in the Lockyer Valley region—about these issues and the challenges they have to ensure that they continue to have open and clear supply lines to markets. This summer will now be remembered for unfavourable reasons. Every Australian can directly support local farmers and primary producers by buying fresh Australian produce. Even with external blemishes, Australian fruit and vegetables are still healthy, high-quality products that the community should support.

Turning to the road ahead, it will take time to rebuild lives, homes, businesses and communities. It will not be an easy process. Many areas of the country have already started the mammoth task of cleaning up and rebuilding. Other areas such as within Victoria are still in crisis response mode. Of course, rebuilding requires hard work and goodwill and this involves all levels of government, business, communities and individuals working together. The Australian government is working closely with the flood affected states in the recovery task. In terms of the immediate crisis response and assistance, the Commonwealth has had available a range of support mechanisms that have continued to be supported by both this government and previous governments—the Australian government disaster recovery payment, the disaster income recovery subsidy and the national disaster relief and recovery arrangements funding, the personal hardship and distress assistance and assistance for the replacement of essential public infrastructure. The Commonwealth government is working with the Queensland government and local councils to ensure that the communities that have been devastated by the floods can get back on their feet as quickly as they are able to. However, it will take a while for the rebuilding effort to be finalised.

In conclusion, I am humbled by the role I have been appointed to play in this process. The Commonwealth will stand together with Australian communities as rebuilding of the states occurs. As minister, I will continue to work closely with all governments and communities to see these areas rebuilt and supported in their recovery. As a Queenslander, I can do no less. I pay my respects and commend this motion to the Senate.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

January 2011 is a month that Australians will never forget. It is a month in which, in a variety of forms but particularly in the form of water, so many parts of Australia were affected. The part of Australia which suffered the greatest effect was the city in which I live, Brisbane, and I want to confine my remarks to how the great flood of January 2011 appeared to those of us who call Brisbane our home and how it affected our city. I understand Senator Macdonald, who is, of course, a proud North Queenslander, will be addressing his remarks primarily to the effect of Cyclone Yasi on North Queensland and in anticipation I want to associate myself with what Senator Macdonald will say in relation to that.

Let me talk about my own hometown. Brisbane is a city of hills and valleys but, first and foremost, it is a city built on a river. Whether people live on it, or near to it or cross it on their daily journey to work or school, the Brisbane River is part of our lives. So many authors who have written about Brisbane, like David Malouf, Nick Earls or Matthew Condon, have observed there is something about the Brisbane River that captures the city’s soul—understated, relaxed, undramatic, sometimes languid, usually benign. Most of the time we take it for granted. But in the third week of January the Brisbane River was anything but benign. In the early part of that terrible week we had seen the horror of the flash flooding in the Lockyer Valley, in towns such as Grantham and Murphys Creek, and the shocking events in Toowoomba. We had been astonished by the appalling suddenness and loss of life. Then, as the week wore on in Brisbane and Ipswich, the river began to rise. It was not sudden or violent as the events in the Lockyer Valley or Toowoomba had been. But there was something almost sickeningly cruel about the sheer remorselessness with which the waters inched higher on the Wednesday of that week. By Thursday morning, when a king tide in Moreton Bay coincided with the biblical quantities of water coursing downstream, thousands of homes had been flooded in Brisbane and Ipswich. In the case of more than 5,000 of them the flood waters flowed through the homes above the level of the floorboards while tens of thousands of other homes were flooded or damaged to a lesser degree.

It was a remarkable thing to see—in the space of one lopsided suburban block some houses were quite unaffected while houses or shops down the road were completely submerged. But it was not just the people whose houses were inundated who felt the effect of the flood, although, of course, they felt it most cruelly. Everybody in Brisbane was affected just as everybody in Ipswich was affected. Everybody had a shared sense that we were in this together. The spirit of community was palpable as the people of Brisbane gathered themselves. By Friday morning, after the waters had begun to subside, there were armies of volunteers in the flood affected areas.

I will never forget the sight of the Rosalie shops when Tony Abbott and I accompanied Teresa Gambaro, the member for Brisbane, and Jane Prentice, the member for Ryan, two of my colleagues whose citizens had been most directly affected. We saw literally hundreds of people, armed with pumps, brooms and other equipment, cleaning up restaurants, shops and homes, with the sorry detritus of the floods—the smashed furniture, the sodden mattresses and the paraphernalia of people’s lives—lying in heaps on the footpath. The smell of the muddy floodwaters, which were still about though subsiding, was something that none of us will ever forget. It was something that I remembered because I have lived in Brisbane long enough to remember the 1974 floods. The scenes then were eerily the same, of disrupted lives, destroyed homes and ruined businesses.

Yet that Friday morning, as we walked among the people in Rosalie, there was no sense of despair and there were no recriminations. There was just a gritty, almost cheerful determination to get on with the job, defy the odds and not be overborne by overwhelming circumstances. I remember talking to a couple from Redcliffe who had a ute with a pump on the back of it. I asked them if they were affected and I remember the lady—Terri, her name was—saying to me, ‘No, we live in Redcliffe. We weren’t affected at all. We just came down here. You couldn’t not.’ That was the spirit of the people of Brisbane, as in so many other parts of Australia. It was spontaneous, it was generous and it was no nonsense. It was the Australian spirit, the spirit of the volunteer and the spirit to do with a word often used and abused in political rhetoric but I think deserving of use in its proper sense on this occasion—mateship.

One of the few good thing to come out of this disaster was how well the leadership of the state and the city responded. Rarely do we see spontaneous and universal acclaim for political leaders. In fact, I think it is one of the real signs of the robustness and health of our Australian democracy that political leaders are so freely mocked. Yet, on this occasion, we saw no cynicism. We saw genuine acclaim for the leadership of the state and the city on a job well done. The handling of the crisis by Premier Anna Bligh was widely and, I believe, fairly judged to have been exemplary. Throughout the emergency she displayed what Ernest Hemingway once called ‘grace under pressure’. The Premier provided both reassurance and empathy in a way, it must be said, the Prime Minister found impossible. Just as impressive was the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, who with similar matter-of-fact competency dealt with the destruction of so much of the city’s infrastructure, particularly that like ferry terminals and boardwalks located on or by the river.

But of course the real heroes of the occasion were not the political leaders. They were the volunteers, the SES workers, the police officers, the paramedics, the Defence Force personnel, the Brisbane City Council workers, the community organisations such as the Red Cross which ran evacuation centres and the school communities. The flood occurred the week before school was to go back and yet with barely an exception, as a result of the work of parents, teachers and staff, almost all of the schools in the flood affected area were ready for the commencement of school only a week or so later. And, something politicians rarely do, I want to pay tribute to the role of the media, particularly the radio channels in Brisbane which broadcast news—612, ABC and the commercial station 4BC—and the Courier Mail, all of which fulfilled their role of communicating information to the community in an exemplary manner.

The immediate devastation may have subsided, and we no longer see news of the Brisbane flood on television news channels as we did for days on end, but the need for help and support has not gone away. On the contrary, it is after the immediacy of the emergency has passed and the consequences have settled in that people are left alone and are feeling overwhelmed, distressed and fearful for their future and their children’s future. So as we talk proudly about the character shown by so many of our fellow Australians let us not forget that beneath the stoicism lies deep hurt which we must assuage with generosity and kindness. In fact, the mood in Brisbane in the past few weeks—as you know, Deputy President Ferguson, Brisbane has always been a friendly city—has been one of kindness and helpfulness. There is a palpable sense of people caring about one another, being conscious of how many tens of thousands of their fellow citizens have been badly hurt and wanting to provide the emotional as well as physical support that they need so badly.

In closing, I express my admiration for the way in which so many of my colleagues fulfilled their high responsibilities as members of parliament and, as such, leaders of their local communities. I have mentioned already Teresa Gambaro, the member for Brisbane, and Jane Prentice, the member for Ryan, but there were many others. I want, if I may, to single out in particular Scott Buchholz, elected only last August as the member for Wright, in whose electorate the epicentre of the devastation in the Lockyer Valley took place. From all I have heard from so many people, Scott Buchholz’s pastoral care for his community, his sharing of their burden and their loss, was magnificent.

Finally, I express my own sympathy for all those who have lost loved ones, lost homes, lost livelihoods or simply lost memories. As I said at the start of these remarks, the third week of January 2011, like the fourth week of January 1974, was a time no-one who loves Brisbane will ever forget and equally there will always live in our memories numberless acts of kindness by the great Australian people.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a Queensland senator, I firstly offer my deepest condolences to those families of the 22 lost lives in this nation’s greatest natural disaster. Additionally, I extend my condolences to the family of the young man in North Queensland who was trying to ready himself before the onslaught of the state’s most powerful cyclone—Cyclone Yasi. I also acknowledge the enormous effort of our defence personnel, our emergency service workers and so many volunteers in responding to these disasters.

On 11 January, the Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, declared three-quarters of Queensland a disaster zone. Brisbane, Bundaberg, Dalby, Gladstone, Gold Coast, Gympie, Ipswich, Logan, Maryborough, Rockhampton, Roma, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Warwick and Redcliffe are only a few of the areas affected by this disaster and were declared disaster areas. In my duty electorate of Brisbane, thousands of residents, by Thursday, were fleeing to higher ground with the Brisbane River expected to peak above 1974 levels. Later that week, we found out that the river was not going to peak above 5.45 metres. But the scope of the devastation was still widespread with Brisbane’s population much higher than it was in 1974 and much of the clear land then is now residential area.

The Queensland floods took a massive toll on our state, claiming not only thousands of homes but also the lives of Queenslanders. One example that I can reflect on is the level of water in a small north-western town, just up the road from Brisbane, called Peachester. Only late last year I was there opening the library in the Building the Education Revolution program. The level there was 835 millimetres in the week, which clearly demonstrates the volume of water that was delivered in our state.

Later on in that week I felt compelled to go out into my duty electorate and visit as many constituents as possible to ensure that they were fine, aware of their government entitlements and were recovering. The first area I targeted was Longman. I went to Narangba Valley on the Thursday, followed by Caboolture the following day. I visited the Narangba Valley with the state member for Morayfield, Mark Ryan, knocking on houses in an estate that backs onto Burpengary Creek. I remember Burpengary Creek quite well, having been a local resident there some time ago. I recall the creek flooding in those times to something greater than just a creek and amounting to a river. Sure enough, as a result of expansion and the urban population of those areas, neighbours were affected in those areas of Narangba Valley. I found neighbours helping neighbours recovering from inundation which had affected their floor coverings and various other types of furniture close to the ground. One such family that, although not affected, rolled up its sleeves and gave a helping hand was Tina and Steve Murnane of Hideaway Close, Narangba. This is just an example, one of many, of the true Australian spirit that was demonstrated in this terribly damaging natural disaster.

Quickly though, as I doorknocked that area, residents turned their anger towards the insurance companies. Some were, under their policies, covered for storm damage only and were later found wanting when they sought to make claims. They found that storm damage did not cover inundation of their homes caused by the flooding of nearby creeks. The next day I visited the residents in Male Road, Caboolture, which is an area that is predominantly acreage and backs onto King John Creek. King John Creek, in that week, flooded the Bruce Highway and shut the highway for a period of time. So it gives you an idea of the extent of the flooding in this particular area. Similar to the residents in Narangba Valley, those residents had not before seen rainfall to the extent that they had received in this particular area and were affected by flood inundation in their homes. Later that afternoon I visited the Caboolture Caravan Park with the state member for Pumicestone, Ms Carryn Sullivan. Equally, the Caboolture River flooded affecting many residents in that particular caravan park who lost many, if not all, of their possessions.

The following week I turned my attention to the seat of Brisbane and in particular the suburbs of Albion and Milton. This is where memories flooded back, having lived through the 1974 floods as a young teenager and a Brisbane born boy helping residents to evacuate their homes in that year. I reflected back to the time when I helped one particular resident in Thistle Street, Lutwyche, when at that time the house bordered Kedron Brook. I recall removing the furniture from the home—an old Queenslander on wooden stumps—and the last piece of furniture removed was a piano before the house slid off its stumps into the river and got washed away.

The stark reality that I saw in 2011 was quite similar to 1974 and proudly, as a Queenslander, that traditional Aussie spirit was not lost or washed away either. People were turning up in their droves to help one another. After meeting with constituents who had had their homes inundated by flood waters, and seeing such destruction in homes and seeing people who had lost everything, I was amazed to see the whole community come together and lend a helping hand. This is the true Aussie mateship that I referred to: mate helping mate. People who were not affected by the floods opened their doors to those who needed a place to stay. Some put their hands up to work in volunteer centres and some were just turned away because the volume of volunteers was too great. Some they did not even know. Some got in there and started shovelling the mud away and some even walked around with cold bottles of drink, sandwiches, food and home-cooked items and handed them out to the volunteers during this time. This is the Queensland and Aussie spirit and the very reason I am proud to be a Queenslander. I saw this Aussie spirit firsthand when delivering a pallet load of water to the Oxley evacuation centre the week after the flooding of Brisbane. The water was kindly donated by National Foods from the Berri plant at Lytton and my thanks and appreciation go to the operations manager, Peter Finn, who had already the previous week donated some 19 pallets of water to the Brisbane evacuation centre.

There at the Oxley centre, I saw complete strangers—even a handful of backpackers here on holiday—prepared to help their fellow Australians and Queenslanders and going through induction programs to get ready for the daily clean-up ahead of them. That Aussie spirit extended, as it so often does, with the community coming together and offering its generosity in contributing to the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal. I saw two amazing acts of consideration—firstly, a fundraiser at Club Pine Rivers in northern Brisbane and, secondly, a huge fundraiser conducted by the Vietnamese community at Bankstown in Sydney.

What started out at Club Pine Rivers as a mere sausage sizzle grew through enthusiasm into a massive event. The outpouring of generosity was just overwhelming—seeing locals and the executive of the club pitching together to make sure they raised money for this appeal. Recognition for the success of this fundraiser goes to the president, Bob Ebborn, to the CEO, Wayne Moffat, and to Peter O’Grady for making this event happen. This is just another fine example of how clubs in Queensland assist their local communities. Additionally, I wish to thank all the Broncos and Lions football players who gave up their time to be involved in the day as well as all the other sporting identities, such as Olympian Jessicah Schipper, who appeared in order to assist in raising funds. I also extend my sincere gratitude to the star attraction of the day, the Veronicas—Jessica and Lisa Origliasso—with their brother Julian, for being so accommodating in raising money for this worthy cause. What commenced as a 1½ hour visit to the club to assist in the fundraising turned into a much greater involvement, with the girls even offering to be auctioned off as companions for dinner at the club to raise even more money. In total, the event raised $25,600 on the day. In addition to the Club Pine Rivers fundraiser, I am aware that the Vietnamese community of Sydney has been hard at it in raising $140,000. In acknowledging them, I single out Dr Vinh Binh Lieu, head of the Vietnamese-Australian Charity Organisation, and the rest of the organising committee for their amazing efforts.

To assist in dealing with the devastation, the federal government acted swiftly in implementing the Australian government disaster recovery payment through Centrelink, which provided $1,000 per adult and $400 per child for those affected by the flooding. According to Treasury, as of midnight on 2 February, 349,000 claims totalling $411 million had been paid out to affected Queenslanders. The Labor government has also provided assistance to those who are unable to earn an income because of the flooding. We know how hard it is for our working families. The disaster income recovery subsidy is $469.70 per fortnight for singles for a maximum of 13 weeks. Already more than 36,000 claims totalling $16 million have been made for the disaster income recovery subsidy. The federal government is also providing other financial assistance through the state government.

We know it is not going to be an easy task—we have a massive job ahead of us to rebuild flood affected regions. It is estimated that the federal government will need $5.6 billion to help rebuild Queensland in the wake of the floods. As an example of the economic effect of this devastation, trade figures released show that coal exports slid five per cent in November as the wet weather gathered pace. Flooding has affected more than 40 mines and the Port of Gladstone has abandoned exports. Some of our biggest producers in the coalmining area have suspended sales contracts and production runs until waters recede. Tourism has also been affected by the bad weather and we hope that this crucial part of the economy—particularly crucial in North Queensland—gets back to its feet very soon.

In closing, the Labor government is committed to getting Queenslanders back on their feet after the devastation of the Queensland floods. I believe it is important that we have bipartisan support to assist in rebuilding Queensland, helping people back into their jobs and helping Queenslanders get their lives back on track. Finally, I will steal a quote from the Premier, Anna Bligh:

We are Queenslanders. We’re the people that they breed tough, north of the border. We’re the ones that they knock down, and we get up again.

I think that is indicative of all Australians.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I support the motion before the Senate with a mixture of sadness and pride—sadness because of the tragedies that have befallen the people of my home state of Queensland and indeed all of Australia in recent weeks, and pride in the manner in which my fellow Queenslanders have coped and are continuing to cope. It proves yet again that Australians have an innate capacity to confront and overcome adversity with courage, determination and compassion. Like most Australians, my wife and I found it difficult to watch the television coverage of the floods that swamped Central Queensland, Brisbane, Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley in early January. The Brisbane floods left me with a lasting memory of a family—a mum and dad and their young children—trapped on top of their vehicle in swirling floodwaters while a news helicopter hovered helplessly overhead. We learnt later that rescuers were able to save the mother and the child but that the father was lost. He was one of 29 people who lost their lives in this natural calamity and tragedy.

There were many other heartbreaking stories—children torn from their mother’s arms by raging torrents, homes destroyed, precious family heirlooms and memorabilia lost forever and old and infirm people trapped in their homes as rivers rose so dramatically, consuming everything before them. Australia watched in disbelief when a second wave of floodwaters surged down through the peaceful Lockyer Valley, snaking its lethal way through Toowoomba and Grantham and other smaller centres. Again we watched as cars were tossed around like toys and houses were torn from their foundations. My wife and I drove through Central Queensland and saw firsthand the devastating effects that flooding was having on people’s lives and on properties, supply chains, infrastructure and, in turn, local authorities and emergency relief workers.

Two weeks after the Queensland floods, Victorians were faced with their own flood challenge as the drought ended with a vengeance in that state, causing untold damage to towns and rural properties in central and northern Victoria. And again just a few days ago we watched our friends in Western Australia being evacuated from their homes in the path of fierce bushfires south-east of Perth where a total of 48 homes were destroyed, causing immeasurable heartbreak.

It was only this time last week that I and thousands of others who live in North and Far North Queensland from Mackay to Cooktown were battening down in preparation for the imminent arrival of Cyclone Yasi, predicted to be the biggest and most damaging cyclone in living memory. All of us—I have to confess, somewhat selfishly and guiltily—were hoping against hope that the cyclone did not come our way, that it went somewhere else; that, with the notorious unpredictability of cyclones, it did not, in the last few hours, redirect towards us. Having lived in a part of Queensland most of my life where cyclones are common, I have become used to the threat of cyclones during the wet season. It is simply a part of life in the north. In a sense it defines the pioneering spirit which attracted early explorers to the northern and remote parts of Australia.

We have survived many blows, as we call cyclones in the north, but this one had to be taken seriously because of its sheer size and intensity, with wind speeds estimated to be up to 290 kilometres an hour. No matter how many cyclones you have lived through, you never overcome that two to three hours of abject terror as cyclonic winds gusting up to 300 kilometres per hour batter your house and flatten trees in your yard while you are sitting in pitch blackness with a sound like a runaway freight train assaulting your home and your ears. In that situation, you know what terror is all about.

My wife and I had each other. Many face these storms alone, exacerbating the fear and distress that cyclones bring. Where I live we were lucky. We feel for those further north who were not quite so lucky. The 400-kilometre-wide cyclone crossed the coast of North Queensland around Mission Beach, Hull Heads, Tully Heads and Cardwell, flattening rainforests and banana and sugar plants, destroying hundreds of houses and leaving immeasurable human suffering in its wake.

I spent the Saturday just past with the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, inspecting the cyclone-ravaged towns of Innisfail and Tully and later Mission Beach, Tully Heads, Hull Heads and Cardwell. As we flew into Innisfail, the coastal strip between Babinda and Cardwell looked as though a giant scythe had cut everything off at the base. Whole stands of rainforest had been stripped bare, thousands of banana trees and sugar cane stands were flattened and hundreds if not thousands of houses and farm sheds were severely damaged, some beyond repair.

I thank Alf Cristaudo, Chairman of Canegrowers, and Cameron MacKay, Chairman of the Australian Banana Growers Council, for their briefings on the cyclone’s effects on the banana and sugar industries respectively. Losses in those two industries alone will reach an estimated $900 million, with far-reaching economic consequences for the thousands of workers and businesses that rely on those industries for their livelihood. I was pleased that, while in Tully, Mr Abbott was able to assure all the people of that region that the opposition would oppose the importation to Australia of bananas that do not have a 100 per cent serious quarantine clearance. That is what the people of that area wanted to hear.

I am pleased to announce to all banana lovers in the country that it will not be too long before Australian bananas are back on the shelves. Because of the experiences through Cyclone Larry and other calamities, the damage this time to the industry will not be as severe as previously. As we went around, I was impressed to see some banana stalks standing upright where growers had, the day before the cyclone struck, pruned all the leaves off the stalks of the banana trees and the winds had not knocked them over or broken them off, as happened with most of those which still had their leaves on them.

During our inspection visit, Mr Abbott and I met unsung heroes and stoic Australians at every stop. Smiles had begun to replace tears as people faced up to the massive task of rebuilding their lives, their homes and their economy. Complete strangers became instant friends as victims confronted each other in relief centres run by volunteers and emergency workers.

