Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the night of Thursday, 27 November, Brisbane was hit by a terrible storm, a storm with wind gusts of more than 140 kilometres per hour, with golf ball sized hail, that led to dozens of people being injured and 1,000 properties being damaged. In fact, three of my staff suffered significant property damage—smashed windows, ruined carpets, lost computers, lost awnings. I pay tribute to them, notwithstanding their personal difficulty at home, for continuing to help the people in my electorate of Griffith to work through some of that storm damage.

The sorts of damage that we saw in Brisbane included flooded streets and extensive hail damage to cars, including the cars held by car dealers, of course. At nearby Archerfield Airport, aircraft were overturned. There was so much damage on our streets. I drove through Annerley in my electorate, South Brisbane, West End and Woolloongabba during the day on Friday after I returned from Canberra to see some of the damage. There were cranes lifting trees off houses.

When I visited the SES, which is headquartered in my electorate, they were being inundated with requests for help. It was really heartening to see that there were SES volunteers from all over South-East Queensland pitching in to help, as well as firefighters, police and Defence personnel, who were also helping with the clean-up. As I understand it, there were some 1,400 calls for help that day. Tens of thousands of people were without power for a very long time. I understand that the estimated damage from the storm is around $100 million. It was a very difficult time for a range of people who suffered storm damage and for the people who were trying to help. It was not just homes and private property that suffered damage.

On Friday, I visited local schools Mary Immaculate and Our Lady's College. I saw Father Adrian at the church on the Mary Immaculate premises, who was obviously quite upset at the extensive damage to the church. There were broken stain glass windows, tiles gone from the roof, and water leaking through the church. It was a very distressing site and it was pleasing to see so many volunteers helping to clean up the church.

Underneath the church, where the library is at Mary Immaculate school, there was a lot of damage to the equipment. I understand there were people in the library when the storm hit who were in very dangerous circumstances because of flying glass. I visited St Josephs where Father David had closed the church and the school has suffered extensive damage. I visited Brisbane State High School. And, of course yesterday, I spent some time at Junction Park State School, which is another school that has suffered really terrible damage with a lot students work damaged. I congratulate those on the repair effort—it was a terrible storm.