Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 20 February this year Cyclone Marcia made landfall in North Queensland as a category 5 tropical cyclone. Residents in Yeppoon, Rockhampton and surrounding areas faced ferocious winds of up to 200 kilometres an hour and heavy rainfall was recorded across the region. Forty-eight thousand homes were left without power and hundreds of homes were completely destroyed.

My heart goes out—and also, I am sure, the hearts of those in this chamber—to those people who have been affected by that disaster. In the aftermath we saw large parts of Gympie, including sections of the Bruce Highway, submerged under floodwater; local sporting grounds, parks and other community facilities battered and waterlogged; bridges damaged to the point where they will need major repairs before people will be able to drive on them again; livestock left stranded by floodwaters; and trees torn down, with their branches flung around. Neighbourhoods will have to spend considerable energy in cleaning up the mess that was created. Regional communities were cut off due to flooding and damages as a consequence of the cyclone, and property—motorcycles, motor vehicles and places where people work—was damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of that cyclone.

The people of Queensland are only too familiar with the catastrophic damage caused by cyclones and floods. Among the many cyclones that have wreaked havoc across Queensland, I wish to touch on two. One of the most deadly natural disasters in Australian history was Cyclone Mahina, which hit Bathurst Bay in North Queensland in 1899. It was probably the most intense cyclone ever observed in the southern hemisphere and killed over 400 people, including 100 from the local Indigenous community.

One of the most destructive cyclones in Australian history was Cyclone Yasi, which made landfall at Mission Beach in North Queensland in 2011. The damage there was widespread across the state and conservative estimates placed the total bill at $3.5 billion. However, the death toll, thankfully, was much lower than for Mahina, with one person dying as an indirect result of the storm.

The history of these cyclones and many others has taught Queenslanders important lessons about navigating the cyclone season and the resulting recovery. In the years between Cyclone Mahina and cyclones Yasi and Marcia, our ability to prepare for cyclones—to protect our property and infrastructure and, most importantly, to survive disasters of this scale—have improved dramatically. Governments have worked hard, building standards have improved and the Bureau of Meteorology has contributed by providing predictive data and giving residents as much notice as possible of an impending weather event. Infrastructure, in the form of roads and highways, has been upgraded and maintained to allow support and resources to get into disaster-affected regions much more quickly, and publicly owned cyclone-proof facilities have been set up in cyclone-prone towns and cities to ensure that vulnerable people have access to a safe place, clean drinking water and food until the crisis subsides.

Through the national disaster relief and recovery arrangements, governments have come to the table with payments to help individuals and their families, to provide essentials in the days and weeks that follow natural disasters. The federal government has stepped in with the natural disaster payment, which also provided assistance in the past.

Following Cyclone Marcia, I would like to commend the Queensland government and the Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on their quick response to this crisis. The Premier visited Rockhampton and Yeppoon and met with families who have been shattered by the impact of the cyclone. The Queensland and federal governments should be commended for agreeing to activate categories A and B of the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements, which will allow communities to rebuild assets in the wake of the disaster. The response included $1 million which was provided to charities to assist people struggling in the aftermath of the cyclone. Of this, $250,000 went to both the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul to fund psychological support services and meals for those staying in evacuation centres.

It would, however, be remiss of me not to reflect briefly on changes to assistance guidelines that have meant that many people affected by this cyclone will not be entitled to receive modest payments to compensate them for the expenses incurred due to significant power losses over an extended time and to road disruptions.

In his humanitarian wisdom, last year Mr Tony Abbott changed the criteria for the modest payment of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child so that they are now only available to those who have lost a home or who have been seriously injured. To address this, a new payment of up to $1,000 per household was made available by the Palaszczuk government to those living in Rockhampton, Livingstone, North Burnett, Banana and Gladstone who suffered as a result of the effects of Marcia. This was in the form of vouchers that allowed those affected to buy food, water and other necessary items.

However, we do and have seen the federal government withdraw from this area in the way it has in the past, which is extraordinarily disappointing. We have now seen further cuts from the federal government through the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries guidelines for category C recovery grants and the community recovery funds, which have been changed. These grants are primarily available for primary producers, small businesses and not-for-profit organisations who have suffered direct damage from eligible disasters. The changes made in January this year meant that several hundred applicants would be eligible for funding for a reduced range of activities. This will significantly impact farmers who have been devastated by this cyclone. Changes to the way in which primary producers can use the grants mean that they can no longer use them to salvage crops or purchase fodder, maintain the health of livestock, pay employees additional wages to help clean up or restore property following a disaster, purchase or hire equipment necessary to resume farming—and it goes on. This federal government has not come to the party in the way that it should following such a disaster.

I do call on the federal government to immediately reinstall the previous natural disaster and recovery guidelines and the disaster recovery payment as it was to ensure Queenslanders get an appropriate level of assistance from the federal government. They should also immediately respond to the requests from Queensland for category C and D activations so that help and assistance can flow as early as possible to those most in need, because what we have had in the past is federal and state governments standing shoulder to shoulder to help Queenslanders in time of need. What we are now seeing is a federal government being a bit meaner than it should and making sure it is dragging its heels in relation to the payment.

After natural disasters, of course, it is always important to look at how we can make more resilient roads and bridges that will cost less to repair. Can we protect community facilities like town halls and schools? Can we encourage our homeowners and small business to build even more resilient assets? I think the answer is yes. The recent Productivity Commission draft report into natural disaster funding arrangements made recommendations to address this very issue. Currently, unfortunately there is very little incentive for state governments to invest in risk management mitigation to avoid damage from natural disasters. Mitigation funding needs to come out of existing state budgets, whereas recovery funding comes from the federal government as an additional payment. This produces bias against mitigation and betterment projects even though they are more cost effective than rebuilding after a disaster. This is clearly not an ideal system. There needs to be better incentives for all those involved to ensure that there is a strong case for betterment to mitigate against disasters and to ensure the actors work very hard between local government, state government and federal government to produce good examples and outcomes and to ensure that we can build resilience into the system.

Overseas examples have shown us the value of reform. The US, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already addressed many of the issues highlighted in the Productivity Commission draft report. The US federal government provides a significant reimbursement to states in the event of natural disasters—up to 75 per cent or higher depending on the scale of the natural disaster. However, they recognise that this is not the only solution to the problem. They provide significant and additional increased mitigation funding because mitigation or betterment—however you want to describe it—provides resilience to the community and lessens the impact when a disaster occurs. There still does exist a tendency to disproportionately fund post-disaster funding at a ratio of nearly 10 to one even in the states; however, it is important that we also focus on mitigation as a way forward.

As discussed earlier, in the past we have successfully put in place arrangements which save lives. Now we need to begin the debate on how we can invest in more resilient assets to prevent damage before disaster strikes. (Time expired)