The relief operation is now in full swing. Power is being restored, water supplies are being reinstated, telecommunications are getting back to normal and highways and access roads are opening. The contribution to the relief and reconstruction effort by over 4,000 soldiers and engineers from Lavarack Barracks in Townsville as well as elements of the Navy and Air Force has been simply magnificent. The sight of a convoy of Army trucks on the Bruce Highway, ferrying troops and heavy machinery from Townsville to the Cassowary Coast to help with the clean-up, was both awe-inspiring and a great comfort to the victims of the cyclone. As shadow parliamentary secretary for the Defence Force and defence support and as a proud North Queenslander I want to thank the men and women of our defence forces for their selfless efforts and tireless work in cleaning up and in giving support to those who suffered the wrath of Cyclone Yasi.

I also take this opportunity to praise and thank the men and women of the Red Cross, the State Emergency Service, Emergency Management Queensland, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Queensland police, Ergon Energy, the Salvation Army, Lions, Rotary and other service clubs, and the church groups, counsellors and innumerable volunteers and individuals who carried out tireless and selfless work during the cyclone and its aftermath. It is practically impossible to identify individuals, and sometimes it is not wise to do so, but without in any way diminishing the heroic work of so many people I do want to mention Tully Red Cross volunteer Noelene Byrne, who typifies the quiet courage, determination and leadership of so many Australians in times of calamity. Noelene worked without sleep for days, ensuring the safety and welfare of victims. It was Noelene who, at the height of the cyclone, went down and corralled evacuees located in one evacuation centre and took them to another, stronger, building only a short time before the first building was completely destroyed by the cyclone. Actions such as this one by Noelene Byrne were repeated right across the board by so many people, and we are indeed grateful and wonderfully blessed to have these people in our community. There were simply so many of them who came to the fore during and after the cyclone.

Everywhere Mr Abbott and I went during our inspection we were inspired by the number of Australian flags and green and gold boxing kangaroo flags that were fluttering on bent flagpoles or hanging from homes that had been completely wrecked. It was as if the people affected were saying to Cyclone Yasi: ‘We will not be beaten. We will be back.’ Those flags expressed that thought ever so clearly and brilliantly. This was yet another example of the resilient strength of human spirit that has made Australia the great country it is.

I should in passing place on record the leadership shown by many of my parliamentary colleagues in those times of calamity. I mention Ken O’Dowd, in the north when the floods hit Emerald and Rockhampton; George Christensen, who had to deal first of all with Cyclone Anthony, which was relatively small in cyclonic terms but nevertheless did impact on the Mackay region; and Ewen Jones, Bob Katter and Warren Entsch, for the work and leadership they showed during and in the aftermath of Cyclone Yasi.

Australia will recover from the tragedies that have confronted the whole nation in recent times and many other challenges that will inevitably confront the nation over the centuries to come. Adversity will only strengthen us. I want to emphasise that the north is not an inherently dangerous place. It is in fact a great place to live, work and play. We will bounce back, as we have done in the past. The north, with its mineral production, beef cattle, sugar, bananas, other horticultural crops and tourism, makes a very significant contribution to the economy of Australia. North Queensland is a magnificent part of Australia, and the rainforests are as good as they are because they experience rain and get cleaned out every now and again by cyclones, which bring them back even better. Because of the international publicity that this cyclone received before it hit, there will be a bit of a dent on the hard-won reputation of the north as a tourist destination, but I want to assure everybody that it will not be long before the north is back in full swing. Indeed, many parts of the north that were fortunate not to be in the direct path of the cyclone are up and operating again and will continue to provide the magnificent tourism experience for which the north is so well known.

I want to use this debate to call upon all Australians, and indeed my colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives, to play their part in rebuilding that part of the north affected by the cyclones by planning now to spend their winter holidays in somewhere like Mission Beach, Cardwell, Cairns or Port Douglas and Townsville or the Whitsundays. They are fabulous places to go and there will be some great deals around. As parliamentarians we can all play our part by spending the two or three days we get off as a winter holiday in that part of the world. In doing so you will be sending a message to everyone else in the world as well as—I can guarantee—having a great time yourself. I also urge Australians to eat a bit more sugar and, when the bananas return in two or three months, really get stuck into bananas, because it is in that way that we can all do our bit to help those places and industries recover.

In conclusion, I humbly and with feeling support the motion before the Senate and extend my condolences to the families of all of those who have lost their lives in recent natural disasters in our country.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join this motion on natural disasters. My prayers and thoughts and good wishes are with the people of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and now Western Australia, considering the catastrophes that have befallen all of those states. I particularly acknowledge our Queensland parliamentary colleagues. We have heard several stories this afternoon, and other stories in the media and in other places, about their own personal experiences—their own personal losses as well—and the deep impact that the stories and the losses of their constituents had upon them. As they take a leadership role in the recovery of these devastated areas, I think that it is important that we provide some encouragement to all of you who have to step up in this way. Please remember that we are thinking of you.

We have had extraordinary stories. We have heard some individual stories this afternoon about grief, loss, despair and disbelief and, of course, extraordinary survival. You can combine that with the hundreds of thousands of words that have been written seeking to capture the emotional, physical and structural impact of these natural disasters. But the words that resound in everyone’s contribution are about courage and resilience, and generosity and stoicism, all describing the great national character of Australians. We have seen so much more written and portrayed about the havoc wreaked and the damage done, about the toll on families and communities, environments and infrastructure, businesses and livelihoods, and economies and institutions. It has been an extraordinary summer. The images that we all hold of this summer are quite awful—etched in our minds for a very long time. We are all mourning. We are mourning many lives and a very significant loss.

This morning we had an ecumenical service for the beginning of parliament. For those who were not able to attend, we prayed for you. I want to read a little prayer for you, if I could:

Our hearts come together at this time of national prayers for all who have suffered.

We pray for those who have been bereaved—grant them your comfort.

We pray for those whose hearts are broken—grant them your peace in the days ahead.

We pray for those who must begin again—grant them strength and hope.

We pray for those whose homes have been destroyed—grant them the vision to see new places of refuge and love in the future.

We pray for those whose businesses have been devastated—grant them initiative and fortitude in the days ahead.

I think it is very important. It was a very sombre service at the beginning of parliament because everybody had the devastation of the last few weeks very much on their minds.

In contributing to this motion today I would like to focus on the extraordinary role of our community based not-for-profit organisations and the work that they have been doing on the front line during these disasters in shaping the recovery and rebuilding the communities to which they belong. We think about what has been happening. We have already heard some stories today about our sports clubs; our welfare organisations; our arts and cultural groups; our recreation and education groups; our environment groups; our animal welfare groups; our housing associations; and support groups for the carers, the elderly, the frail and the vulnerable. It is very clear that the recovery in flood damaged communities is very dependent on the current and future contribution of our community organisations.

For those of us who are sitting south of the catastrophes, the sense of uselessness that we experience watching the events as they unfolded from the comfort of our safe, dry, cool lounge rooms was very quickly replaced by a sense of action. We saw the flood relief appeal, the telethon broadcast by the Nine Network, the Twenty20 cricket match which galvanised the raising of hundreds of thousands of dollars, the 2011 Australian Open Rally for Relief raising $750,000. As we have heard already today, people wanted to do something and they found ways to respond. I know that there are many large-scale fundraising projects that are being planned: concerts, exhibitions, marathons, swimathons and bake-offs. To date, we have raised just over $201 million for the Premier’s fund and I know that there is much more to come.

We heard about the volunteers. There were, in fact, more than 55,000 volunteers registered to help clean up Brisbane, with thousands more unregistered volunteers wandering the muddied streets with gumboots and mops. Volunteers from across the country and beyond were flying in to help. This morning I heard of a family from Dunedin who just upped stumps and flew to Brisbane and offered their support. Congratulations need to be extended to Volunteering Queensland, particularly for their efforts in organising and mobilising those volunteers, using new technologies in social media to ensure that people were where they needed to be. The work of our not-for-profit organisations extended beyond the disaster areas, and well beyond any planning and documentation of effort, because they are often simply responding to community need.

State disaster plans, as we all know, identify the various roles of key agencies. For example, the Salvation Army provides the food at all of the evacuation points, the Red Cross serves to officially record the data of people accessing the evacuation centres and Lifeline provides emotional support to the persons accessing their services. These roles are quite explicit in our disaster management plans, but the countless small and large not-for-profit organisations in our local communities tend to merge into a combined effort. They are everywhere doing everything. They are providing safe shelter, clothes and food; helping people repair or relocate; and reconnecting people with loved ones or supporting them as they grieve for their loss.

There are still many things happening and I want to celebrate and acknowledge that. Relief centres are still being operated in the flooded areas by Vinnies, Anglicare, the Salvos, the Red Cross and others. Some of them will need to operate for quite a long time into the future because many people will not be able to return home for quite a long time. Outside of those centres they are doing so much more. In many places, trained staff and skilled volunteers have been going door to door making sure that people are all right. What they are finding varies enormously. What they are doing is remarkable, especially considering that they are a part of communities and many have experienced their own loss. We know they are at the heart of the response and the recovery efforts, and they are doing whatever is needed to support people affected by the floods, and now by the fires, and they will be there well into the future helping people rebuild their lives and their communities.

Let me share some real examples of community service. Red Cross has been assisting since the first evacuation centre opened on 27 December. More than 1,050 staff and trained volunteers from the Australian and New Zealand Red Cross are on the ground, active in the immediate response and ongoing recovery. Red Cross is providing existing Telecross clients in flood affected areas with extra calls daily to provide reassurance and to check on their wellbeing. The Mission Australia Communities for Children team at Inala have set up and are running a childcare service at the recovery centre that includes specialist trauma staff. Mission Australia have also helped to house a family who lost everything who had been living in the Goodnah caravan park and who have a child with special needs that could not be met in an emergency centre. These organisations have really gone beyond the existing disaster management plans.

The Salvos have fed countless people in shelters and homes as well as emergency workers across Queensland and Victoria. They even managed to provide meals to stranded truck drivers at Coffs Harbour—600 on one side of highway and 300 on other side, all while parked in the stifling heat with no capacity for relief by way of food or water. The Salvos’ emergency teams have been providing grief counselling for those who have experienced significant personal loss.

Let me tell you about Lifeline. Their telephone counsellors volunteered 800 hours over and above their normal shifts to meet additional demand from the Australian community and to cover the Queensland Lifeline centres that were not able to take calls during the crisis. On Friday, 14 January, Lifeline volunteers answered 1,600 calls—the highest call rate on record for Lifeline. Lifeline Queensland have deployed and rotated to the evacuation centres and recovery centres, and outreach teams in affected areas in most need, more than 100 specialist trained community recovery counsellors—and most are experienced loss and grief counsellors. To date, they have had more than 2,000 contacts with people affected by the crisis.

The RSPCA have been there too. They have set up two emergency animal shelters in Rockhampton, one of which is still operating, and they have included in their work rescue of livestock and companion animals, humane euthanasia of sick and injured livestock and wildlife, lost and found services for pet owners, a 24-hour emergency line and an emergency boarding service. They have been coordinating food drops for livestock and wildlife carers and for animal shelters, including the Gympie shelter where the RSPCA shelter staff were cut off for four days.

All the major church groups have been very active in responding to community need, providing shelter, clothing, food, counselling and support. Rotary and other service clubs have provided incredible support across Ipswich and many other towns and regions in so many ways, from helping prepare for the floods to removal, repair and support. World Vision Australia has provided call centre support, office space usage outside of Brisbane and advice on responding to mental health needs during emergencies. Just this week the Queensland Alliance released a report, Rising to the challenge, which identified some of the mental health issues associated with these catastrophic events and suggested how things could be improved. It is a very important, perceptive piece of work that we all need to pay attention to.

After the ecumenical service this morning one of the diplomatic corps said to me: ‘When you think about New Orleans, what happened? They declared a state of martial law for protection. Here, there was a state of national action. In New Orleans there was a traffic jam to get out. In Australia there was a traffic jam of people mobilised to help and get in.’ That was a perception from someone not from Australia but who marvelled at the extent to which Australians have responded.

Can I also talk about the efforts going on from beyond Queensland. Senator Joyce particularly touched on the sense of frustration and helplessness that people who are safe at home feel while watching all of these things unfolding. Let me tell you, for example, what has been happening in my own community. Of course there are financial appeals elsewhere—everyone is talking about them; everyone is trying to help—but in Goulburn we did something ourselves. Of course we had an ecumenical prayer service, but afterwards the civic leaders got together and launched an appeal. In 10 days, the community donated $25,000 worth of practical goods—kitchen goods, underwear, food, clothing and sheets; things that we know could be put in a truck and sent north. We had an extraordinarily generous contribution. The Rural Fire Service collected $10,500 in two days from the community. That is amazing work.

We have decided to adopt the community of Dalby and I know that Queensland senators will be pleased to know that. As we have been encouraged to do in the south, we have adopted a community in the north that has really been devastated because the people there are very worried that, once the first flush of response and recovery happens and the pictures and the stories are off the front page, they are going to be forgotten. The community of Dalby will not be forgotten. Our schools are going to twin with the schools in Dalby. Our service clubs are going to connect with the service clubs in Dalby. Our council will connect with the council in Dalby. And we will make sure that we can continue to provide moral, physical and emotional support in the recovery phase.

I also place on record my appreciation, on behalf of all us, for the amazing galvanisation of effort by our public servants. The Centrelink staff have been phenomenal. They have just blown me away with the way in which they have been so responsive and able to deal with the extraordinary challenges that have been put in front of them. I have not heard one complaint about the disaster recovery payments and I know that my colleagues, as I have asked them, have said the same. Centrelink have been amazing.

I thank the Army Reserve and the Army, our defence forces and everyone who has been there and gone the extra mile. This is the way that you inspire all of us to do what we can and to be part of a national movement that is about recovery and rebuilding. We know as Australians we will endure and I wish you all the best. I express my sincere condolences to those of you who have lost family and friends, as well as those who have lost livelihoods. Know that Australia is with you.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support all my colleagues on all sides of the house on this motion before the chamber. The floods and Cyclone Yasi have proven—if proof were needed—that our greatest resource is the innate instinct that Australians have to help each other out and to step up to the mark. There were not just one or two heroes around in the days after the floods and the cyclone. There were not just hundreds or even thousands. There were tens of thousands of anonymous Australians being local heroes.

The images of the queues of volunteers with their mops and gloves should be in our minds as we legislators act to make the recovery mobilisation the best, the smartest and the swiftest we can. The parliament has been shown the way by legions of examples of selflessness—many of which have been documented in the media. The media also deserves high praise for the commitment, leadership and courage with which they brought us the stories of these floods and Cyclone Yasi. The faces of key reporters and newsreaders will be etched into our memories of this time, and the networks, producers, editors, photographers, reporters, chopper pilots and all those behind the scenes who handled the logistics to bring us these stories should be congratulated and thanked.

But we do not need to look to anyone famous or powerful for a lead on how to act. We need only to look at the mud army who turned out in Brisbane and Ipswich to help their fellow Australians. We need only to look at the Indigenous boys at the Abergowrie school in Far North Queensland who were isolated for days without power and water. The Bremer River at Ipswich has been gouged by giants who took the silt away with them high above the train tracks, which are themselves flooded. Now commuters look down at the furniture items still caught in the trees and on the slopes way above the river.

It is nearly four weeks since the flood peaked. There were the dramatic and concerning images of frenzied activity in the cleanup that followed. There were piles of flood-damaged property and trucks everywhere. But now if you go back and look up these same streets there is silence and abandonment. Streets are paved with white gyprock dust as the inside drywalls have been gutted and taken out of the houses. There is still the occasional hazard tape in yellow or the danger tape in red and white stripes. The power poles are ringed with another red tape, signifying work that had to be done. The front yards have been torn to shreds by the vehicles that have lifted up the damaged property and taken it away, leaving white dust and the occasional fluffy pink batt behind. Gloves disappeared from supermarket shelves at the time and some are still to be seen on fences—who knows where the owners of the hands that were in them are now.

There are streets that lie empty and where houses have only exterior walls but nothing inside—just skeletons. Some have water tanks installed by water-saving residents that are now full of mud and some have dirty solar panels that will never see eye-to-eye with the sun again. In these deserted streets it is odd to see that wrecked letterboxes, all askew and some roofless, are still receiving mail—but there is no-one at home. It is like walking through a crime scene on a massive scale. That is especially so on a brand new estate promising affordable riverside living where some speccy houses have been built and not even lived in yet. There is nothing affordable about living there anymore.

There are signs up in these suburbs that have no place in normal suburban life as we know it: ‘Tetanus immunisation’, ‘Mobile laundry—free washing and drying’, ‘Mobile chaplaincy’ and ‘Asbestos removal’. There are a couple of thank-you signs that are now fading. A t-shirt with ‘bugger’ written on it hangs on a fence. An older sign at Fail Park says, ‘Beware of the magpies’—what a safe world that sign belonged to. The only colours amid the drab grey and dusty houses and yards come from the Australian flags that hang defiantly on so many flood-destroyed properties.

The residents have faith that Australia will see them through and that their personal disaster will be recognised and put right because they are Australians. Where are these valiant flag-waving people now? Are they with relatives, friends or work colleagues in caravan parks? It is our duty as legislators to see that they do not remain hidden and that their show of faith and flying of the flag is returned in full measure.

First on the recovery scene is local government and then the state government, with some federal funds being triggered for massive rebuilding and recovery. For there to be meaning in such widespread suffering—and remember that three-quarters of Queensland is a disaster zone—we must design better preparation, assistance, recovery and prevention strategies. To safeguard future lives and property we must vigorously examine and learn from these disasters, just as we did in many ways from the 1974 floods. There will be much to learn from Cyclone Yasi in terms of building codes and the management of utilities, assets and services. Decision makers who preside over development approvals in flood prone areas must be held to account as much as those who may have mishandled water assets.

The generosity of Australians was very evident in the wake of the flooding and Cyclone Yasi. The courage and resourcefulness of emergency services and law enforcement and ADF personnel made a mammoth difference to the recovery effort. All these Australians have shown us the way. It is time to roll up the sleeves if parliaments are to deserve the people they are meant to serve. Legislators should cling like gyprock dust to these people and make sure they are looked after.

Questions remain as to why banks would lend money on uninsurable houses. All these institutions legitimised and profited from others living in flood prone areas. It truly is a crime scene when a brand new estate is heavily inundated, as occurred at Ipswich. Residents in the south-east were told to have confidence in the Wivenhoe Dam holding back extreme flooding. They built and lived on the strength of that confidence. They made lives and families with that confidence. They personalised their homes and landscaped their gardens not knowing, because no-one ever told them or warned them or made laws to stop them, that it was all a dream that would one day end in a terrible nightmare, taking everything they owned.

The costs are still not in yet. We have only really begun to comprehend the rebuilding and recovery required. It is not just about building a new house over an old site. It is about what job the owner of the house will have if there are no bananas to pick or there is no sugar to mill. It is about how the resident will get to work safely since the roads are so cut up. It is about how the kids will get educated if their schools are badly damaged. It is about how to keep on the teachers, the workers, the doctors and the small business owners so they will underwrite the small towns where so much has been destroyed and there is no money. Queensland will take years to recover. It is not just bricks and mortar; it is multidimensional. Our job is to help make that recovery so good that affected areas will be even better than before.

The government have tried to make much of a levy that will play only a small role in the big task ahead. They are also paying a lot of attention to a carbon tax and a mining tax. These are the two major threats on the horizon for Queensland’s recovery because we are a powerhouse state in mining and agriculture. For that we need infrastructure investment, not taxes and disincentives to invest. We have to get our goods to market without extra costs or we lose our competitiveness, whether it is coal or cabbages.

If the government was serious about getting Queensland back into shape, it would announce an immediate moratorium on any carbon price or mining tax. Queensland, unlike other states, is a decentralised state with a matrix of small communities. The whole state works because of localised private industry. Whether it is mining, agriculture or tourism, roads, dams, rail and port infrastructure link them all together and enable the product to reach its market. Without private industry and sufficient infrastructure these communities cannot exist. New taxes and a disaster zone simply do not mix.

The Queensland Treasurer confirmed that Queensland’s economic recovery has been swamped by the floods, wiping nearly two percentage points from previously expected growth, and that was before Cyclone Yasi. He said:

Our economy will take a hit, wiping almost 2 percentage points off forecast growth …

The biggest hits will come in mining and agriculture, with tourism also facing losses.

Mr Fraser also said royalty income would be hit hardest this year:

Royalties will take a bath – lost production and a rampant Aussie dollar have delivered a $286 million write down this year …

The Queensland Treasurer should make his federal Labor colleagues stop the carbon and mining taxes now and give Queensland a break from disasters.

With regard to the damage done by Cyclone Yasi, banana and cane growers have called for federal and state governments to boost financial assistance to help them recover. They need to increase the size of the low-interest loans, which are now $250,000, or freeze the interest rate at four per cent for six to 12 months to help growers get back on their feet. Banana growers who took out $250,000 to $500,000 disaster relief loans after Cyclone Larry have to worry about servicing them, let alone qualifying for further assistance after Yasi. Other rural leaders are saying that only straight-out grants will help the situation.

The final damage bill to the sugar industry is likely to exceed the $500 million preliminary estimate. The total damage bill for primary producers from the cyclone will top $1 billion. Then there are all the small businesses in the affected towns. They must be looked after as well. They service and rely on viable farms and a critical mass of population. The flood repair bill for Queensland local councils had already reached $2.2 billion before Cyclone Yasi. Their biggest challenge will be accessing equipment and supplies like gravel, lime, concrete and bitumen spray. They will be competing for supplies with main roads and the private sector, particularly the mining communities. The Queensland Treasurer said the Cyclone Yasi damage bill to mining alone could go over $500 million.

