Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a privilege to contribute to this debate today and recognise Australia's strong connections to the nation of the Philippines, which is an extraordinarily resilient and wonderful country of 98 million. It is a near northern neighbour of ours, yet many of our links could be far further cultivated than they have been over the last 10 years.

The tragedy and the devastation that was wrought with the supertyphoon is something that is only witnessed maybe once a decade, if that. I understand that these were the strongest winds to hit land ever recorded. And, by virtue of a large population, the damage was enormous to the agricultural central parts of the Philippines. My message is simple: Australia as a developed economy plays a large and significant role in natural disasters. We have often helped. We offered significant help to Fukushima, with the tsunami and it will be no different for the Philippines. My message today, having worked in East Timor and assisted in Afghanistan post-conflict, is that these are highly complex and fast-moving environment and the issue of coordination of relief efforts comes to the fore between 10 and 30 days after an incident like this.

I want to make the initial observation that this typhoon struck in the early hours of the morning; very few people were expecting it; it was almost impossible for authorities to convince many people to evacuate from low-lying areas. Some were proposing using gunfire to warn people of the impending damage. Over half a million people are affected, according to the latest estimates: 3,637 people killed, 12,500 people injured and 1,800 still missing. These are calamitous numbers; almost impossible for us to conceive.

As Carlos Romulo, the former Filipino statesman said: 'Brotherhood is the very price and condition of man's survival', and this will be tested by this great people in the coming days and weeks. No doubt, as everyone would be aware, the emergency response—providing water, food and sanitation—is essential. I want to make a brief point about health service delivery, which is that even those most vital antidiarrheal kits, the ability to filter and clean water, is prevented by a lack of infrastructure, security, transport and fuel. We have outlying barangays, as they are called in the Philippines, which are yet to be adequately visited and are relying on airdrops from the aircraft carrier USS George Washington, and on water purification by a UK destroyer.

There are now, I think, at least 11 field hospitals on the ground, including Norway's and Israel's. But the complexity of this is emphasised by probably the first international relief effort, B-Fast a Belgian group, arriving just two days after the disaster but unable to get their operations working until five days later. It is a combination of actually landing on the ground and actually having the precursors to get things moving that it is a great challenge. But I am obviously relieved that surgical work by MSF and Red Cross started on the weekend; even that, 10 days after the disaster, is quite a feat in and of itself.

As Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the 14th president of the Philippines, said:

The power of one, if fearless and focused, is formidable, but the power of many working together is better.

This was a fearless and formidable natural event, but I am confident the people of the Philippines will pull together. This will not be an effort over days, weeks or even months. The scars will be there for years but these people can survive and can rebuild. On behalf of the nation, I wish them all the best at this difficult time.

See this speech in context