I visited Emerald just after the inundation that displaced thousands and wrecked many farming properties. The Central Highlands Regional Council was declared a disaster area for the third time in one year. Eighty per cent of their roads have some form of damage—and they have 5,000 kilometres of roads. The Central Highlands latest repair bill is likely to top $70 million—more than half the council’s annual budget. I met with the Burnett family. They have lost a $2 million cotton crop and suffered the loss of infrastructure that is worth between $2 million and $3 million. Most growers will have to try to deal with forward contracts of sale for a crop that no longer exists.

I also went to Bundaberg and met with the river front business owners. They stand to lose millions of dollars in personal investment in businesses that they have built up over many years with employees and suppliers, such as commercial fishermen. All of them will be affected. Lorraine and Russell Hausler of Bundaberg Slipways said that it will cost $800,000 for them to rebuild. Ray Foley of Midtown Marinas said that he suffered a $3 million infrastructure loss. Seth Parker, a fish processor, of ASP Holdings has lost $800,000. Somehow, low-interest loans of up to $250,000 are not going to plug the enormous gap. This is the economic environment that the federal Labor government wants to poison further with carbon and mining taxes.

The parliament has a solemn duty to communities who have lost their livelihoods to not repay them with taxes that will prevent them from recovering. There has been some intelligent, courageous and far-seeing policy action in the insurance area—in fact, there has to be some intelligent, courageous and far-seeing policy action in the insurance area—as well as in the flood mitigation area. Many homeowners believed that they had comprehensive insurance but then they found that it did not cover flooding. This situation must be addressed and, at the very least, policyholders must be clearly informed as to whether or not their policy includes flood insurance. I have flagged the issue of a national insurance pool so that everyone is covered in extreme events. A national disaster fund has also been mentioned as a solution.

There is one crucial aspect that cannot be delayed, and that is the management of waters from the Wivenhoe Dam. There have been too many questions raised about the timing and scale of water release during the flooding. The blacking out of key parts of reports is a sign that the Queensland government is trying to protect itself rather than the rest of Queensland. Yesterday, the Australian reported that the blacked-out pages in the Queensland flood mitigation manual for the Wivenhoe and Somerset dams contain nearly all the key strategies for the Wivenhoe Dam, such as gate settings and water release levels for the days before and during the deluge. The blacked-out table, as reported in the Australian, says:

... Wivenhoe Dam needs to be kept at a level below 75.5m, the level at which the emergency spillway is triggered.

The proposed action is to “retain water in Somerset Dam” and bring the gate open sequence forward to increase discharge from the dam. Somerset, which was finished in 1959 and holds back the Stanley River, was identified in an unrelated 2007 state government report as having cracking and stability issues associated with its main wall.

On January 11 and 12, Wivenhoe rose to at least 74.7m, 80cm below the fuse plug or the emergency spillway—a scenario that would have seen an uncontrolled release of thousands of megalitres of water in order to ensure the safety of the dam wall.

Should one of the fuse plugs be triggered, the dam should be drained as fast as possible ...

This raises two alarming new dimensions: firstly, that Somerset Dam requires some investigation; and, secondly and most alarming, that we came close to the disaster of all disasters, with Wivenhoe on the cusp of being drained in the middle of already devastating floods. These issues must be urgently and openly examined now and not left to a commission of inquiry to report in 12 or 18 months time. We are in the middle of the cyclone season and another disaster could happen. People are worried. People who lease buildings and those who lease from them are worried; they want to know what action is required here in order for them to be confident that the dam release was handled properly. This has to happen urgently: it has to happen in the next two or three weeks. Leaving this as an unanswered question is causing everyone a great deal of concern.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an honour to be a part of the debate on this motion in the Senate, which is designed and intended to bring all senators together to acknowledge the impact and range of natural disasters that have struck across our nation. There is not a state that has escaped the impact. The key aspects of these disasters are happening in my home state of Queensland, in northern New South Wales, in Victoria and in Western Australia. They are the ones that are happening now, and we see that. But the citizens and the senators who represent other states in our nation have also been impacted by these natural disasters. They have watched, as all of us have done, the media coverage of the pain, the destruction and the hope of so many families across our nation.

As a Queensland senator, I want to concentrate on what has happened in my state and to begin by acknowledging the 36 families in Queensland for whom the destruction has been not just about the loss of material things but about the loss of a family member. All of us in parliament want to say to those families: we acknowledge your loss and we give you our greatest sympathy. As we rebuild—we know we are rebuilding; so many senators have talked about the processes that are in place to rebuild—the towns and infrastructure and as we rebuild communities, your loss will stay in our minds. I think it is something that Australians share. For every family member we have hope that their future and that of the rest of their family will be great and that they will be able to remember that the community was with them and that their governments, their parliaments, were with them as well.

In this afternoon’s debate we have heard many senators talking about the amazing stories—and they are amazing in the true sense of the word—of what has occurred. I do not think anyone can forget the images they have seen in the media. They certainly cannot forget the stories that people have shared with them about what has happened and they cannot forget their own responses and the stories from their own families.

I stood on the cliffs at New Farm in Brisbane and watched my Brisbane River rushing forward. I have never seen the Brisbane River in that mode and I hope never to see it like that again. We stood on the hill on the night as we had been told that the peak was coming and that we should be very careful. We made our own preparations and checked that our families were safe. I think Telstra did a marvellous job because they were overworked, as people were using the internet and mobile phones across the nation and internationally trying to ensure that their families were safe. There were over a hundred people in our group standing on the hills at New Farm and that was reflected in other high spots across Brisbane. There was a silence. People were not speaking. They were in awe of what was going on below them. A couple of people were quietly crying because they could see personal possessions going down the Brisbane River. For each piece of furniture, for each pylon, for each tank, for each boat that we saw rush down in front of us, all of us knew that the piece of detritus belonged to someone—a family, a community.

It reminded us of what had gone on before, because on that very same day we had seen and heard and been confronted by the news of what had happened in my own hometown, Toowoomba, and following down the range to the people of the Lockyer Valley. We saw images of what had happened at Murphy’s Creek and Grantham and related communities going through to Lowood, down the river to where it hit Ipswich and beyond. We had seen to our horror something for which no-one could prepare or plan. Every local government in our state has a disaster preparation plan. We have seen them tested, we have seen them tried, but no-one could possibly prepare for what happened in Toowoomba and at the lower parts of the range on that day.

As we stood at New Farm those memories were with us because we were learning bit by bit what had gone on before across Queensland. We had watched what had happened over the whole month in communities such as Rockhampton and Dalby further out in the Darling Downs. We had heard about forced evacuations in our state for the first time since World War II where small western communities had no option for their safety but to leave their homes, often not willingly but knowing they had to do so to put the safety of their own families first. There were the wrenching scenes of young people and old people being taken away from their homes in places like Theodore and the Condamine and the heartbreak of leaving behind their animals. One of the stories we hear often is about the effect on family pets. Many of us know how important our pets are to us. Talking with people in the evacuation centres in Brisbane and hearing about the stories from the people who had been evacuated across south-western Queensland, one of the ongoing comments and fears was what had happened to their pets that they had left behind—just one part of the loss.

The stories that we heard were about what had been lost and consistently, when people were talking to me, there was still an element of shock. I think that continues in many ways today, particularly when we consider the loss of life that occurred. The people and the local council in Toowoomba are rebuilding the town, they are rebuilding the businesses and they are making sure that the flood preparations are in place for when something happens again. But the overwhelming concern is that lives were lost on that day in Toowoomba. I do not think many people have fully come to accept that it happened, but the communities have come together. I have been watching the local media through the last couple of weeks and, every time there is a funeral coming up with a celebration of the life of someone who has been lost, the local media talk again about how their community is sharing with the local family, understanding what they have suffered and hoping to work together into the future.

We have heard many stories and we will continue to hear them. I want to share one from talking with a principal from a very small local primary school, asking how they were going to cope in that school with the class who were going into grade 1 because one of the little girls in that class was not going to be turning up for school this year. She and other members of her family were lost in the floods below the range.

People do talk about how they are going to move into the future. We have already heard senators commend the amazing action of our community groups and the marvellous emergency services. When you see those orange vests coming towards you, you know that help is at hand, and not just help but trained and professional help. There is a sense of security and hope that they are going to be with you. The other day I talked to soldiers at the Enoggera Barracks, many of whom had been sent out to the Lockyer Valley. Some of them were talking to their mates who were going out post Yasi in the north. They were welcomed into the communities who were facing a lack of facilities, a lack of buildings and homes having been destroyed. The welcome given to the military personnel—as they came to share with the local community how they could rebuild and to sense the solidarity there on the ground and experience the relationships built under emergency situations—will continue. The communication will continue. We have all seen photographs of the township of Grantham. I do not think Grantham has ever received the notoriety that it has received during this emergency. But that township will be remembered.

As we have heard from previous senators, it is important that all of us involved in this discussion acknowledge that the relationship that we are now forming with the people who have had losses must continue. It is all too easy to share compassion and interest and be completely focused on an area in emergency circumstances and then, as the next day comes and the next crisis comes and the next need for action comes, forget the people that we have been dealing with. A message from this parliament must be that that will not happen. The ongoing relationship with these places and these people must be exactly that, ongoing. We have seen the devastation and we must now work together to ensure rebuilding for the future. I know that emails, text messages and Facebook exchanges are going between the people who are in these places and those who have come to help them and I hope that will continue. With communities all across the country there has been the process of twinning or bonding with the communities that have suffered. We must make sure the affected communities know that work will continue. That is also one of the things that we need to look at in rebuilding the future.

In the north of Brisbane there has been a wonderful coming together of people to ensure that schools had the facilities needed for young people. Right at the end of this we had the first day of school. Probably all of us in this chamber can just remember our first day of school. It is a bit hard for some of us to dredge up the memories, but we know it is an exciting, wonderful day for most children and their parents. We saw images in the media of children at St George getting into small boats and being ferried across the river so they could get to their school. We know that in Brisbane a number of schools have not been able to return to their own school and have had to share facilities. So one of the real concerns was the impact on young people of not being able to go to a place where they do feel safe and secure and going somewhere that is different; and not having the things that they need to start school, like uniforms, bags and books. I want to talk about a particular group—and I know that in a number of places this happened—around the Caboolture area who got together and decided that they would adopt some schools in Western Queensland who had been affected and make sure that backpacks, school books and the things that you need to start school were made available. They wanted to ensure that at least the kids and the teachers in the schools would have something so they could have a place where they could restart, a place where they could put the suffering and loss in their past and look at moving into the school year. That was a practical way to respond.

That kind of spontaneous community activity was bursting out all over our country and we acknowledge that in this motion. The Senate acknowledges the amazing work of the military, the emergency services and the local government areas and in a special way the work of local community members who thought they could do something to assist, often working with NGOs and often starting something up in their own kitchens. A wonderful story that came out was of a woman who began baking originally because she needed to do something because the confronting images were affecting her so badly. She felt she had to take some action. So she began baking and then she got her friends together and they provided food to a whole lot of the volunteer workers across the region. These people were working together to support, to help. I know that when the volunteers received that food it was a real boost to their energy as well as their enthusiasm so that they could keep going, given the scenes that they were confronting were so extraordinarily devastating.

On the original big volunteer day in Brisbane there were the images of the people who came together from all over south Queensland. Later in the week they came from all over Australia. We have amazing stories of people who came up from Sydney to help in Toowoomba. We have all those people who gathered together and gave their time. The image of the volunteers walking across a walk-bridge to the buses that were going to take them out to the various suburbs that needed help was graphic evidence of the way that the community got together to volunteer their time and effort and their financial resources to start the rebuilding and to ensure that the people who had lost possessions would feel that there were people who wanted to help and support them.

The volunteering organisations must be commended. They are an intrinsic part of Australia’s community and this has been the time that they have been most publicly on show. I know from talking to the people who were trying to clean out their homes and recoup their losses that seeing the immediacy of the response gave them some hope in a very dark hour. One of my clearest memories is of seeing a family walking down to the lower parts of New Farm that were affected quite badly by mud and the destruction. Here was a little girl of about 11, in full gumboots with her own personal shovel, who had decided that she was going to go down and help. That image reflects so much the spirit that was there in the volunteer services and it gave such a moment of joy to the people that she was there to help. And she did use that shovel! When I spoke to her later in the day, she was a very tired but happy little girl. So she was able to make a difference.

Every small bit helps—I think that is the message for the wider community. Anything that you can do and anything that you can contribute will be most gratefully received and will be used. Certainly that is the message from the various funds that have been set up. The state disaster fund in Queensland has received an amazingly generous range of donations, and other senators have talked about the innovative ways of raising money and awareness. But it must continue because the need is great. I think each day the need continues to be recalculated as we find more of what is actually going on and we see that there is more of a need for so much help and so much assistance into the future.

In this place over the next few months there will be a chance to talk about more specific incidents of support, activity and also need and I think it will be important that that discussion continues. However, it has been important that we commend today the work that has been done particularly by the volunteers and by those people who have seen where they can best assist but not intrude. Certainly in the past, at times when we have seen cases where there has been sadness or disaster, some people have felt as though there has been an intrusion into their privacy by the work that has been done. Over the last couple of weeks we have seen that in this process people have been most sensitive to that and they have negotiated with the local people, the local communities and the local councils to see where they can best be used. So the message is that that must continue.

There will be further debate. We will have our differences in this place about the best way the government should act for work into the future. That is a very sure thing. There will be disagreement in the future. But I think the focus of today’s motion is, as I said, to bring us together so that we as a Senate can be seen to say to the people of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia in particular, ‘We have heard your need. We have seen the sorrow and devastation that you are suffering, and we as your parliament want to listen and we will respond.’ I think that is a really important role for us to take. The stories will make us stronger in the future because they are so positive. I think they should be celebrated. The loss of people who have lost family members must be grieved, and we share in that grief.

In the future I am sure that there will be lessons to be learned. That is one thing that has happened consistently in Australian history. Where there has been damage and disaster, through the sorrow we have learned how better to plan responsive moves, how better to have government respond and how better to work effectively to redevelop infrastructure, which must happen. Today should be a way for the community to learn that our Senate can be unified and we can share effectively with our community.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by commending Senator Moore on yet another excellent parliamentary contribution. As part of a generation that watched revolutions and wars unfold on television, it always seemed to me that natural disasters happened elsewhere, usually a long, long way away. Not that Australia has ever been immune to natural disasters. Sure, we have had our floods, fires and cyclones. But the loss of life was much more in earthquakes in Pakistan or floods in China or tsunamis in Indonesia. But with the media revolution of the digital age—Twitter, mobile phones and the internet—we really are a much smaller world. There is no escaping human connection. Our common humanity is not only emotional and biological; it is now graphic. Our sense of community has grown with the communications revolution. There is no escaping natural disasters now anywhere in the world. We all feel the impact of natural disasters. They are no longer some vague abstraction. Fox News broadcasting from the Avenue of the Americas in New York City was relaying shots taken just down the end of my street. The world is changing. If it is not a global village it is at least an international neighbourhood.

Day after day the Brisbane River swelled and when I looked from my place in Teneriffe just around the river bend from New Farm where Senator Moore was it looked like there were at any given time dozens of large crocodiles just below the surface of the brown, murky water of the Brisbane River. The river carried away thousands of trees, which were then followed by boats and then pontoons. I even remember a restaurant floating by. The river carried away houses and homes, businesses and livelihoods, memories and, of course, lives. We watched a raging river in total quiet. Senator Moore was right: we were awestruck. I thought I would never see soldiers in my street. And yet, when we lost power and torches shone and candles burned, the Australian Army arrived to sandbag and, wherever there were gaps, they gladly filled them in.

While the damage bill in Brisbane is enormous, other parts of the state were much worse hit. When news.com.au superimposed a map of the Queensland floods, the area flooded was greater than England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland combined. It really was a catastrophe. Queenslanders in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley were very badly hit. So were Central Queenslanders in Emerald and Rockhampton. For all those people, the flood must have seemed of biblical proportions.

The same connectedness and sense of community that all of us experienced as the floods unfolded unleashed an amazing outpouring of community spirit as tens of thousands of people eagerly and cheerfully volunteered to help. They volunteered to help not just friends and neighbours but, in most cases, complete strangers. It says so much about the spirit of my state. It is said that this is the most costly natural disaster in our nation’s history. It will clearly take billions of dollars and months, if not years, for homes, livelihoods and lives to be rebuilt. The people of Queensland performed magnificently under the most extraordinary of circumstances. Right across the world, Queenslanders won admiration for their pluck, their toughness and their great spirit. With all that said, my heartfelt thanks and admiration go to the people of Queensland. Queenslanders are different, and we are proud of that. I hope we never suffer these trials began but, if we do, I know my state and its people will overcome.

Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Queenslanders have had several tough months. For much of the summer we have been ravaged by nature’s fury. After the extended pain from years of drought, we have had to endure floods that have affected large areas of the state and, as recently as the last two weeks, have had to experience two cyclones—Anthony and the very catastrophic Yasi. While I imagine there are historical precedents for this succession of natural disasters, few of us in Queensland can easily recall when they might have been. But while we live in Queensland, and while we have confronted our own severe weather conditions, it is appropriate in this debate that we also acknowledge that other parts of the country have been suffering in recent weeks and in recent days. I extend my sympathy to my Victorian and New South Wales colleagues for the floods that have affected their states, and to my West Australian colleagues I extend my concern for the destructive bushfires that have so destroyed homes in and around Perth.

There is little doubt that in Brisbane the summer of 2011 will long be remembered for the catastrophic flood that inundated the city. But long before that occurred, other Queenslanders in places well removed from the capital had already had to face some of nature’s extremes. In places such as Emerald and Rockhampton, in the surrounding towns of Central Queensland and in the south, in the smaller communities such as Dalby, Chinchilla and, of course, in Senator Joyce’s own town of St George, the impacts from the floods were massive. In Theodore in Central Queensland and in Condamine further south, floodwaters reached record peaks and both towns had to be fully evacuated. In Condamine it happened twice. Across regional Queensland, houses were inundated, businesses destroyed and lives turned upside down by a massive body of water that just seemed to keep coming. Personal and commercial costs are massive and, like other parts of Queensland affected by the floods, these communities will take years to recover. If they are to do so confidently, they will need the support of all levels of government, not least federal government.

As the floods inundated the regions, the optimists amongst us dared to think that the worst of these disasters might be over. How wrong we were. Nature had more to give. On 10 January, an intense rain depression dumped massive amounts of rain in around the Darlings Downs, just west of Toowoomba, again with catastrophic consequences. The rain created what locals called an ‘inland tsunami’. In a very short time an unbelievable torrent of water cascaded through the city overflowing the watercourses and coursing through its usually quiet and picturesque streets. The city was ravaged. And just as quickly as it had risen, it was gone, leaving two people dead and Toowoomba itself severely battered and bruised. After that, the waters washed down the Dividing Range to wreak havoc on the small communities of the Lockyer Valley—Murphy’s Creek, Withcott, Helidon and Grantham, among others.

This condolence motion allows us to remember in particular the 22 people who lost their lives in this epic national and natural tragedy. It also allows us to recall that, even now, seven people are missing, feared lost. The floods did not discriminate. Those who died were young and old, workers and retirees, mothers and fathers, and sons and daughters. As accounts of the ways they lost their lives emerged, it was clear that almost all were caught off guard. They had little notice of the peril they faced. So quickly did the water rise, and with such speed and ferocity, that many had little time to escape and little chance to prepare. As tragic as this is, there can be little doubt that the death toll would have been a great deal higher had ordinary men and women not displayed extraordinary reserves of courage and bravery in their efforts to save others.

Having visited many of these communities, almost everyone has a story of survival and many acknowledge that they have been lucky. It is important here to acknowledge the heroic efforts of Queensland’s emergency services, the pilots of the helicopter rescue services such as the RACQ, the Army Black Hawks that responded so quickly to calls for help, and even the helicopter of the Seven Network organisation. Some of these rescues—out of trees, off roofs, from sinking cars, in the rain and all, increasingly, in the dark—were truly the stuff of which legends are deservedly made. These communities owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who risked so much to save others. Many of the rescuers say that they were just doing their job, but in many cases it was a great deal more than that. They took enormous risks to save others. In most cases the people were complete strangers. In due course, I hope they will receive appropriate recognition.

After the trauma, havoc and tragedy of these events in the Lockyer Valley, the summer drama moved downstream as the floodwaters inundated Ipswich and, of course, Brisbane. There is now a debate as to whether the flooding in Brisbane might have been mitigated by a more appropriate management of the flood mitigation program through the Wivenhoe Dam. In due course, the Premier’s commission of inquiry will determine the facts. I welcome the inquiry, although I feel considerable regret that the Premier did not strive for a better political balance in selecting the members of the inquiry panel. It would have been a far wiser response to the trauma the community has experienced.

Whatever the findings of the inquiry, there are some things we already know or can safely and accurately speculate about. We know that the costs of this summer flooding and now the cyclone have been extraordinary, not only to individuals but to Queensland and the nation. As I said, 22 people died in the January floods but, since the flooding began in November, 35 people have actually lost their lives. At its peak in Queensland, riverine flooding covered 500,000 square kilometres—the combined area of France and Germany. Across the state, 200,000 people were directly affected by the floods, 260,000 households in South-East Queensland lost power and more than 4,000 people were in evacuation centres. In Brisbane, 11,900 homes and 2,500 businesses were submerged and another 14,000 houses and 2,500 businesses were partially covered by water.

Economic loss to Queensland is expected to be around $2 billion across the mining, agriculture, retail, tourism, rail and road transport industries. A further $2 billion of agricultural produce has been destroyed—wheat, cotton, citrus fruit, vegetables and sugar cane. Coal export losses alone are estimated at $480 million per week. Once again, the people of North Queensland have had to endure a devastating national tragedy—Cardwell, Tully, Mission Beach and Ingham are amongst the most severely affected communities. The impact on agriculture across the north has been widespread—the banana industry, the sugar industry, aquaculture and tourism have all been widely affected.

As we reflect on the massive costs to the community of this summer of extreme weather, some things are clear. I will remember forever the determination, the resolve and the calm stoicism in the way Queenslanders everywhere dealt with the traumas affecting their communities. Not surprisingly, some found the challenges too much. Who among us could say that they might not also have found it too much? Those who have been severely traumatised will need our support well into the future. As I went round the devastated communities, around the suburbs of Brisbane and around the Lockyer Valley at Grantham and Murphys Creek, I was struck by the resilience, good humour and determination of the people. People who had lost all seemed always to think that others had lost more. Despite everything, there was a grim optimism—an expectation that, notwithstanding everything that had happened, somehow everything would be okay. As senators, I believe we have a responsibility to see that that optimism is not disappointed.

Similarly, everyone who lived through this disaster could not help but be impressed by the extraordinary generosity of the community. There were the volunteers of the emergency services, the Queensland SES, the council workers, the community groups and we should not forget the members of the Australian Defence Force. But it would be a travesty if we did not acknowledge the massive contribution from those whose lives were only lightly touched by the floods and now the cyclone—all those who wanted to volunteer. Most people could not do enough for those who were amongst the most severely affected. Neighbours helped neighbours, but what was perhaps more remarkable was the willingness of thousands and thousands of strangers to come out and help, to respond to the distress of others just because they wanted to help.

No doubt many of us have stories of the way people were willing to assist. I recall turning up on Sunday, 16 January, at Sir Fred Schonell Drive in St Lucia, not far from where I live, to a scene of utter devastation. Rubbish which had been people’s lives was piled high on either side of the street. It was a continuous pile of indistinguishable items of junk. There I met Lauren from Wagga and her family. They had been on holidays in Noosa and, while there, had watched the events in Brisbane and decided they could not continue their holidays. They drove themselves down to Brisbane, they checked into the emergency centre in North Brisbane and they were bussed to St Lucia where they spent a day in the mud cleaning out the houses of people they did not know. There was also Marty Johnson, who lived in North Brisbane and was completely unaffected by the floods, but who decided that the best thing he could do was go down to the local Budget office and hire a tip truck. He spent the next four days ferrying junk and rubbish from affected suburbs to tips around Brisbane. These were truly remarkable examples of generosity and they were repeated right around the state. These are unselfish actions of which I think we can be immensely proud.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the strength of the leadership provided by our elected community officials across Queensland. Premier Bligh has been said to have had what might be called ‘a good flood’—in other words, to have been distinguished in the way in which she led the state. I confess that I am rather less enamoured of her performance which has, of course, been competent, but which has also been relentlessly partisan and political.

No less deserving of recognition have been the roles played by the representatives of local government across the state. Almost all have performed exceptionally and acted in the best interests of their communities. There are too many to recognise, but some deserve attention—the Central Highlands Regional Council, led by Peter Maguire; the Rockhampton Regional Council, led by Brad Carter; the Toowoomba Regional Council, led by Mayor Peter Taylor; the Western Downs Regional Council, with Ray Brown; the Ipswich City Council, with Paul Pisasale; and finally, of course, the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Councillor Campbell Newman. He without doubt lived up to his nickname of ‘Can-do’ Campbell. Councillor Newman and his council did much of the heavy lifting required to ensure that the impact of the floods in Brisbane was minimised and, after the floods had passed, that the city moved to a recovery plan as soon as possible.

We should also recognise the work of our parliamentary colleagues in the House of Representatives, Teresa Gambaro in the seat of Brisbane and Jane Prentice in Ryan among them. I especially want to mention Mr Scott Buchholz, the newly elected member for the new seat of Wright. Scott’s seat covers the Lockyer Valley, which bore the costly brunt of these terrifying storms and the floods that followed. As I have seen for myself, he performed magnificently, providing the kind of constant aid and support that a community has a right to expect of its members of parliament. Every one of these elected representatives offered distinguished examples of civic leadership.

We rightly mourn the excesses of nature. In the words of Dorothea Mackellar, we mourn the fury of the ‘flooding rains’ which can exact such a massive toll on our community. We especially mourn those who lost their lives so tragically and traumatically. The task we in this place now face is to do all we can to help rebuild the destroyed communities, to help them recover, as best they can, all they have lost. In doing so, we will help to renew and give promise for the future so that when the next floods and cyclones come, as surely they will, we will have learnt some lessons. In doing so, we will be as ready as we can be to face the natural challenges of living on a continent which, for all its beauty and indeed for all its grandeur, constantly tests those of us who choose to live here. I commend the motion to the Senate.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the debate on the condolence motion and to acknowledge with great sadness the devastation caused by the recent natural disasters in Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. We have had floods, Cyclone Yasi and bushfires. The floods this summer mark one of the greatest natural disasters to ever hit Australia. The damage sustained was catastrophic. Whole towns and communities were destroyed. People’s lives were torn to pieces. This was truly a natural disaster of momentous proportions, shattering communities. Queensland’s capital Brisbane was brought to a standstill. City streets were turned into rivers, the CBD was turned into an inland sea, and people’s lives were ripped apart. The floodwaters tested the emotional strength of everyone involved. As the  Queensland Premier, Anna Bligh, said during the darkest days of the disaster:

This weather may break our hearts but it will not break our will.

This statement exemplifies what is truly remarkable about Australians. We are strong-willed people who, throughout history, in the face of some truly great adversities, have always pulled together and these devastating floods are no exception. As is the Australian way, in times of need we witness extraordinary examples of mateship. Our fellow Australians show the true meaning of the Australian spirit by pitching in and helping out their fellow countrymen and women. We have heard amazing stories of friends, neighbours and complete strangers pitching in to help each other against the rising floodwaters. Last week I heard the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, talking of people driving thousands of kilometres to volunteer in Brisbane and we heard today senators speaking about what they have witnessed—complete strangers going out and helping, taking time out of their holidays or, as we heard from Senator Trood, hiring trucks to help clear the streets.

The damage was not limited to roads, houses, farms and railways; unfortunately, during the floods lives have been lost. Heartbreakingly, people have tragically lost loved ones and some people are still missing. As senators in this place have said, we pass on our heartfelt condolences to all families and friends who have lost loved ones during the floods. Our thoughts go out to them in what is no doubt an incredibly difficult time. While the floodwaters have had a significant impact across Queensland, other parts of Australia have not been immune either, with large areas of New South Wales, Victoria and my home state of Tasmania being affected. One of my colleagues in Tasmania, the federal member for Lyons, Mr Dick Adams, has been working particularly hard to visit all flood-affected areas. He has also had the Attorney-General, the Hon. Robert McClelland, visit the sprawling electorate of Lyons, to inspect the damage caused by the floodwaters.

In light of the damage sustained in Queensland by the floods and the establishment of the Premier’s flood disaster fund, the Tasmanian state government have been undertaking fundraising, as have other state governments and many organisations and individuals. On 11 January, the Tasmanian Premier announced that the state government would match all money raised by Rotary, dollar for dollar up to $250,000. Since the Premier’s fundraising announcement, a number of community groups and organisations have begun efforts to take up the Premier’s offer to match fundraising. Also, 21 dedicated Tasmanian State Emergency Service volunteers have travelled to Queensland to assist with rescue and safety work in flood-affected areas, as well as one full-time coordinator. Stories such as these are commonplace around Australia at a time when fellow Australians are suffering and in need. The level of community spirit and support shown by the public is extraordinary. For the work undertaken by defence personnel, the SES and all the volunteers involved, not only in the support effort to fight the floodwaters but also in their work assisting in the clean-up of the affected areas, we thank you for your efforts.

In response to the high level of destruction caused by floodwaters, the federal government has announced a well-balanced and comprehensive response to help flood-affected communities rebuild roads, bridges, railway lines and public facilities. In the past couple of weeks we have again seen the full force of mother nature in North Queensland coping with the full brunt of category 5 Cyclone Yasi.

In more recent days, Victoria has again been on the receiving end of large unexpected downpours resulting in widespread flooding through the Melbourne CBD and parts of Gippsland—again, sadly, with loss of life. As well, Perth has suffered devastation with the loss of over 60 homes from bushfires. Our thoughts and support go out to all those people affected by these natural disasters.

As I finish my remarks today I want to reiterate what the Prime Minister has said to people affected by natural disasters: these are indeed incredibly tough and difficult times, but we are here for you. We will do what is necessary to support you so that you can rebuild your lives. We will rebuild. Now is your time of need. We will be there for you in the recovery and the rebuilding of your communities. I again give my heartfelt thanks to the volunteers assisting in the clean-up and I extend my deepest sympathies and condolences to those affected by these terrible natural disasters.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to identify strongly with those Australians who, during a savage summer, have endured trial by water and fire. I speak of those in Victoria who have endured weeks of slow-moving floodwaters which have isolated communities and starved businesses of their lifeblood; I speak of those in Western Australia whose homes just in the last few days have been destroyed by bushfires, against the ironic backdrop of flooding across much of the rest of the nation; I speak of those in flood-affected regions such as Tasmania, whose crises have been very real but who have been largely overlooked by a nation distracted by bigger tragedies; and I speak of countless small businesses, not necessarily inundated by floodwaters but just as certainly crippled by the impact of the floods on their communities and marketplaces. I speak most particularly of the people of Queensland, whose state has been battered and buffeted in a way without precedent in my lifetime. I speak of Queenslanders, going about their business, travelling in their cars, sitting in their homes, asleep in their beds, who suddenly were caught in the jaws of a watery death. These people were doing things in places where they might have expected to be safe. Sadly, they were not. It is a reminder of the capricious nature of our environment, our capricious climate and the need for us to be aware at all times that as Australians we may be called upon to assist people in extraordinary circumstances.

There are many sobering statistics about these natural disasters. This is the biggest natural disaster in Australia’s history. The cost of cleaning up and repairing the damage, not just to public infrastructure but to private infrastructure, will no doubt be well in excess of $10 billion. It will take years to restore damaged infrastructure and repair the economy. In some places an entire recovery may not be possible. In the last two months we have had at least 35 people confirmed dead and another half-dozen or so are not yet accounted for. In Brisbane, at the flood’s peak, 11,900 homes and 2½ thousand businesses were completely flooded, and another 14,700 homes and 2,500 businesses were partially flooded throughout 67 suburbs of that city. Eighty-six towns and cities across Queensland were affected. We had 500,000 square kilometres of Queensland, at one stage or another, threatened with inundation—three-quarters of the state, an area larger than France and Germany combined. It is extremely concerning to face a challenge of that kind, and at least as concerning to know that it will take so long and so much effort and money to restore to the people of those communities what they have lost, if that is ever possible.

I want to put a couple of points on the record in today’s debate. I express my appreciation and gratitude to the many people who contributed to the response to the crisis. Many have spoken in this debate already about the work of emergency service workers and volunteers. We have a tremendously professional resource in these people, and I acknowledge that as well. I thank officers of government, particularly people in the federal government offices of the Attorney-General and the Minister for Human Services, who kept a flow of information to my office, in my capacity as the coalition spokesperson on emergency services, allowing a good level and quality of information to be available to colleagues in affected parts of the country and giving them accurate information to pass on to their constituents. I also thank officers in the federal government for being responsive to a number of issues raised by local members who were affected and who had members of their communities affected directly. It goes without saying that a disproportionate number of coalition electorates were affected by these tragedies, particularly in Queensland, but the assistance dealt to my office was quite exceptional, and I thank the officers and the ministers responsible for making that happen.

Senators in this debate have mentioned some of the good things said to have come from this tragedy—the binding together of Australians in times of crisis. I want to note the extensive use of social media to allow people to stay in touch with each other. We witnessed many people getting information on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. There was an explosion of information and support through those media, and even authorities used them to get important information out to the community. It is an important development in the way in which we meet the challenges of our, as I said, capricious environment.

I pay tribute as well to the many people mentioned already in this debate who committed enormous acts of dedication and selflessness to deal with a crisis that they were not expecting. Earlier today the Senate honoured Corporal Benjamin Roberts-Smith for his courage and heroism, which deservedly earned him the Victoria Cross. We have heard witness in the last few weeks of many, many acts of heroism, but in very different circumstances—heroism displayed by people who, in many cases, were not expecting, were not trained and had no demonstrated capacity to deliver acts of bravery and courage in the face of danger but who did so almost without thought in order to deal with the situation confronting them. I do not know much about the people Senator Joyce spoke about, who rallied around the family who were trapped in a car in Toowoomba, but I am sure none of them were particularly well prepared or trained for the task that they suddenly found themselves with. I think we would all hope that if we were confronted with such circumstances we too would have the courage and the tenacity to deal with that situation to the best of our ability.

To conclude, the test of our sincerity about these terrible disasters is not so much what we say today in the course of this debate but what we will be doing, let us say, three months from now when that tragedy will still be unfolding on a day-to-day basis in the lives of a large number of Australians. There will still be houses as yet unreconstructed; there will still be businesses struggling to survive day by day; there will still be people grappling with legal issues arising out of the death or injury of loved ones; there will still be people struggling with the loss of possessions and family members and perhaps even their homes. At that point, Australians, the Australian government, agencies of government throughout the Australian system of government, will need still to be responsive to what is going on even when the headlines in news bulletins have ceased to mention these tragedies.

There are important lessons to be learnt from what has happened and we do a disservice to the many people who have been victims of these natural disasters if we do not critically analyse what has taken place and be prepared to change the way we do things in such circumstances in response to what we have learned. There is a great deal to be learned from what has happened in the last few weeks and I hope that a spirit of serious inquiry and examination of those issues will not be allowed to be swept away merely because the issues are sensitive and tread on dangerous ground in some respects. We need to ensure that we learn from this experience to minimise the number of people who are victims of such tragedies into the future.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to join colleagues here today to take this opportunity of the motion on natural disasters to reflect on the tragedies that have occurred across the whole of our nation in what we now will sadly remember as the summer of 2011. Words like ‘tragedy’, ‘devastation’ and ‘decimation’ have been used on our radios and televisions over the last month-and-a-half but when we physically see some of these scenes, either in person or on television, those words do not seem to describe the reality of it.

The fires in Western Australia are still posing a risk to people in that state. They have claimed loved family homes. I pass my thoughts to the people of Western Australia for the trauma that they are experiencing at this difficult time. The floods in communities in Victoria, Tasmania and parts of New South Wales have broken into the sanctuary of family homes. I recognise the sorrow and the sadness that people will be experiencing at this time.

In my state of Queensland, and in southern Queensland in particular, the destruction is almost incomprehensible. We have lost 35 good, loved lives. It is a very sad experience for those families. We have the incredible torture for those whose family members are still not accounted for. There has been massive personal loss. Homes and items that are loved—possessions that can never be replaced—will never be retrieved and I share the sorrow of the people going through this personal loss. I also acknowledge the enormous infrastructure cost that this disaster has caused in the South-East Queensland region. We do not yet have a figure on that but it will take years to replace the necessary infrastructure for those many communities to operate effectively and efficiently.

I pass on my condolences to the families and to the communities more broadly where significant loss of life has occurred in South-East Queensland. But I also commend the people of Toowoomba, the Lockyer Valley, Ipswich, Goodna and Brisbane for their strength, for their resilience, for their plain hard work and for the love and care that they have so openly shown for each other. I also thank the so many willing volunteers who so cheerfully and willingly gave of their labour in order to deliver the first tidy-up—let us call it that because there is a long way to go before we get to the reconstruction.

I would like now to turn to the events of last week. Last Tuesday morning, after we had been tracking this horrid cyclone called Yasi for some three or four days, people of my city of Cairns woke up with the BOM map showing that it was heading for our city—a category 5 cyclone, larger than any ever experienced in the history of recorded meteorology in Australia. Not only was it a category 5; it was also the largest-ever system that we have measured—almost as large as Hurricane Katrina. Its spread in the end affected communities from Wujal Wujal in the north down into the Burdekin. That is a six-hour drive by car. It is a long way, and all of those communities have been affected in some way. Fortunately for my city, Tropical Cyclone Yasi changed its tack, but our relief has turned into devastation again for the people of the Cassowary Coast area. It was almost the same landing point as 2006, with Cyclone Larry. Those poor people have once again been devastated—a little bit more to the south this time but the devastation in that area is almost beyond words.

Families from Ayr, Home Hill, up to Mossman and out west through to Mount Garnet and Innot Hot Springs have had to make some dreadful decisions: what are the things that we still want to have after this event; what things are so important to us as families that we have to put them in a plastic box in the car—or under the house in my circumstance—and hope? It is not just my story; it is the story that we as North Queenslanders have to deal with regularly. It is a tough decision that families have to make. We all got out a plastic box out and filled it with those special treasures and we put it in the car downstairs or in the bathroom, and we found a place where we could hide from this storm. We readied homes—and people did that so well. People shared the task and helped across fences and through the streets, and we waited for this horrid storm. We all pitched in.

When it hit its force was not terribly bad to the north of the cyclone centre. It particularly hit the Cassowary Coast areas of Mission Beach, Cardwell, Tully and smaller communities like Hull Heads, Tully Heads, Euramo and Silkwood—small towns that have not experienced a cyclone of that intensity for some time but received significant devastation this time. One in three roofs are off in Tully—or off to the point that the house is unliveable. That is just one example.

The damage to the south of the cyclone is also significant. The people of Townsville are still suffering significant loss of power, they had problems with their water supply and there are still ongoing difficulties for people in that region. The cyclone then tracked west. Never in my life has anyone considered that a tropical cyclone would hit Mount Isa. When the people of Mount Isa were told to go inside because they were going to get a tropical cyclone category 1, to their grand credit, according to the ABC radio announcer, they did what they usually do when it rains—that is, get in their car and go for a drive. They are actually okay. There has been significant damage in communities like Croydon, Charters Towers and to the west in Cloncurry. This cyclone has really affected half of the state of Queensland—in some places dreadfully; in other places to a lesser extent.

There is a large-scale effort underway to establish power, water and phone supplies. I thank all for doing that. Many of our troops are providing an extraordinary service with their hard labour. Seeing men and women in Australian Defence Force uniforms on the streets gives residents enormous strength. I thank our Defence Force people for their presence, their good cheer and their plain hard work. There is much community infrastructure that has to be rebuilt. It will have to be prioritised. Lots of work is being done in family homes.

I reflect also on the impact that this will have on the people of North Queensland both now and into the future. We learnt lessons when Cyclone Larry went through, particularly Innisfail, five years ago. At the moment the effort is in the clean-up. In the weeks to come there will be work done thinking about rebuilding and that sort of thing. There is a task. There is a job to do. I want to make it very clear that in about two months we need to be very aware of our fellow Queenslanders. We have to very aware that the trauma these people have lived through will bubble up in their lives. That is what we learnt from Cyclone Larry and we need to be prepared for that event. We need to look out for our children. Some people say it was terrible that the cyclone crossed land in the night. In some cases that was actually a blessing because many children slept through it, and that is good. But we still need to look out for those young children. They got up in the morning and saw what had happened to their homes and they will need support.

We need to look after those stoic women who will just get on with the job and keep working and keep doing what they do. We must look out for them and make sure that they know that they have help wherever they need it. Very importantly, we must look out for the ‘teflon’ blokes, who think they are invincible and are currently out there working so hard. We must be careful of their mental health in the weeks ahead as well. I encourage us all to continue to contact friends, particularly in the highly devastated areas. If you have friends in the north, thank you for all the emails, texts and messages you have been sending, but send them again in about six weeks. Make sure you make contact to find out that we are all okay.

Our part of the world has done it tough in the last two or three years. The global financial crisis particularly hit the Far North Queensland community of Cairns, the tropical north, because of our reliance on tourism. We have had another hit through Cyclone Yasi. But it is a hit that will hurt us more if we do not get on top of telling people that we are open for business. Tourism operations are happening now as we speak out to the Great Barrier Reef, up to the Daintree and onto the tablelands. I plead with my colleagues in this place to get that message out. If we allow the perception that the Far North has been trashed, we will continue to lose bookings as we are doing now. I really encourage people to spread the word, ‘The Far North is open for business and please come.’ We will have to work with the tourism industry in the short term and in the medium to long term. We have to get the message out that we are open.

The other wonderful asset that we have in the north is our agriculture. We grow the most bananas in Australia. Everyone knows that because of the devastation from Cyclone Larry. This devastation is not so bad because the cyclone did not go onto the Atherton Tablelands where there has been a diversification of the banana industry. We will not see the lack of supply that we saw in 2006, but there are plantations in the Tully and Mission Beach areas where not a single tree is standing. Those farmers and their workers need to be supported and I intend to continue doing that. I want to thank the Australian Banana Growers Council for keeping me updated about how we can assist them.

I also recognise that the banana industry is a very large employer. We have some 3,000 people who are currently employed in the banana industry. We need them to keep working. They are picking up bananas off the ground at the moment, so the bananas are a bit bruised but they are beautiful to eat—keep eating them. But come next week, those bananas are not going to be available to be picked up. That means we need to redeploy that workforce into the cleanup of the plantations themselves. All of that material has to be moved off property quickly so that we do not have infestations of pests and diseases. That work needs to continue.

We have some 300 people who are employed in the banana transport industry. They are basically dedicated banana transporters that hub out of that Cassowary Coast region. Those are 300 jobs we also have to look out for. My best wishes go to those in the banana industry. We will be with you. We will be part of the rebuilding and we will get there.

Sugar has also suffered significantly. The Canegrowers of Australia, the peak body for sugar growing in the area, the Sugar Milling Council and Queensland Sugar Ltd have kept me informed about the impact on this year’s crush. There are significant problems in the Tully area. The Tully mill has sustained considerable damage. I look forward to working with the people from the Tully mill in order to do what can be done to assist them.

Tropical fruit is a growing agricultural industry in Far North Queensland. The really tragic part of this cyclone is that some of the crops were just about to come to fruition. Rambutan takes about eight or nine years to get to production and it was about eight or nine years ago that the rambutan industry really ramped up in the Far North. But there is a range of tropical fruits and we need to work with the tropical fruit industry. It is not a massive employer in the region, but it is a significant employer.

Finally, the other attribute that we have in Far North Queensland and in North Queensland generally is our environment. Our environment in particular areas has taken a significant hit. There is some reef damage—it is not ascertained yet—but that will recover. As I said, the tourism industry is open for business and our beautiful reef can be seen. We need to work with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to replace water monitoring equipment and other monitoring equipment out on the reef.

The rainforests in the Mission Beach area and in the mountains behind there have suffered very badly. We will need to establish a rehabilitation program again. We need to ensure that weeds, particularly vine weeds, are kept at bay so that they do not reach the canopy before the new trees can be established. Of course, we are concerned about cassowaries. The Mission Beach area is an enormous refuge for cassowaries. I am advised that the feeding stations have started already, so that is good, but we will need to ensure that everything is done to maintain the cassowary population that is there because it is at risk.

I want to thank a whole range of people. I want to thank the Prime Minister for her support during this difficult time. I want to acknowledge the leadership of Anna Bligh and her government in providing sensible, calm and direct leadership and information to our people. It is my view that people’s lives would have been lost if we did not have that clarity of information in the north. I want to acknowledge every local government in the cyclone-affected area. Every local government put together their local disaster management group. They put their district disaster management groups together and fed their information through to the state disaster management group. Every mayor put in well and truly above what was expected, along with all their councillors. So I thank all of you—there are too many to mention by name.

I again thank our ADF troops for evacuating the Cairns Base Hospital and the Cairns Private Hospital so calmly and efficiently. My thanks also go to the Royal Flying Doctor Service for undertaking that task for the first time. The SES have been brilliant. To the volunteers and the personnel who are employed by the SES, you have done everything. I am really pleased that Chief Superintendent Mike Keating has been appointed to lead the rebuilding task force in the north. He knows it well. He has worked through the region in Cairns, in Innisfail, in Tully and in Townsville. He is an excellent choice.

I particularly want to thank the Centrelink team. They have been working very hard. The ABC have been brilliant. But to all of the people in North Queensland who pulled together, who looked out for each other and who made sure we were going to get through this thing, now we are going to work together to rebuild it. My thanks also go to the Bureau of Meteorology for their constant hourly updates. I think their website has probably got the best hit rate of any in the country at the moment. It is extremely comforting to know that you are getting accurate information.

In conclusion, we will get over this. We got over Larry and we will get over this. Together we will rebuild our part of the world.

Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am grateful to have the opportunity today to speak on the motion of condolence which encompasses the devastation that has affected the eastern states and Western Australia in the last month or so. Like Senator McLucas, I am a proud Queensland senator and, whilst I certainly have great sympathy for the people of Victoria and Western Australia, I will be confining my remarks to the devastation that Queensland has faced over the past month.

I would like to begin by reading into Hansard the names of the 21 deceased who have been positively identified to date by the Queensland coroner’s office in Brisbane. The names are: Sandra Matthews, Steven Matthews, Donna Rice, Jordan Rice, Llync-Chiann Clarke, Garry Jibson, Jocelyn Jibson, Bruce Marshall, Jesse Wickman, Jean Gurr, Pauline Magner, Robert Bromage, Selwyn Schefe, Katie Schefe, Van Toan Giang, Robert Kelly, Joshua Ross, Brenda Ross, Reinskje Van Der Werff, Sylvia Baillie and Jessica Keep. Those people died. Their families, their friends, their neighbours and everyone around them have been directly and immediately affected by their deaths. So many others almost died. A huge scar remains on Queensland.

I had the opportunity to visit some of the flood affected areas near Brisbane not long ago, and I visited Grantham. My hosts there were a family, Ron and Gwen Kuhrt, who live on a property just out of Grantham proper and whose business is hay carting and chaffcutting. They do not have a business right now. They do not have anything you would call a home right now. They do not have very much except themselves and the will to keep going and to survive. The Kuhrts are of Lutheran background and stock. They are proud people, and you could see the pain in Ron Kuhrt’s face when he said: ‘The hardest thing I have had to do is work out how to accept help. I am not good at accepting help, but we have to have help. We cannot do this alone.’ The fire brigade had been through their house twice to hose it out. The suggestion was that the floorboards were going to have to be ripped up to get to the mud that was stuck under their house. There was no part of the house that was likely to be reclaimed, except perhaps the frame.

These people were in Grantham, which of course, as many people know, was one of the worst hit parts of South-East Queensland in the floods. Everywhere we went in Grantham, Gwen could point to something that had been devastated. The only thing left of a solid brick house were about 200 to 300 bricks set in three or four little piles in a front yard. She took us to the bridge with the cars jammed under it, which I know everyone here saw on television over and over again. The cars had all gone by the time I saw it, but everyone in Grantham had a story to tell that was somehow related to that bridge. As to their fears, some of them were not realised, thank God; but unfortunately others were very, very real, and people are simply gone. At the recovery centre in Grantham I met a very fit-looking woman in her late sixties who, along with her husband, had clung to the guttering of their home for over three hours. She said, ‘People ask me how I did it, and the answer is that I have no idea how I did it. I just knew I wasn’t going down there’—and by ‘down there’ she meant down into the raging torrent that was over the windows of their home.

We talk a lot about Grantham and Murphys Creek, but there are many other towns in South-East Queensland that have been absolutely devastated—towns like Fernvale and Lowood and Esk. Thank God there was no loss of life in those towns, but the damage has been just as devastating. The mayor of Esk, Graeme Lehmann, was still on his feet after two weeks without sleep, basically, but just as worried as his constituents that there was absolutely no reason for the same thing not to happen again before the month was out. The wet season is just starting, not finishing, so there was real concern in Esk and the towns around there.

Kingaroy was affected by a bit of water in backyards and things like that, but the Blackbutt Range road, which is Kingaroy’s main connection to the world, was out of action for over 10 days. The day I was there they had just started to allow traffic and trucks up to 14 tonnes through. The motel owners in Kingaroy were pleased for the first time in two weeks because finally there were some people back in town who might stay in their motels; finally food and other supplies were coming in on trucks, which meant that they could perhaps go back into business. That story was repeated over and over throughout Queensland.

I would particularly like to comment on some problems that have developed for organisations in the disability and mental health sectors. I spoke to David Barbagallo, the CEO of Endeavour—a major disability services provider in Queensland—just after the floods and asked, ‘How is it going?’ He said: ‘In the not-for-profit sector we’re used to getting on with things and looking after ourselves. We’re not going too badly. We did have a bit of a problem in Toowoomba, though. The Endeavour opportunity shop in Toowoomba was flooded and the staff had to swim out.’ I can only imagine what it must have been like for those staff to have to do that. The disability sector is trying to get on with it. Nevertheless, there are dozens and dozens of small organisations that will have great difficulty in recovering from these floods unless we remember them in the months to come and work out ways to fund them.

In the mental health sector, there are six organisations that are basically out of business because of loss of equipment and loss of premises. The mental health sector in Queensland has put a figure of about 19 per cent on the services that are not functioning right now. This sector is already hard-stretched and very pressed in meeting even some of the demand. Given the recent circumstances, the need for mental health services is likely to increase. Again, this is an area that we cannot afford to forget. We must do everything we can to improve the situation for these organisations. They are not big organisations but they are a desperately needed part of their communities and they are desperately trying to hang on in order to help their communities.

Today is, as Senator Humphries pointed out earlier, a day to talk about our losses; it is not a day to talk about the future—but we do need to remember that future. I would like to point out that, whilst we have talked about the deaths and the loss of property, we need to understand that in Queensland, as Senator McLucas pointed out in her assessment of North Queensland, you do not need to be flood or cyclone damaged to be flood or cyclone affected. I do not know of one business, one person, one sector or one corner of Queensland that has not somehow been affected by the floods and the cyclone. People who were not in the flood areas themselves may have lost their jobs because the business they worked for was affected by the floods. Businesses have had problems with customers who cannot pay their bill because they have been affected by the floods. Other businesses have had problems because their supplier cannot supply because that supplier has been affected by the floods. As I said earlier in relation to the Kingaroy group of motels and businesses, their businesses were affected by the floods because the road to Kingaroy was damaged. So every business, including agribusiness and the sorts of primary producers that Senator McLucas and others spoke about, has been affected by the floods and the cyclone. This is something we need to remember.

Rocklea, a western suburb of Brisbane, was seriously affected by the floods. A woman who runs a fireworks events company has her business located there, but it was not affected by the floods. However, you do not have many fireworks events in the sort of weather that South-East Queensland has been experiencing since November. She told me that since Christmas—and this was about two weeks ago; so we are talking about a period of six to eight weeks—she has had 39 fireworks events cancelled. She was very concerned about what to do. She does have a cancellation policy and she could have tried to charge some of them because they had cancelled, but her concern about doing that was that so many of them were small community organisations from areas like Toowoomba, where they will need every cent for the restoration of their community. She is just one example of a company that was not flood damaged but was certainly very, very flood affected. So, as we go forward, we must remember that not just people but also businesses are very damaged and that there will come a time when their strength and resilience will be at an end unless we as a community support them.

As a small measure I would like to encourage everyone here, as Senator McLucas also said, to visit Queensland, to spend some money in Queensland and to do whatever you can to assist businesses in Queensland to redevelop. If you cannot do that, buy some Queensland made products. I was interested to hear people talk about not being able to afford to buy bananas if the price goes up. Could I suggest that they buy half as many bananas if the price doubles rather than stop buying bananas, and apply that across every business and group. We all need to be very kind to each other in the months to come—and that is not just towards individuals but companies as well.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the condolence motion before the Senate today. This summer, as we cast our eyes over the front page of the newspaper, turned on the television or switched on the radio, we were confronted with devastating scenes of the full force of natural disasters in Australia and the devastation left in their wake. Floods and cyclones in Queensland, floods in South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania and, in the past few days, bushfires in Western Australia. Today I join with my colleagues in offering my condolences to all those people affected by these disasters. To the people of Queensland who lost loved family members—children, life partners, parents and siblings—I know there are no words that will ease the pain. Thousands of people are now without a home and many more have major damage to their homes. They have lost treasured personal belongings that cannot be replaced, including much loved family pets. Facing this reality, too, are the 68 families who have lost their homes to the devastating fires that have been raging through the Perth hills area in Western Australia over the past few days. I join with my colleagues in the Senate in saying that our thoughts are with you at this time of great loss and sadness.

I acknowledge the very valuable role of our national broadcaster, particularly ABC radio, and the commitment of ABC journalists, camera crews and production staff in alerting and informing people of the dangers in regions caught in or under threat of cyclones, floods and fire. Today we pay tribute to the very valuable contribution of emergency services personnel, police, medical practitioners, defence personnel, local councillors and volunteers. Your contribution is gratefully acknowledged and it will be remembered.

Also remembered is the second anniversary yesterday of the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria that resulted in the loss of 173 lives and seriously injured more than 800 people, forever changing the lives of their families. Next week is the anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bushfires of 1983 that caused widespread destruction across my home state of South Australia, where 28 lives were lost, and Victoria, where 47 people died. The devastation and the loss are great. In closing, I extend my heartfelt sympathy to all in Queensland affected by the floods and cyclones and to those in other parts of Australia affected by natural disaster, recent and past.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to join my colleagues in supporting this condolence motion on national disasters and to extend my deepest sympathies to those who have lost loved ones as a result of the Queensland floods. I also offer my condolences to those affected by the floods and the impact of tropical Cyclone Yasi. These two natural disasters, coupled with the recent bushfires in Western Australia, have dealt tragic and heavy blows to Australia but in particular to Queensland. Lives and livelihoods have been lost as the rebuilding effort continues there and it will be a sad and difficult time for those affected.

Australia has a long history of extremes—an ancient cycle. We are a land of droughts and fires and also floods which have brought tragedy and hardship to Queensland and to areas of New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia this summer. As a nation we were shocked by the horrific scale of the devastation that the floods caused in Queensland. I visited Brisbane just after the floods and was very kindly taken around to see the devastation by Senator Furner. I saw for myself the extent of the impact of the floods in the city and the massive clean-up faced by many residents.

The floodwaters that had done the damage were gone but many homes and businesses were left ruined by the water and mud left behind. In fact, until you have experienced a flood yourself you do not realise just how much damage the mud left behind does. In some places that mud was at least a foot deep, and on occasions even more, and people were sweating over spades and shovels as they tried to shift it from streets, footpaths, driveways, gardens and homes. Those in the worst hit areas were still struggling to come to grips with what had happened. Huge piles of furniture, household goods and building materials were heaped up on vacant land along streets that a few days before had looked more like billabongs. In some places the scale of the wreckage brought by the water was overwhelming.

As Queensland and the nation band together to help repair that damage and rebuild those flood ravaged regions, it is important to remember that, while the damage is terrible and the rebuilding efforts significant, the biggest impact of these floods has been the loss of life. Our deepest sympathies go out to the families and friends of those who lost their lives—and Senator Boyce just read out the names of those people—as a result of the worst floods in Queensland’s history.

Last Thursday, just weeks after the tragedy in South-East Queensland, the state was again hit by natural disaster in the form of tropical Cyclone Yasi. In the early hours of last Thursday morning, communities in Far North Queensland were hit by winds of up to 300 kilometres an hour when a category 5 cyclone hit the Queensland coast. A number of communities—particularly in the Innisfail region—were severely damaged by the cyclone. Places that included Mission Beach, Innisfail, Silkwood, Tully and Cardwell were among the hardest hit. The Queensland government declared 19 local government areas across Far North Queensland to be natural disaster zones, including Cairns, Charters Towers, Croydon, Hinchinbrook, Mackay, Mount Isa, Palm Island, Tablelands, Townsville and Whitsunday. When we see the images of boats piled up, trees flattened and houses almost destroyed, it seems remarkable that the cyclone did not have a greater impact in terms of injury or loss of life. However, sadly, one young man died of asphyxiation shortly after the cyclone hit as a result of running a generator in an enclosed area.

The Commonwealth government is supporting the immediate and long-term recovery of communities across Far North Queensland, at the same time as helping Queensland recover from the worst floods in the state’s history. A $5.6 billion flood recovery package is being put together through the redirection of $2.8 billion in spending, deferral of infrastructure projects worth $1 billion and through a temporary levy that will apply to the 2011-12 financial year. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland last week announced Commonwealth government assistance for people affected by tropical Cyclone Yasi. Financial assistance will be provided under the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements, the Australian government disaster recovery payment and the disaster income recovery subsidy.

These two natural disasters did not discriminate and hit individuals and businesses hard. A number of my parliamentary colleagues from Queensland, including my good friend Bernie Ripoll, were also caught out by the forces of nature and had to evacuate and close their offices during the worst stages of the floods and the cyclone. Queensland, under the strong leadership of Premier Anna Bligh, is united in its response to these disasters and Australians are behind it with donations and contributions to the rebuilding effort. I am sure the parliament will unanimously support this motion of condolence as we continue to pull together as a country to offer our sympathy and support to those affected by these natural disasters.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does not seem so long ago that many of us who represent the state of Victoria rose in this place to try to articulate the unspeakable loss that Victorians experienced during the Black Saturday bushfires. And now, barely two years later, we find ourselves here again, reflecting on the devastation wrought by bushfire’s terrible twin—floods.

We are all relieved and grateful that the flooding we have experienced in Victoria over the past couple of weeks has not come close to causing the loss of life caused by the bushfires or reaching the horror witnessed during Black Saturday. However, for many Victorians these floods have destroyed homes, crops, businesses and livelihoods, and they are now left with the task of rebuilding. The Victorian floods claimed one young soul as their victim, seven-year-old Lachlan Collins, who was swept away by flood waters in Shepparton. I know that I speak for all Victorian senators when I convey my heartfelt condolences to Lachlan’s family.

It is quite astonishing to think that at one point almost one-third of Victoria was affected by the floods. From the vibrant regional centres of Horsham, Swan Hill and Shepparton to the picturesque towns of Carisbrook, Charlton, Echuca and Kerang, nearly 2,000 homes were flooded and a further 17,000 lost power. Hundreds of Victorians had to evacuate and spend the night or several nights in emergency relief centres and then return to their flooded homes and properties. I can only imagine how heartbreaking it must feel to return to the family home to find it inundated or destroyed, often unrecognisably so.

Some Victorians were dealt a double blow as not only was their home flooded but their crops were destroyed or their business inundated as well. Thousands of hectares of crops were wiped out by the floodwaters across Victoria and hundreds, and possibly thousands, of livestock were unable to escape the ‘inland sea’ and perished. And closer to Melbourne, the outer suburbs of Pakenham and Narre Warren were hit hard by flash flooding just last weekend, as were the inner suburbs of Elwood, South Yarra and Windsor.

Yet the common experience is that at times like these we see the best brought out of Australians. Stories of resilience, of strength, of compassion, of bravery and of selflessness have accompanied the images that we have seen of inundated towns and flooded cities. It is important to thank those who have worked tirelessly and those who have put their lives at risk to help others, particularly those who work or volunteer for the emergency services and those who serve in the defence forces and came to the aid of the flood affected communities. And I should also acknowledge the strong and compassionate leadership of Premier Ted Baillieu and the Deputy Premier and police and emergency services minister, Peter Ryan.

We are indeed very fortunate to live in a country where people band together in voluntary organisations like the SES to help others in their time of need. These dedicated SES volunteers have responded to hundreds, if not thousands, of emergency calls during the Victorian floods. They have helped many people whose homes and businesses have been affected by the floods to get back on their feet. Yet for many flood victims the hardest times are still ahead. The long road to recovery is yet to be fully trod. Getting the home dried out, reopening the business or trying to salvage what is left of the crops are tasks that are still being faced.

In comparison to the devastation wrought by the Black Saturday bushfires, the Victorian floods have left the regions they ravaged with fewer outwardly visible scars. Much of the water has now receded and to the naked eye many buildings are still relatively intact. Yet homes that look unscathed from the outside can still be a sodden, muddy mess on the inside. Businesses that look fine at first glance may have severe internal damage that could prevent them reopening for weeks or months and they might find themselves in the position where their customers, because of their own troubles, are not frequenting them. Yet I have no doubt that the resilient spirit of Victorians will see those affected bounce back quickly. Many of the affected communities are already on the rebound, with schools and businesses reopening as homes begin to dry out.

We must, as a community, band together to help each other recover and rebuild, even though the immediate threat in Victoria has passed. I am keenly aware that a speech like this can do little more than demonstrate that the national parliament, in which Victorians and other Australians are represented, is acutely conscious of the difficulty and hardship currently being faced. All we can do in contributions like this is acknowledge the magnitude of these events and commit ourselves to the recovery effort.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the condolence motion. I think it is time and indeed appropriate for all of us who can do so in this place to reflect on the devastation wreaked by nature across our country as we consider the largest natural disaster in Australia’s history. I think it is ironic, and I think perhaps this has been mentioned by earlier speakers, that Dorothea Mackellar, one of Australia’s most famous poets and, of course, a New South Welshwoman, penned her much-loved poem My Country 100 years ago this year. It was supposedly inspired by the disaster that she observed to her brother’s farm near Gunnedah, in north-western New South Wales.

Gunnedah was one of the first areas to be declared a natural disaster area due to flooding when the Namoi River peaked just below 7.9 metres in early December that year. Of course, we all know the very famous words ‘I love a sunburnt country’ and so on. Less well known are the fifth stanza and the ominous warning:

For flood and fire and famine,

She pays us back threefold.

Australia has certainly seen that in the past three months.

Today we remember the personal loss suffered by so many Australians. As a nation dealing with a series of natural disasters we should not forget that far too many Australians have experienced their very own personal disasters and individual tragedies over the past months that will stay with them the rest of their lives. I join with all my colleagues and indeed all Australians in offering my thoughts and prayers to those individuals. For most, their tragedy was caused by floods that spread across the country in recent months. For others, it was caused by fire or the fearsome Cyclone Yasi. All those Australians, as I said, will live with the memory for the rest of their lives.

The months of December, January and now February have seen destructive forces of nature that have caused a terrible loss of life and wreaked havoc across our land. Like many Australians, we—I and my colleagues in the Senate—were appalled to see torrents of water either on television or in person washing away Australians trapped on top of cars and then shocked by the aftermath as floodwaters receded, leaving the wreckage of cars and the remains of homes, or to see our fellow Australians left apprehensive by cyclonic winds that whipped iron sheeting across deserted streets. Only last Sunday our television screens were lit up by fires raging in Western Australia and the sight of blazing houses.

As we watched these disasters unfold, we could again be proud of our emergency services and our defence forces, who responded with their usual spirit of professionalism and selflessness. They have the gratitude and respect of every Australian—and I think it only right to pay them that respect—as do ordinary Australians who volunteered and lent a hand to others. The heroism of many is remarkable. I have to say the ultimate hero, if there is one, would have to be the 13-year-old Toowoomban boy Jordan Rice, who lost his life in ensuring the safety of his younger brother. But there were many other heroes—the stranger who caught in his arms the woman jumping off a car on to a bridge, the young policewoman who almost single-handedly coordinated flood relief efforts in Withcott in the Lockyer Valley or, in more recent days, the SES volunteer who was out helping others while his own home was destroyed by Cyclone Yasi. Those people raised our spirits in these desperate times.

After the flash floods in the Lockyer Valley and the rising and spreading waters of the Brisbane River that destroyed so many homes and businesses and brought our third largest city to a standstill, we thought it could not get any worse. It did, with floodwaters moving across Victoria on a front 50 kilometres wide and 95 kilometres long. Then early last week we held our breath as we waited for Cyclone Yasi, which wrecked coastal areas such as Tully and Mission Beach and offshore areas in the Whitsundays such as Dunk Island. It beggars belief that only last weekend we had news of both flash floods in the streets of Melbourne and bushfires in the Royal National Park south of Sydney and near Perth in Western Australia.

Our thoughts and prayers now remain with the families of victims and those affected by the flooding, cyclone or fires. Since December, 30 Australians have tragically died as a result of floods, and news reached us last Friday that a young man died as a result of Cyclone Yasi. I say 30 as we should not forget those who died in the Queensland floods before 10 January, when the raging waters wreaked their devastation on Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley. To the friends and family left behind, I extend my sincere condolences. We feel your heartbreak; we feel your loss. I am sure many of you have not just lost loved ones but seen your homes wrecked and your lives turned upside down. Your sadness is the nation’s sadness, but that you are victims of the largest natural disaster in the nation’s history will not explain away or lessen your grief. I suppose there is a small mercy—and it is a very small mercy—that the death toll was not higher, but any death so unexpected and so indiscriminate is a devastating loss.

To my mind, reaching out to communities in need and being accessible and available is part of being an elected representative in a functioning democracy, and I want to commend in particular Premiers Bligh and Baillieu for being on the ground so much of the time and lending support and at times a hand and a hug to those who needed it. They represented all of us wanting to extend a hand or a hug. Modern politics in the glare of a 24-hour media cycle can be stilted and contrived but we all sensed the genuineness in the demeanour of both premiers. The people needed leadership and they provided it.

As a senator for New South Wales I would like to make special mention of the impact of the floods on New South Wales, noting that flood warnings are still current in many New South Wales rivers—the Macintyre, Culgoa, Bokhara, Narran, Warrego, Paroo, Barwon-Darling and the Murray upstream of Bourke. While north and south of our borders raging or massive floodwaters drew most of the media attention, many New South Wales towns and surrounding areas were also affected if not devastated by floods. It may surprise many in the chamber to know that no fewer than 63 New South Wales local government areas were declared natural disaster zones. Reports had 6,000 New South Wales residents cut off by floodwaters. While most of the areas I have mentioned do not have large populations and their names may just be a pinprick on a map to some, they represent the heart and soul of New South Wales. Because of their size, they are places where resilience and strength have been sorely tested and the Australian spirit has most shone. Places like Moree, for example, should be acknowledged for welcoming those from surrounding areas into evacuation centres set up in that town.

So what do we do now in the aftermath? I would like to address very briefly two aspects in which I have a special interest and offer some suggestions which may go some way to alleviating the hardship caused to so many Australians in the future, if not after this disaster itself.

We can only now hope that the impact can be mitigated, for Australia cannot really afford this disaster, let alone a greater one in the future. To that end, I would like to address a specific issue—the need for clarity in insurance provisions in respect of flooding—and a broader, more challenging issue, that being the need to reframe our planning laws to ensure responsible future development in areas in this country prone to natural disaster.

Plain English contracts were the catchcry of the 1990s in the legal world. Standard forms were the norm and consistency was sought. Since 1984 insurance contracts have been dealt with differently to other contracts under the Insurance Contracts Act. But why is it, some 25 years later, that when so many affected Australians are looking at their insurance policies, they are finding that the wording suggests that they were covered for floods when in fact they were not? Perhaps we should be revisiting the need for separate treatment of such contracts. In the meantime, it seems that if you were a victim of a flood in Queensland you would have been better off to have been insured by Suncorp, which with one provision provides automatic cover for floods—that is, riverine and storm flash floods. Some other insurance companies apparently did not offer such extensive cover, mostly just for storm flash-flooding. So I am very pleased to see that the insurance industry has recognised that now is the time to have a standard definition of floods and that it is expected to unveil its industry plans in the coming weeks. It will not necessarily assist current victims but it will go some of the way towards providing future consumers with certainty and security. We need to understand that insurers need to run a business and that it is reasonable that they price the risk accordingly. It may mean that market forces will make the cost of insurance unaffordable for those who choose to rebuild in flood prone areas.

Reports suggest that around 90 per cent of houses in Australia do not need riverine flood cover, so it is reasonable if those 90 per cent of consumers decide not to pay the extra premium for a risk they will not likely experience. This disproportionate risk is one of the myriad of thorny issues that surround thinking about whether we should have a national disaster fund or national insurance. While I very much sympathise with the fact that victims may want to rebuild, where it is not in the national interest that they do so, there need to be alternative arrangements. Quite frankly, I believe there is good reason for discouraging Australians from rebuilding in flood prone areas. If higher insurance costs and lower property prices act as a disincentive then that may be well and good. As the CEO of Suncorp said last weekend, risk mitigation is as important as paying insurance premiums. I would, however, suggest that risk mitigation is the more important.

This leads me to a broader second issue that I would like to address very briefly—that is, whether, in flood prone areas, we should mandate that no new development be allowed or that any development be severely circumscribed when, in a country the size of Australia, there are other places which, to use planning terms, could be both economic and sustainable. As I said in a piece published last month in the Canberra Times, we need to look at how we plan property and other development, whether of homes or businesses, to avoid the worst of these disasters in future and, if we cannot avoid it, to certainly mitigate their impact. Let us plan how we develop our future; we cannot afford not to. Sometimes it takes a disaster or, in this case, a series of disasters to shake us out of our complacency and to rethink the attitude of ‘she’ll be right’ when things clearly are not right.

So is it not time to develop a national master plan to help guide future planning and development in this country to try and stop the increasing loss of life and damage that the natural forces around Australia unleash? If you look at the past decade, there have been many natural disasters and increasingly our cities are at risk. The reality is that each time there is devastation, the cost becomes worse. The cost of addressing natural disasters may not be what this country can afford, but it is a cost we will have to pay. The federal government is going to have to pay, for example, 75c of every dollar spent by the Queensland government. In doing this, isn’t the federal government, on behalf of taxpayers, entitled to say, ‘If you want us to bear the risk, you also need to share the responsibility to make sure that all new development is as safe as possible.’ Should taxpayers be asked to continually accept the risk as the cost of these events moves from the millions to the multiple billions?

As a nation we should do our best to insure against future costs. Like an insurer managing risk, we should demand that the risk is lessened and the future cost contained. Stopping development where buildings and lives are potentially at risk is an obvious risk avoidance strategy. The federal government could take the lead to help reframe our planning laws to ensure sustainable and safe development where development is less likely to be susceptible to being ravaged by fire or inundated by flood. In the national interest, we should look at ways to discourage home owners, prospective buyers and other people from taking up residence in flood or bushfire prone areas. Compensation may be required for some.

A national master plan could draw on state planning experiences, and we have had some royal commissions into previous disasters that would no doubt inform this discussion, as will the Queensland commission that has been announced by Premier Bligh. A national master plan would be a blueprint for Australia and an aid for state governments. It would be a planning tool, based on the best science available, as to what areas are suitable for what types of development and what should be left out of harm’s way. Already the information we need for a master plan for floods has been collated. Defence has sent out mapping experts who have flown over affected areas to record the extent of the floods.

Now is the opportunity to seriously rethink the way our planning laws operate to ensure sustainable safe development—development less likely to be subject to fires or floods. It is a matter that should be on the agenda for COAG. One suggestion might be that the former Commonwealth Natural Disaster Mitigation Program be refocused to include planning to achieve that very outcome—disaster mitigation.

These disasters, as horrible as they are, provide a once-in-a-generation opportunity to look seriously at a master plan for this country—droughts and flooding rains we can live with but not live in. In these grim times we should remember that we have faced adversity in the past and we can do so again. Our Australian spirit has been tested many times before and we have not only survived but united together to help Australians looking for a hand up, not a handout. Not just now but long after the waters, winds and fires have receded, it will be critical that our spirit does not slacken, that we and our nation lend a hand. We will be up to the test and will walk with the victims and their families every step of the way.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the condolence motion moved by the Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate. In commencing my remarks, I refer to an article on page 2 of the West Australian newspaper today, entitled ‘Devastation’, which outlines the current situation in my hometown of Perth. It reads:

One of WA’s most destructive fires in 50 years has razed more than 60 buildings and left dozens of people homeless.

Premier Colin Barnett has declared the area around the fires in Kelmscott and Roleystone a natural disaster.

Schools were closed, a bridge collapsed and power supplies were cut as about 200 firefighters tried to control the fire in difficult terrain.

               …            …            …

Late yesterday, officials said 64 buildings had been destroyed. Another 28 homes had been damaged.

There is no doubt that the damage caused by Cyclone Yasi, which hit the coast of northern Queensland less than two weeks ago, and the devastating floods that caused so much tragedy and damage to Queensland last month have centred Australia’s, indeed the world’s, attention on the untold suffering and damage inflicted by nature on the people of the state of Queensland.

Australians watched and waited as Cyclone Yasi built up its ferocious storm power, out in the Pacific Ocean, for about a week before sweeping across the edge of the Coral Sea and striking the North Queensland coast as a category 5 cyclone, with winds at its centre of up to 285 kilometres per hour. As it crossed the coast, Cyclone Yasi wreaked unbelievable havoc on the coastal towns of Port Hinchinbrook, Mission Beach, Tully and Cardwell before proceeding some 900 kilometres inland towards Mt Isa. Fortunately, by the time Cyclone Yasi reached Mt Isa it had dissipated to a severe rain-bearing depression, and the protective sand bagging which had been carried out in Mt Isa as a precaution was not required.

Whilst massive damage to buildings, crops and infrastructure has occurred as a result of Cyclone Yasi, fortunately, loss of life has been limited. In the January 2011 Queensland floods 22 people lost their lives. This takes the total number of those who have died in the floods in Queensland since 30 November 2010 to 35. Sadly, in the Lockyer Valley region a number of people are still missing and they are now feared dead. The January floods have caused massive property, crop and livestock damage, and it will be years before some of those who were in the path of the floodwaters and those who were directly affected are back on their feet.

In September last year, just six months ago, Victoria experienced severe flooding in many parts of the state. Some scientists have attributed these abnormally heavy rains to the strongest La Nina event since 1973. Last month, Victoria had its wettest January in recorded history and this rainfall has caused flooding across much of the western and central parts of the state. Only last weekend there was heavy rain in metropolitan Melbourne, and significant flash flooding as a consequence of that heavy rainfall. Houses and other buildings were inundated in parts of Victoria, and crops, pastures and livestock have been lost to the floods. Potentially, the damage caused by Cyclone Yasi and the floods in Queensland and Victoria will cost billions of dollars in repair work to private property and public infrastructure, and the loss in both production and productivity will impact on Australia’s gross domestic product.

With today’s instantaneous communications, the graphic horror of the effects of both Cyclone Yasi and the Queensland floods was beamed into the living rooms of Australians and transmitted around the world. Also beamed into our living rooms were images of ordinary Australians whose property was not directly devastated by the cyclone or the floods but who moved to help their fellow Australians in their time of need. Images of the efforts of these fantastic volunteers, who were often seen waste deep in water or covered in mud helping out those who had suffered so much as a consequence of the floods, really typified what Australian mateship is all about.

I am sure those living outside Australia who, watching the television pictures of the devastation caused by the floods, saw the volunteers lining up on the streets of Brisbane, with their wheelbarrows, shovels, brooms and rakes, offering to go wherever they were needed to help out their fellow Australians in their time of need, would have readily recognised the act of compassion and genuine support for our fellow Australians when they are in need that represents the spirit of mateship that makes us who we are as Australians.

Whilst much media focus has been centred on Queensland, for very good reason, I ask the Senate to reflect on the massive flood that caused extensive damage to the Gascoyne region of my home state of Western Australia on 19 December 2010, only a week before Christmas. The December flood was followed by a secondary flood on 6 January this year—just six weeks ago. In some cases those who managed to protect their property and crops from the December flood suffered severe losses as result of the January flood. Some who suffered inundation in December copped a second barrage of water on 6 January and must have wondered when their luck would change for the better.

The December flood was the worst flood that we have seen in the Gascoyne region in the past 50 years and it saw the town of Gascoyne Junction, located 170 kilometres east of Carnarvon, actually wiped out and the plantation owners and the pastoral stations located along the Gascoyne River lose millions of dollars worth of crops and livestock. The flooding was so severe that many of the buildings on the outlying pastoral stations suffered inundation, and miles of fencing and other pastoral infrastructure has been destroyed. On Bidgemia Station, located 11 kilometres east of the Gascoyne Junction and owned by Lachlan and Jane McTaggart, and which is 1.6 million acres in area, the floodwater engulfed the station home and both Lachlan and his wife, Jane, were forced to spend the night on the top of a water tank, with their son Hamish and his wife, Jodie, on top of the adjacent water tank. The following day, the McTaggart family were airlifted to safety. However, the plight of their more than 1,500 head of cattle was uppermost in their minds.

On Mullaloo Station, which is located near Gascoyne Junction, the floods ripped trees from the ground whilst fences, windmills and tanks which were part of this vast property were destroyed. The town of Carnarvon, which is located 900 kilometres north of Perth at the mouth of the Gascoyne River, suffered extensive damage which affected in the vicinity of 100 homes and more than 150 plantations, which mainly produced bananas, mangoes and melons. The Carnarvon floods also caused extensive damage to public infrastructure, with the North West Coastal Highway washed away in a number of locations and hundreds of kilometres of the highway’s shoulders and embankments being severely eroded. There is no doubt that it will cost tens of millions of dollars to repair the flood damage to this road system alone. The extent of the damage in the Gascoyne and Upper Murchison region was so widespread that seven areas in the region were declared natural disaster zones. These include Ashburton, Carnarvon, Exmouth, Murchison, Northampton, Shark Bay and the Upper Gascoyne.

As with any natural disaster, the impact is far greater than just the economic and physical loss of property. Whilst houses and their contents are destroyed and businesses are forced to close—and in some cases cannot reopen because of the enormity of the loss and damage—there is significant ongoing trauma suffered by many people from the devastated area which will last until well after the floods recede. Some of the ongoing trauma will be related to the financial pressures that now beset them and the additional pressure related to the fact that many people are unsure if their insurance policies will cover the losses caused by the flooding.

I should advise the Senate that, like the many people who offered their voluntary support to those who were affected by the Brisbane floods, many Western Australians volunteered to assist those affected by the Carnarvon floods. Unlike the greater Brisbane area, which has a population of just over two million people, Carnarvon has a population of approximately 8,000 people. Notwithstanding the differing size of the population, there were many people who lived in the town or who were just visiting the town, because it was Christmas time and people were on holidays, who volunteered to help their fellow Australians in their time of need. In the Brisbane city area the Lord Mayor, Campbell Newman, demonstrated great leadership by encouraging volunteers to assist flood victims and he is now leading the charge to rebuild the city.

In the case of the recent Carnarvon floods it is important to recognise the leadership that was provided by a core group of local people led by the President of the Shire of Carnarvon, Dudley Maslen. Dudley Maslen, who is a former Gascoyne pastoralist and a member of the Western Australian state parliament for the Gascoyne region and surrounding areas, has shown himself to be an outstanding community leader who continues to work tirelessly to ensure the needs of the residents of the town and the needs of the pastoralists and the plantation owners are heard by the relevant authorities. Under the leadership of Dudley Maslen, a number of other state agencies and private organisations worked together to assist the residents of the flood affected Gascoyne region. Mr Maslen ensured that the Carnarvon Civic Centre was designated the region’s evacuation centre, and at one stage at the peak of the flood we had nearly 200 people taking refuge in the centre. We had magnificent support from personnel from the State Emergency Service, the Shire of Carnarvon and other affected local authorities, the Fire and Emergency Services Authority, the WA police and Main Roads. But, most of all, the volunteers demonstrated by their efforts the characteristic of mateship that distinguishes Australians from others.

It was also pleasing to see the Premier of Western Australia, Hon. Colin Barnett, visit the region to gain a firsthand appreciation of the extent of the flood damage and to offer support and assess the needs of the people. Following his visit to the region, Premier Barnett requested that the Prime Minister activate a joint Commonwealth-state government assistance package to assist those affected by the floods. This request has been agreed to, so those affected by the flood damage will be able to access some funds to assist them at this difficult time. It is critical that we as a nation give generous support to assist our fellow Australians in their time of need. However, equally important is that the support we offer is properly considered support—that is, tailored to assist our fellow Australians, having regard to their particular circumstances. It is also important to recognise that a one-size-fits-all solution will not address the issues facing different sectors of our Australian community. For example, we must distinguish the support needed by farmers in Victoria to that needed by pastoralists in the north of Western Australia and by residents in Cardwell who have suffered cyclone damage as compared to residents who have suffered flood or fire damage. The cyclone and floods in Queensland, the floods in Victoria, the bushfires in Victoria which are of course still vividly imprinted on our minds, the floods in Carnarvon and the Gascoyne region of Western Australia and indeed the current bushfires in the Perth area demand that we commit ourselves to assisting those in need. We offer our heartfelt sympathy to the families of those who have died or been injured and to those who have suffered as a consequence of these disasters, remembering that there are many people who are relying on us not to forget them in their time of need. With those comments, I support the motion.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we gather here today, from all corners of Australia, we have all been moved by the torrent of disasters which have swept across the country this summer. With the floods, cyclones and fires, this has been a summer which will be long remembered. I join my senatorial colleagues in expressing my sympathy and extending my condolences to those who have suffered damage, injury or death in these natural disasters.

Like you, Madam Acting Deputy President Crossin, having lived in the Northern Territory, I, having lived in the Pilbara, went through many cyclones and can personally empathise with the cyclone and flood victims. Two cyclones in particular are etched in my memory, these being Cyclone Joan in 1975 and Cyclone Dean in 1980, both of which wrecked my house at the time. According to the US weather service, Cyclone Joan was probably the most severe cyclone to have ever struck the north-west coast of Australia and at that time was one of the biggest storms ever recorded. The wind battered Hedland for over 10 hours, roaring like a train in a tunne1, which I could hear for weeks afterwards any time I closed my eyes. I was a doctor in Port Hedland then, working at the Port Hedland Regional Hospital. I was sent to South Hedland because it was thought that flooding would cut access to the Port Hedland hospital and medical service was needed in South Hedland. This proved very lucky for me as after the cyclone I returned to find my house by the beach in ruins. The whole street resembled a war zone littered with wreckage.

So I understand from personal experience what those who were caught in the natural disasters we have experienced or are currently experiencing are feeling. In Western Australia we are all too aware that we live in a land of extremes, from the ravaging effects of the fires now occurring in the Perth Hills around Kelmscott in Don Randall’s electorate of Canning to the widespread destruction of cyclones and flooding in the Gascoyne region in Barry Haase’s electorate of Durack. As we try to rebuild homes and crops inundated by torrential rain and flooding in Carnarvon, we can relate firsthand to the devastation felt in communities affected by the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi.

Apart from damage to the town of Carnarvon and the plantations on the river, as Senator Cash pointed out, it is also important to recognise the impact on outlying pastoral properties in the Gascoyne and Murchison, which have experienced major damage to homesteads, water infrastructure and loss of stock. Visiting the region in January with Barry Haase and Julie Bishop, I found it heartening to see firsthand the steely resilience of the locals, led by shire president Dudley Maslen, when faced with the recurrent flooding of the Gascoyne River.

I also acknowledge the contribution made by Mark Lewis of WA’s Department of Agriculture and Food, who coordinated and managed the restoration of topsoil which had been washed away from the plantations on the Gascoyne River. I also pay tribute to the skilled emergency service workers and generous volunteers who selflessly put their hands up to help neighbours they had never met.

North-west communities held fundraising drives; delivered food, water and fuel supplies; and organised skilled tradesmen to help with the effort to rebuild the damage to Carnarvon and the area around it. I think this is a true insight into how Australians pull together in times of stress and adversity. The largest employer in Carnarvon, Rio Tinto, made a significant contribution to the relief effort, providing labour, equipment and access to flights and aircraft. That was assisted by other mining companies in the area. Again, I think this shows the true community spirit of Australians in dealing with disasters and other situations in which great hardship occurs.

Dorothea Mackellar once described the beauty and the terror of Australia in her famous poem. How true that description is and will continue to be. Just as Australians have shown great fortitude in the face of present and past natural disasters, so I am sure they will continue to do so in the future. I believe that it is a feature of our national character as Australians to accept the setbacks that nature periodically delivers and then stoically set about going forward to restore and rebuild. And of course, as Senator Williams said, it is always nice to have a little bit of assistance from the federal and state governments in the form of financial grants to assist that process.

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion of Senator Conroy and those who have spoken before me relating to natural disasters in Australia. It is somewhat ironic that this is in fact the second anniversary of those dreadful, horrific Black Saturday fires in Victoria in 2009. When one does reflect on recent events during this summer in Australia, the time line started with the Carnarvon floods. Then there were the Queensland floods and those in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, and the recent effects across to the Northern Territory. Then, as a parting gesture from Cyclone Yasi, there were the dreadful bushfires experienced in the hinterland of Perth, which in fact had their origins in a weather pattern that started with Cyclone Yasi. We reflect in this chamber on the resilience of Australians and on the cost that these disasters will be to our community but also, as others have said, on the fact that this is a pattern we see over the years and one from which we will definitely recover.

Then there were the Carnarvon floods. Twice during this summer the Gascoyne region—not just Carnarvon; the whole Gascoyne region—was affected by flood. The town of Gascoyne Junction was flooded. The hotel that had been flooded in the past to its ceiling was on this occasion flooded past the top of its roof and probably will not be rebuilt. That is a small community, but a very necessary community. The effect on pastoralists in the east Gascoyne region has been dramatic in terms of livestock lost, in fencing lost and in pasture lost. For those participating in horticultural enterprises, there have been severe effects.

We have heard mentioned by my colleagues the impact in Carnarvon. Of the 160 commercial plantations there, 140 were severely affected. For those who are not aware, Carnarvon is the food bowl of Western Australia. Its productivity per hectare is enviable even in contrast to that of the Ord. No doubt one day the Ord will meet that objective, but at the moment Carnarvon is a critically important place. The loss of 140 of those 160 plantations is dramatic. More than one-quarter of a million tonnes of topsoil has been lost. No sooner did the horticulturalists get on their feet than they were the subject of a second severe flood.

I want to now reflect on the Queensland floods. I visited Toowoomba a few times when I was a student at the University of Queensland. I could not comprehend how the city of Toowoomba could have been the subject of such flooding. We saw horrendous photos of vehicles and vans and trees being driven down by the force of the floods. Two or three days after those events we saw things returning to normal. We have heard from others closer than I am to the tragedy of what befell in Grantham and the Lockyer Valley, probably one of the richest horticultural and agricultural areas in the country. All of us have memories. The one that resides with me is of the young boy telling the rescuers to look after his young brother on his way to passing away. That was horrific. Then there is the pregnant mother who buried a child and her own parents. How she has survived is absolutely beyond me.

By coincidence, last Wednesday evening I was back in Brisbane for a hearing on Thursday. I was there on the periphery listening and watching as Cyclone Yasi was developing and heading towards the coast. I saw the excellence of the Queensland Premier in her efforts to stay on top of that particular emergency. Her calmness in speaking to the people of her state and to the people of the nation was commendable. She was definitely the person for the moment; there is no doubt about that.

At the same time, out of all this we have seen the excellence and the resourcefulness of people. I heard a lady being interviewed. When driving to her pharmacy she tried to work out what she could do to help. This was in the days leading up to school starting in Queensland. She realised that the kids were not going to have anything when they turned up for school. In the space of 48 hours, she and a group of others were able to get together packages that were given to the schools so that when the children arrived they would have the necessities to help them on day one. Then she thought that if the kids had this problem then so would the teachers. So they turned their attention to the teachers and prepared packages for them so that when they started school they would have something. That demonstrates the resourcefulness and goodwill of Australians.

On Thursday, I listened to the radio and watched the television. Nobody could sleep on Wednesday night. You tried to sleep, you woke up and you turned the TV on just to see where the jolly cyclone was and to see who was being affected. The media coverage was absolutely brilliant. Through them, I heard that the rugby league and rugby union groups in the Brisbane area had come together. It was sign-up weekend last weekend, and there were families saying, ‘We can’t bring our kids in; we can’t sign them up because we do not have the funds, clothing, equipment et cetera.’ I believe that even the St George club in Sydney took the Queensland town of St George and those towns around it and looked after them. That caused me in fact to make contact immediately with the South Fremantle Football Club, of which Senator Sterle and I are both very keen supporters, only to learn that South Fremantle had already raised funds for Carnarvon. That led to some further discussions with the WAFL and the AFL in Queensland. They assured me that they were doing exactly the same for Australian Rules Football. They were wondering why a Western Australian senator was so interested in ensuring that the young kids would be able to sign up. They said: ‘We have already made sure of things. There are no fees. No child should be turned away for lack of any facilities or equipment or money.’

There are two things that I would like to say in concluding. The first is that, as was the case with the Victorian fires and as is the case in all disasters, people must not stay away. As soon as the local community is ready and able to accept visitors and commerce, it is essential that people return. I was in Tasmania not long after the Port Arthur massacre. The businesses in Port Arthur were severely affected for the next three or four years because everybody who went to Tasmania felt the need to stay away from Port Arthur at a time when it was critically important for them to visit. I know that those small communities of Mission Beach, Cardwell and others rely heavily on tourism. I urge Australians to turn within Australia and spend our recreation and tourism dollars in those places as soon as those communities are able to receive us. I hope tomorrow to speak some more in this chamber about the disastrous fires in Perth.

I want to conclude with a comment that I have made before in this chamber when speaking about disasters in this country. It concerns a four-letter acronym, DEAD. The four letters stand for disaster, expenditure and enquiry, apathy and disaster. All too often in this country, over its history, we have seen disasters followed by enquiries and massive expenditure and, over time, apathy, whether it has been from individuals rebuilding with the same materials in fire-prone areas or people rebuilding in flood-prone areas. We have also seen apathy from local governments who fail to learn the lessons of the past. We have seen the same apathy on the part of state governments, with their failure to legislate, and, dare I say it, we have also seen apathy in federal government. If, after expenditure and enquiry there is apathy, it is absolutely critical that we do not end up with yet another disaster. So let us make sure that, after the summer of 2010-11, it is the resolve of this place that, after the expenditure and the enquiries, we do not have national apathy and we do not see a repeat of the effects that we have seen.

David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I adopt and support all of the words of support and sympathy from all senators on this motion about the devastation of this summer’s natural disasters, particularly the words of those senators from Queensland, who in the recess over the Christmas period, in December and January, have been through so much; a nightmare. I also support particularly the words of my colleagues from Western Australia Senator Eggleston, Senator Back and Senator Cash. I personally extend my sympathy and support to all of the flood victims, particularly those around Brisbane and in the South-East Queensland region. The nightly sights on my television have been absolutely horrendous and I do not know how those people have got through this as they have. I also want to acknowledge the people of northern New South Wales and Victoria. They have also been the victims of Australia’s weather. Lastly I acknowledge the more recent victims of Cyclone Yasi, in North Queensland.

I now turn to my home state of Western Australia to talk about the floods on the Gascoyne River at Carnarvon and in the Gascoyne region generally. In mid- to late December of 2010, heavy rainfall from a monsoonal low caused major flooding of the Gascoyne River. This river is approximately 100 to 200 metres wide at most points extending out almost 1,000 kilometres into the hinterland of Western Australia. The flooding was around the town of Carnarvon, 900 kilometres north of Perth. The flood was unprecedented in its level, being 7.79 metres. The previous highest flood occurred in 1960-61, measured at 7.62 metres. The flood caused severe damage to a considerable number of plantations, small businesses and residences in Carnarvon and caused devastating damage to the small town of Gascoyne Junction, 170 kilometres east of Carnarvon, and many pastoral stations along the Gascoyne River. Some 105 pastoral stations and 19 remote Indigenous communities were very severely affected, and inestimable stock losses were reported right across the region. This region is almost larger than the state of Victoria.

Other consequences included Carnarvon being completely isolated by road. The Gascoyne River bridge was closed, isolating the people on the north bank of the river. South River Road and the East Carnarvon road were flooded and the North West Coastal Highway was closed. So all of the towns virtually from Shark Bay through to Karratha were isolated. A natural disaster was declared, covering five shires, and a major emergency relief effort was activated by the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of Western Australia. Arising from this, many state and local government agencies became immediately involved in an extensive relief effort. Actions taken included approximately 150 people being relocated to temporary accommodation at a relocation centre established at the Carnarvon Civic Centre, in the centre of Carnarvon, as we have heard from Senator Cash. The Department for Child Protection managed the centre. Emergency Services officers travelled to Gascoyne Junction to verify the needs of community members there. Approximately 20 requested to be located to Carnarvon, and DCP assisted with that request. Approximately 20 others chose to remain.

The State Isolated Communities Freight Subsidy Emergency Management Plan was activated by FESA. The plan ensures that disaster victims are not subjected to increased freight costs arising from a disaster. Bear in mind that goods coming in from the East had to do almost 1,000 kilometres more to get into these communities. Flights were arranged to deliver essential food, water and other supplies to Carnarvon. Two helicopters in the region assisted with welfare and supply work. FESA’s volunteers and the Carnarvon Volunteer Fire and Rescue Service assisted in unloading and distributing food and water pallets. FESA contacted isolated communities and stations to determine their needs and distributed essential items to them accordingly. Resupply of essential items was maintained until road delivery services were established. This took some weeks. Managed egress for civilian traffic was continually assessed to ensure access to roads as soon as possible. Additional seats on flights in and out of Carnarvon were made available by Skywest. Skywest reconfigured its cargo flights to allow passengers to be transported back to Perth.

Further heavy rainfall in the Gascoyne catchment occurred in the first week of January, and a second flood, of 6.5 metres, occurred. Damage on this occasion was not extensive, but roads had to be closed and major delays occurred in repairing major infrastructure such as the roads. Since 1960, levee banks have been built around the town of Carnarvon, despite a normally dry Gascoyne River. I should say that, for many years in a row, the Gascoyne River is simply a dry river bed. But increased development and agricultural land use have occurred around the flood plain adjacent to the river. The Gascoyne region is located in the north-west of Western Australia, as I have said. The resident population is 9,865 people. It is concentrated in the key centres of Carnarvon, Exmouth, Denham and Gascoyne Junction. According to the Department of Local Government and Regional Development, gross regional product in the Gascoyne is about $638 million, representing a 0.4 per cent share of the state’s economy. Key industries are agriculture, fishing, mining and tourism. Carnarvon itself has a population of 6,200 persons and supports three main industries: mining, including the salt mine near Lake Macleod operated by Rio Tinto Dampier Salt, which is the town’s largest employer; agriculture, particularly horticulture as well as livestock on nearby pastoral stations; and fishing, particularly in the close-by prawn fishing grounds.

Carnarvon’s agricultural industry relies heavily on the Gascoyne River. The Carnarvon horticultural district is situated on the fertile delta of the Gascoyne River, which provides irrigation for much of the region. Most crops are typically grown on microdrip irrigation using water from below-ground aquifers in the river. The dry subtropical climate, fertile soils and irrigation techniques used mean that the region is able to produce a wide range of temperate, tropical and subtropical produce across all seasons. The majority of activity is carried out on 170 plantations covering an area of approximately 1,500 hectares. The industry supports significant seasonal employment, often for itinerant workers in harvesting periods. In 2009-10 the gross value of agriculture produced for Carnarvon was $75 million during the year. The most significant crops in volume are bananas, tomatoes, table grapes, capsicums and mangoes.

The pastoral industry is also an important contributor to economic activity in the broader Gascoyne region. There are 80 pastoral stations in the region occupying an average lease size of around 125,600 hectares. The majority of livestock disposals from the Gascoyne area are sheep, cattle and fat lambs. The total value of pastoral industry production in the Gascoyne region in 2007-08 was $22 million, and $6 million for wool. The floods have resulted in extensive losses to horticultural produce, livestock, farm equipment, soil, local infrastructure and private dwellings and businesses. Almost all 170 plantations have suffered severe flood damage.

The state’s Department of Agriculture and Food does not currently have an official estimate of the impact of the floods on agricultural production; however, one estimate from growers suggests that horticultural production is damaged to the extent of about $60 million. Estimates provided by Main Roads Western Australia say the cost of repairing the 220 kilometre stretch of the North West Coastal Highway is approximately $15 million, with the cost of repairing other roads in the region being a further $15 million. Other losses and repairs have not yet been quantified, but they are extensive.

A national framework known as the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements specifies the level and types of assistance provided by state and federal governments to victims of natural disasters. Flood victims at Carnarvon are receiving the same assistance under this arrangement as flood victims in Queensland and Victoria, and, at the time of preparing this information, more than flood victims in New South Wales, where no moves have been made to access these funds. Assistance under the Australian Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements provides up to $5,000 for electrical inspections and repairs, up to $10,000 to replace white goods, floor coverings and other household and businesses effects and up to $25,000 for primary producers and small businesses for clean-up and recovery costs. The cost of making these payments is equally shared by the Western Australian and Commonwealth governments. In addition, the WA government has implemented and funded a program to provide plantation owners with topsoil to enable them to resume production as soon as possible, and I want to thank Mr Mark Lewis of the state’s Department of Agriculture and Food for assisting in the provision of that scheme. The Commonwealth has made immediate payments to affected citizens of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child.

Donations to the Perth lord mayor’s relief fund for the Gascoyne River flood have now reached $1.3 million, in addition to $100,000 contributed by the government of Western Australia. Major donations have included $100,000 from Rio Tinto Dampier Salt, $50,000 from Santos, $50,000 from IGA, $20,000 from the City of Perth, $10,000 from Apache Energy and $10,000 from the Commonwealth Bank. These funds will be distributed to Carnarvon and Gascoyne victims based on local advice and decisions.

WA government agencies and the local shires, I am told, will continue to work closely together to assist flood victims, but the relief available will not come close to covering the losses of those most severely affected, be they in Western Australia or in Queensland.

Most of the business owners who were most seriously affected have commenced the slow and expensive process of returning their operations to production and viability. Most do not have flood insurance as this is unavailable to almost anyone whose business or house is located outside the levee banks in Carnarvon, so many will suffer enormous financial loss arising from the loss of their crops, loss or damage to equipment and plant and delays in restoring their businesses to production. For some, including several plantation owners and the owners of the Gascoyne Junction hotel and store, their businesses are beyond physical and economic restoration.

I will now turn to what has recently happened in the last few days as a result of more than 85-kilometre per hour winds sweeping down from the Darling Range through the outer eastern suburbs of Perth. A total of 68 houses were lost at Kelmscott and Roleystone, in the City of Armadale, with 32 seriously damaged in an out-of-control bushfire. It is still extremely dangerous for many people to return to those houses. This is a very serious disaster for people living in those suburbs in Perth. It was declared a state natural disaster. Eight hundred hectares were damaged in this particular fire, 12 people were hospitalised with smoke inhalation and one firefighter is in hospital after being hit by a fire truck; but, thankfully, nobody has died, to the best of my most recent advice.

We will be able to claim Western Australian Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements and immediate access to funding for families through the Department for Child Protection, giving up to $3,000 to those who have lost their homes and $1,000 for damage. A total of 1,600 people who were subjected to this fire are without power. The state of Victoria provided two type 1 helicopters with 21 Country Fire Authority officers to assist in the management of that particular fire, and I am very thankful to them. The Lord Mayor’s Distress Relief Fund has been set up to take donations for those who have been affected by the fire and, as you can imagine, with 68 houses completely destroyed a lot of people are finding it difficult to find somewhere to stay.

Let me come back to that fire: it is approximately 40 kilometres south of the Red Hill, Brigadoon, Baskerville, Millendon, and Herne Hill fire, which is to the north-east of Perth, requiring 100 people to be evacuated. Two sheds, a water tank and fencing were destroyed over an area of approximately 1,170 hectares. That fire was apparently started by a tree branch falling on electrical infrastructure in the very windy conditions that we all confronted over the past few days. That fire required 100 firefighters to deal with it.

There has been some outstanding work done by our firefighters. I know the Albany firefighters travelled up from Albany to fight the fire at very short notice. Other firefighters from right around Western Australia have been called on to deal with these completely out-of-control and very serious bushfires. I compliment the police. They have had the unhappy task of evacuating people, leaving animals, leaving vehicles, leaving houses to be destroyed by what is, as I have said, a very serious fire. I want to compliment the FESA officials for the way they have dealt with this tragedy. They have had some very unsavoury tasks to perform. The councils involved, local authorities, have done a remarkable job.

I want to also mention Don Randall. It is in his electorate that we have lost the 68 houses. He is obviously not in parliament today; he is assisting with other people, including the local state member, Tony Simpson, helping people to access what funds they can, seeking to provide them with assistance and helping them in any way he can. I lastly want to say that the Victorian Country Fire Authority provided those two helicopters. I thank them most sincerely.

This has been a very serious tragedy for Perth in terms of these out-of-control fires. I am very thankful that nobody has lost their life. There is enormous upset and tragedy for these people who have lost their possessions, in many respects all they ever owned, because they were given very limited knowledge and warning about this fire as it swept down the escarpment on the Darling Range. I am amazed that we have not lost any lives.

I support this motion. It has been a most difficult two months right around Australia with these weather events.

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to speak tonight in support of the motion moved by Senator Conroy and to endorse the comments of my colleagues in this place. Two years ago in my first month in this place the parliament and nation came together to commemorate the tragedy of the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria—unimaginable weather, a 46 degree day on the outskirts of Melbourne and an initial northerly wind that dramatically changed direction and drove the fires that consumed whole towns. As the nation came together in sympathy and sorrow, it assisted, even if only in a small way, the communities devastated by firestorm that words cannot do justice to.

Today we commemorate other tragedies brought about by our environment, forces that no person or community could predict or plan for. Floods, fires and cyclones are a recurring if tragic feature of our history in this country. This summer every state has been hit by one or another of them. When the floods began in Queensland they did not always reach our television screens. To many the first footage was the extraordinary torrent that ran through Toowoomba, with descriptions of an inland tsunami in the Lockyer Valley that sounded more like a scene from a horror movie than a description of this beautiful part of the world. Just as those of us who have not experienced a bushfire or cyclone cannot imagine it, I cannot even conceive of a wall of water like that 100 kilometres from the ocean.

Then our nation’s attention turned towards Brisbane. The people of our third-largest city under threat from flood had to sit and wait as the water rose through their homes, communities, suburbs and businesses. But they did not simply wait. They worked with each other to save as much as they could, to ensure their neighbours were safe and to ensure that while property might be lost or damaged precious lives were not. I did not experience the Brisbane floods of 1974 but my mother can recall them, as my parents lost many of their belongings as the waters came up through St Lucia up to the very top steps of my grandparents’ Queenslander. For some reason it seems too easy for us to forget such disasters and not to learn the lessons of the past. If we pledge ourselves to one public policy outcome from this summer, it should be to have long memories about these events. The Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Campbell Newman, deserves particular recognition for his ongoing warnings about this possibility. We have learnt from tragic cyclones in Northern Australia over the last few decades. We need to do more to learn from fire and flood.

The generosity of spirit of thousands of volunteers in Brisbane is shown by the footage of them marching in file to buses and working as if they had been trained and drilled for this day. They displayed one of the traits that we constantly see in our communities: people reaching out to help one another when they see their neighbours in need. There are some things that only governments can do but there are also some things that communities do better. Governments should encourage and nurture volunteerism, not seek to supplant, regulate or override it. But all of this falls into insignificance when we consider the human cost. Homes and businesses can be rebuilt, loved ones cannot. The stories of bravery from these disasters will stick with us but this provides little solace for those mourning their family and friends. Like many others, the story of the young boy sacrificing himself for his brother in Queensland will stay with me forever. In Queensland in particular the efforts of members of our defence forces and emergency services need special note. Put simply, there are people alive today due to the efforts of rescue workers and our defence personnel.

While this was happening in Queensland, I would now like to turn to my home state of Victoria, which is also suffering from flooding. Western and northern Victoria were hit by floods more severe than anyone could recall. In more recent days my home city of Melbourne and the surrounding areas have been hit again. The efforts of the communities affected were again extraordinary. Volunteers who had suffered themselves still found time to support others, to rescue people and to assist with the clean-up. I had the privilege of visiting Skipton, Wickliffe and Beaufort with the member for Wannon and a team of Victorian members including the members for Flinders, Dunkley and Aston. As well as assisting with some clean-up tasks, we were privileged to hear their stories. Sadly, some of these people had been hit by flood only months earlier, in September last year. Many had managed to repair and reopen their stores only to be hit again. Thankfully, they were spared from the downpours that hit Victoria this past weekend. But like so many small business people and farmers, they were a determined group. Even then they were worried about how they would rebuild their businesses and operations and in some cases their homes. In one of the most tragic ironies of this past month, the farming community was hoping for a bumper crop to assist recovery from the record drought of recent years. That hope was washed away along with livestock, feed and fences.

Thankfully, the loss of life was avoided due to the extraordinary efforts of Victoria Police, the CFA and in particular the State Emergency Service. I would like to specifically also note the role of two local governments I met which were directly involved in these events—two of many, I should add. Councillor Matt Makin, Mayor of the Corangamite Shire, and Councillor Michael O’Connor, Mayor of the Pyrenees Shire, led their employees and councillors in an extraordinary effort that ensured people were safe, as well as assisting in the immediate aftermath and directing the first stages of the recovery. I should also note the efforts shown by the new Victorian government led by Premier Ted Baillieu and Deputy Premier Peter Ryan, who ensured that every service needed to protect life in the lead-up and immediate aftermath was made available to affected communities.

As I mentioned, yesterday we commemorated the second anniversary of Black Saturday and I think there is a lesson for us in that. In recent months, how many of us have thought of the reconstruction effort in those bushfire communities? In my travels through these communities last year, usually joining the former member for McEwen, the honourable Fran Bailey, in her passionate crusade on behalf of her constituents, the constant refrain I heard was, ‘Why have we been forgotten?’

The modern media and political cycles move so quickly that it is sometimes too easy for us to forget that rebuilding takes a great deal of time. In some of these communities, more than a year after the fires, there was still not a rebuilt permanent petrol station. There is a lesson for us from this in recovering from the floods. Rebuilding takes time and it is difficult work. It does not happen easily or without the concerted effort of many. Communities are more than buildings; they are the product of people. But even the buildings take time, often more time than we expect. It is too easy for us to assume that it is underway and that it has happened, whereas what it needs is our constant attention to ensure things are actually happening on the ground, responding to community needs and aspirations.

There are just under a hundred communities that have been directly affected by these natural disasters—floods, cyclones and fires. The rebuilding task across these diverse communities will be extraordinarily complex. Two years ago I said:

We should make the commitment now to not let this issue slip from our sight, to not turn our minds from this as time passes and to never forget what these communities have gone through as we stick with them through the difficult months and years to come.

I do not know if I have lived up to that hope myself over the last two years, but I believe it is something to which we should all recommit ourselves today.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this condolence motion and to express my sympathies to those families who have lost loved ones in the recent natural disasters that have afflicted many Australians across the nation. Many of my colleagues have paid tribute to the efforts of so many to help with the recovery across Australia and with ongoing problems such as those of river communities in my own state of New South Wales. I would like to associate myself with those remarks.

In my contribution this evening, I would like to focus on the mental health aspects of these disasters. Whilst for many the immediate anguish has been very hard, the presence of so many volunteers and helpers has made the task less confronting. However, when everyone is gone and the cold reality of the long haul back is faced, that is when, for many, it will be much harder. I pay tribute to those working on the ground and around the clock providing psychological and emotional support to families and individuals after the devastation, including to the State Emergency Service, Lifeline, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army and the St Vincent de Paul Society. For example, Lifeline counsellors are working with individuals and families affected by the floods in order to help them establish their own personal recovery plans. These plans will guide people in how to recover. The dedication and passion of so many to help is inspiring. Professor Patrick McGorry has been asked by Queensland Health to visit flood affected areas to assist mental health teams dealing with the traumatised victims of these floods.

I would like to thank and recognise the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who, in the true tradition of the great Australian military, have also been working around the clock to render assistance and support after the various disasters. This follows a long tradition of assistance rendered by the military after similar disasters. My husband, who served in the Royal Australian Navy, well remembers Boxing Day 1974 when, as a serving naval officer on HMAS Melbourne, he and the rest of the crew were recalled from Christmas leave to sail for Darwin after Cyclone Tracy. The Melbourne departed on Boxing Day, crash-sailing from Sydney, carrying vital supplies to assist in what became known as Operation Navy Help Darwin. John recalls arriving on New Year’s Day to utter devastation. HMAS Melbourne was the first aid to arrive in Darwin after Cyclone Tracy and, in the weeks that followed, her crew worked hard at the recovery effort. Indeed this is one of the proud traditions of our military.

Much has been said of the stoicism and resilience of those communities hit by disasters, but even those of greatest fortitude face difficulties in coping. It is vital that services be available to help people to share their feelings and to help them recover. Some may be ready to do so now; some may take some time. It is important that someone be there for them when they are ready to open up and talk about their experiences. Returning to normality is vitally important. To do so involves accepting the support of people who care, taking the time to be with close family and friends and expressing your needs clearly and honestly to family, friends and those in helping professions. But, for many of those in disaster affected communities who do not have families, it may be even harder, because they do not have children and loved ones around them to talk to and share their emotions with. It is maybe much harder to look after yourself in such circumstances. This is especially so for the many more Australians living on their own these days and most particularly for older Australians living on their own. The effect on their self-esteem and confidence will be even more devastating.

From the coalition’s perspective, we are keen to ensure that mental health services remain available in disaster areas, not only to deal with the here and now but most especially to deal with the afterwards, when the immediate focus of media and public attention begins to fade. As people go through the remainder of their lives, they may come across an old photograph or a small memento, and the emotion will overwhelm them. These will be the hardest of times. As I have said to my colleagues, the mental health issue will be one of the issues that will long remain after the physical clean-up is over. As Senator Ryan just reminded us in relation to the fires in Victoria, when everybody and all the help has long gone, it will be very much that emotional resilience and the emotional remnants of the disaster that will still be with people.

I note the announcement by Minister Butler, the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, of extra funding for flood affected Australians under the Access to Allied Psychological Services initiative. This is encouraging, given that this government has been taking money out of mental health. Indeed at the last budget, with no warning, Minister Roxon, the Minister for Health and Ageing, announced that social workers and occupational therapists would no longer be able to provide Medicare funded services under the Better Access initiative. There was no consultation with the sector, just an arbitrary decision.

As I have travelled around Australia since becoming shadow minister for mental health it has become very clear in many regional and rural areas that the only access people get to mental health support is from social workers and occupational therapists. Thanks to pressure from social workers and occupational therapists and from the coalition at estimates, in November 2010 we saw yet another classic Minister Roxon backdown. After finally consulting with the sector, the initiative was reinstated. Given the current situation, I am sure that many will need to avail themselves of these services, especially those in the regional and rural areas affected by the disasters.

Disasters like floods, drought and cyclones are part of the history of our great country. Sadly, some of these have been fatal. Many of my colleagues have reminded us of past disasters in our great country. While today is not the time to focus on inappropriate remarks, the recent efforts of the Greens cannot but be condemned. Sadly, though, they are true to form. Senator Brown did not think it was too soon to blame global warming for the deadly Black Saturday fires in Victoria in 2009, when, while the fires were still burning, there he was on Sky News pontificating that:

Global warming is predicted to make this sort of event happen 25 per cent, 50 per cent more.

True to form, Senator Brown did not think it was too soon, with bodies yet to be recovered and funeral services yet to take place, to blame coal miners for the Queensland floods. He stated:

It’s the single biggest cause—burning coal—for climate change and it must take its major share of responsibility for the weather events we are seeing unfolding now.

And, most recently, the ABC reported Senator Milne’s bold assertion that Tropical Cyclone Yasi was caused by climate change when she stated:

This is a tragedy, but it is a tragedy of climate change.

As I indicated, I do not wish to dwell on these remarks today. Suffice to say that, in the middle of such tragic circumstances, this sort of political opportunism is totally inappropriate.

In conclusion, we must hope and pray that those affected by these terrible events receive whatever assistance they need, wherever they find themselves living —in their own home, if it is still standing—in the months and years ahead. I support the motion moved by Senator Conroy.

Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the Commonwealth parliament rose last year, little did we know that Mother Nature would be at her most devastating over the Christmas recess. Floods, cyclones and bushfires have ravaged much of Australia, from the northernmost parts of our country to the southern pastures of Victoria and now across to our fellow countrymen in Western Australia. Australia has a long history of violent weather and the scale of the recent devastation has tested the resilience and power of endurance of the Australian spirit yet again.

We mourn the terrible loss of life. To the families of the 35 mothers, fathers, children or parents who lost their lives in the internal tsunami-like floods in Queensland: we grieve with you. I was in Townsville glued to the television watching the avalanche of water consume parts of Toowoomba and, like many who were not directly affected, seeking updates on the safety and wellbeing of my fellow Australians. It was gut-wrenching watching helplessly as people’s lives were literally washed away.

More recently in Victoria, a family in Shepparton lost their young son in floodwaters and our thoughts are with them. The heartbreak they must feel with their young son’s life being taken in the first flush of his youth cannot be imagined. To the family of the man who exemplified the Australian spirit and was helping out during Cyclone Yasi, falling from the roof during the pelting rain and winds: our heartfelt condolences. And for all those who are currently dealing with the ferocity of fires in the west: our best wishes are with you all. No less than 21 Victorian firefighters and two helicopters are now deployed in Western Australia trying to stem the ruthless tide of the fire on the ground.

The nation is behind all of those who are reeling from the loss of loved ones. We must make sure that we do everything we can through the hard days ahead to assist all those who have been affected. There are no words to ease the pain—if only there were. People should not have to stand alone when dealing with personal trauma, and Australians around the country are reaching out to provide what emotional and practical support they can. Houses can be rebuilt, roads and bridges can be reconstructed and water and energy supplies can be reconnected. Even whole communities, after considerable effort, can be put back in place, but we know that the most important thing in our lives, our loved ones, can never be replaced.

I am heartened but not surprised to witness the unprompted generosity and selfless help Australians have offered their friends, neighbours and even strangers in times of need. It is the Australian way—in times of adversity we stick together and do what we can to help. No questions asked: we just get on with the job. It is that thing which has been defined as mateship, which other nations admire but which we just know as being Australian. We have seen armies of volunteers cleaning the streets of Brisbane and other flood-ravaged places. Neighbours took flood mitigation into their own hands. I am reminded of the action of a local businessman in Warracknabeal, in Victoria, Mr Richard Wilkins, where the Yarriambiack Creek was threatening to breach its banks and flood the town. Mr Wilkins took charge and, with the support of the townsfolk, built a six-kilometre levee along the creek, which unquestionably saved the town. There are many such accounts and to these local Australians: I salute you.

This is the second flash flooding this year to affect parts of Victoria. To those who are doing it tough in Clunes and Creswick: our prayers are also with you. Many people in those two beautiful, historic towns have already waded knee deep in mud trying to restore their homes to right and they now face this soul-destroying task yet again.

Australians have opened their wallets along with their hearts. I understand that the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal in Queensland has raised close to $200 million, highlighting the willingness of Australians to pitch in to support each other in times of need. This is something our nation indeed can be, and truly should be, proud of. Australians are always there to help out in times of crisis.

The coalition is fully committed to supporting those who have suffered hardship and loss. The question is not ‘if’ but how best to provide resources to rebuild this nation. Given that this government has a poor track record when it comes to fast spending that is targeted and has real value for the community, we must continue to hold it to account, especially now when we need a fast and well-targeted response to help flood victims all over the nation to rebuild their homes, farms, businesses and communities. Assistance needs to be fast, competent and effective. People do not need red tape and other unnecessary obstacles of inefficient systems and processes. A key part of reconstruction must be to do everything we can to get small business back on its feet in flood- and cyclone-affected areas.

This is one of the many lessons we have learned from Black Saturday, the consuming fire which wreaked a living hell on the people of Victoria two years ago and took the lives of 173 men, women and children. More than a hundred communities were devastated and over 2,000 properties destroyed. Today, two years after the inferno, life is still not back to normal for so many people. Although the clean-up has progressed and there are many signs of returning life, with the natural regeneration of local vegetation, the area is still deeply scarred from the tragedy. In many ways it is still ground zero for those who were directly affected.

I recently drove through Kinglake and Marysville and was disturbed to see how many people still live in sheltered accommodation. I was appalled to see how many construction sites were still unattended too—they were vacant; permits had not been granted—leaving big gaps of nothingness in townships which used to be filled with radiant liveliness. It was sad to witness the destruction which was still there and which might have changed the face of those communities forever.

When you talk to the Black Saturday survivors, you can only be impressed by their resilience and vigour, yet there is still much lingering sadness. It is scandalous when you hear accounts of the stultifying effect of red tape and how it is making it so difficult for people to resume life as they once knew it. There was a lot of goodwill shown to the former Brumby government to provide help; however, there was not always the proficiency to do it. Red tape, excessive bureaucracy and conflicting guidelines have delayed the rebuilding of lives and communities. A lack of grants and loans, particularly business loans, has also held up the recovery.

There is a lot that we can learn from the Victorian example—especially now, when this government is installing the Queensland recovery authority, which, according to the Prime Minister’s own words, will draw on the experiences of the Victorian authority set up in the wake of the 2009 bushfires. I hope that the authority learns from the mistakes made, given that the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority still has more than $100 million of donations unspent some two years after the tragedy. It is worth noting that the Prime Minister has turned to the former New South Wales coalition Premier and federal minister John Fahey to head up the reconstruction authority to ensure that proper processes are put in place. Difficult times are a true test of leadership—something we observed in the way in which the Queensland Premier acquitted herself through the challenges that faced Queensland and in the preparation for the onslaught of Cyclone Yasi. The real test, however, is before her in guiding that state’s recovery through the next couple of years.

I hope that Ms Bligh and the Prime Minister have read the report of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission, published six months ago. It concluded that the emergency coordination during Black Saturday was inadequate. There was a failure to oversee fire warnings, to create state-wide fire plans and a ‘disturbing tendency among senior fire agency personnel—including the chief officers—to consistently allocate responsibility further down the chain of command’. Consequently, one of the report’s key recommendations was to end this system of failure and to install a proper and effective chain of command.

I compliment the Queensland government on their recently introduced changes to the Disaster Management Act 2003 which altered the rules on when to declare a disaster. These amendments made it possible for state-assisted resources to be deployed to an area before a natural disaster actually struck. In Queensland’s final response to the Black Saturday royal commission, emergency services minister Neil Roberts wrote:

Our legislation also already clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of the Minister, local authorities, State Government Agencies and volunteers during disaster events.

It was a promising and encouraging statement; however, there is always room for improvement. Facing Cyclone Yasi, the residents of Tully were advised to seek shelter in a timber hall, which was later flattened by the cyclone, instead of seeking refuge in a brand new, $6.3 million, cyclone-safe sports facility nearby. Thanks to the quick thinking of a local Red Cross volunteer—yet another unsung Australian hero—people were moved to another, safer, building.

In the wake of all these disasters one thing becomes apparent: even the smallest community in Australia must prepare for the worst case and develop an emergency plan that goes hand-in-hand with a functioning chain of command that ultimately assumes all authority. This sounds easy, yet it is not always the case, as the 2009 Victorian bushfires so sadly demonstrated. I am mindful of the many lessons that can be learnt from Black Saturday and should be considered for other recovery efforts. We must discuss measures to reduce the ongoing risk—new dams, better building standards, state insurance cover for infrastructure and building permits, to mention just a few—but most of all we must listen to the affected people on the ground because they know best what it is that they need. We must offer them a one-stop shop with flexible solutions, a minimum of red tape and high standards for value-for-money criteria. With a functioning and powerful chain of command in place this is all possible.

In conclusion, I thank the emergency response teams, the Defence men and women, the police and fire brigade officers, the local authorities and, most of all, the volunteers, who have no collective voice but who are certainly mighty in numbers. Your support to all those in need has been inspirational and I am sure has provided much comfort to the thousands who have been affected.

Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to contribute to the motion on natural disasters moved by Senator Conroy earlier today. I concur with the comments made by my colleagues regarding the various events which have caused enormous sadness and loss in most states in Australia during the past two months. My thoughts are with those who have lost loved ones during these events.

As a Western Australian senator, I would like to record the hardship felt by residents living in the Gascoyne region. They had to deal with two floods in three weeks, and, as my Western Australian colleagues have described very graphically, these floods have devastated many pastoral leases and horticultural businesses within the region. I must congratulate Dudley Maslen, the Carnarvon Shire President, and all the fire and emergency people, the CWA and everyone involved in getting people back on their feet, and recognise the fact that Gascoyne Junction was evacuated with no loss of life. That was very, very important. I wish those people all the best in their recovery and hope that we in this place can help to get them back on their feet.

I live in the hills in Perth. Last Friday evening I was very fortunate that the winds, gusting up to 90 kilometres an hour, were not blowing from the west. They were blowing from the east, which probably saved me. My neighbour rang me at 9.30 and said a fire had broken out. It was five kilometres to the west of me. Everything was broadcast on the ABC, who I would like to congratulate. Messages at first were quite mixed and quite confusing but the ABC was very clever in getting Sarah Knight, who had been a rural reporter, on the evening show. She carried the messages every 30 minutes throughout the night to tell people in a very sensible and practical way where things were going.

Unfortunately, as this fire went across Toodyay Road and down the escarpment, it was threatening Red Hill, Herne Hill, Brigadoon and Baskerville in the Swan Valley. This particular area has a large number of two-acre and five-acre hobby farms—a terrific lot of horses there—and people really and truly were trying to get their animals out. With Sarah on the radio guiding the procedures, and the fire and emergency services personnel coming on every half an hour to tell people what to do, it all went very well. As I said, I was very lucky the wind was not blowing back towards me. There were 150 emergency workers working throughout the night and the next day. The Child Protection Agency also had set up a safe haven down in the Swan Valley, which people were able to relocate to. However, they only had one way out and that was to go west; they could not go east. To those people and the volunteers involved in that fire, I do thank them very much for the work that they did.

To complicate things, at 12.30 on Sunday—the day I was flying back to Canberra—the Roleystone-Kelmscott fire broke out. All of the infrastructure—the helicopters and the water bombers—was up to the north and this area at Roleystone and Kelmscott is about 25 kilometres south. Unfortunately a lot of this area has gullies, but beautiful homes, and there is one road in and out. People were given 20 minutes to get out with whatever they had. How no-one lost their life there is absolutely amazing. It shows once again the organisation of our fire and emergency services, the police and all the volunteers who were gathered there. Just looking at the West Australian this morning, you can see the shock and the horror on the faces of those people—64 houses destroyed, 28 buildings really damaged. Having been a farmer I have myself been involved in fires and floods, but I have been lucky—I have not lost my home. My heart goes out to these people in the situation that they are in. I hope that once again we can help them. The City of Armadale has the same problem as the City of Swan. Local governments are set up to cope with these things but not quite when they have impacted on us in this way.

In conclusion, I would like to thank very much the emergency services and anyone who has been involved. I wish all those people well.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to associate myself with the comments of my colleagues on both sides of the chamber on this motion on natural disasters. My Victorian colleagues referred to the Victorian fires two years ago where 173 of our fellow Victorians died. The events of the last three months are well known to all honourable senators.

It is worth remembering that as we talk there are many people in Queensland, Western Australia and Victoria who are still at risk from flood waters. The Victorian flood waters have not gone. The Victoria flood waters are still very much there. I would like to pay tribute to Premier Baillieu and the Deputy Premier of Victoria. They moved quickly and showed a level of expertise and maturity that you may not necessarily see in a very newly elected government. The moved with great speed and Victorians thank them for that. A number of my colleagues—Dan Tehan, John Forrest, Sophie Mirabella and Sharman Stone—worked very closely with their communities. One of my colleagues referred to the towns of Creswick and Clunes, just out of my home town of Ballarat. Certain parts of Creswick have been inundated on three occasions now and of course they are finding it extraordinarily difficult. A lot of the local government areas have responded very quickly. I understand from colleagues that Mayor Matt Makin and his council have worked very, very hard.

We have seen Queensland ravaged by both the floods and the cyclone over two to three weeks, but we have also seen communities supporting communities. We have seen the state government and the state opposition supporting communities. We have seen many of our colleagues on both sides of the political fence supporting their communities. I had the opportunity this morning at our Tuesday party room meeting to speak to the new member for Wright, Scott Buchholz. I spoke to him about what his community has been through and the support the newly elected member was providing to his community. It reminded me that while it is easy for those sitting above this place to attack members and senators about the way we interact with our communities, there are no people closer to their own communities than elected members and senators. We have seen comprehensive evidence of that in Victoria, Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland over the last month.

I will close on this note: I will not dignify the comments of Senator Brown in this debate, but I can assure Senator Brown that I will have a lot more to say about his comments in due course.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution on this motion and to associate myself with the comments of others who have expressed their sincere condolences to those affected by these most extraordinary weather events that have impacted across the county. I note the stark contrast between the fires in Western Australia and the floods in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania—though it was much more of a fleeting event at home than it has been for some, particularly those living along the Murray. To see the images of these events and the impacts on people, one cannot but reflect on the very tragic circumstances that so many people now find themselves in.

The enormity of the weather system that was Cyclone Yasi wrought complete devastation on Far North Queensland. But the positive outcomes for those who had prepared and were able to protect themselves and their properties compared with the utter devastation for some people who were unable to prepare for the impact of the floods is quite dramatic. To see the pictures of that and to hear the stories that have filtered out about the impact on communities, businesses and individuals certainly makes one reflect. I want to add my voice to those who have contributed to this debate in support of the motion.

I want to comment on the extraordinary support from those who came to assist with the clean-up, particularly in Brisbane after the floods when the water receded. It was heartening to see how willing people were to provide a hand to people they did not know. There was an extraordinary level of community support. In some circumstances people flew across the country to come to the aid of their fellow Australians. I was really heartened to find that that occurred in my home state of Tasmania following some very sudden flood events. A family came into my office on the Monday morning afterwards—a lady with a family of four who had spent the weekend living in a car because a metre and a half of water had gone through their house. Their possessions were destroyed.

I do not want to get into a size of disaster debate because that is not appropriate and none of us want to go there, but I do want to place on the record that the good and the bad occurred across Australia out of these events. I cite one example where a business said, ‘The floods have been through and have wiped my business out.’ But on the Monday morning after, they turned up at the site and found people ready to start work. A contractor with his truck and his men turned up and said, ‘I am here for the week to help you reconstruct your business’. Over a couple of weeks the local fire brigade and the local community allowed that business to reopen—thus maintaining employment in that local community, which is so important.

The impact of these weather events on roads and infrastructure has been replicated across the country. An extraordinary weather system hit Australia over this summer. I place on the record my condolences to all of those families and communities who have been impacted by this event. I commend the comments of my colleagues on both sides of the chamber and I commend the motion to the Senate.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the debate has concluded, I ask honourable senators to stand in silence to signify their assent to the motion.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.