Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to share some of my experiences of the dreadful situation that occurred at seven o’clock last Monday, 20 March when Cyclone Larry crossed the coast near Innisfail. I have to say that the preparedness of the community obviously can be seen by the lack of loss of life, if you like, in this dreadful catastrophe and also by the minimal amount of injuries. In preparation for the cyclone, quite a number of residents were removed from areas that were considered vulnerable. Full marks go to the state emergency authorities in taking that initiative and removing those people from harm.

From my residence in Cairns, just after 8.15 on Monday morning, I drove the 50-odd kilometres to Babinda to where my mum lives. I had to pry her out from under her bed where she was seeking shelter with her dog after quite a bit of the roof of her house had been removed. It was quite surreal to travel down through that area at that time. Some of the power poles were still on fire, some of the transformers were going off like firecrackers and there were powerlines and debris—vegetation et cetera—all over the road as I moved further south from Cairns. You started to see the starkness of many of the rainforest hills as you came closer to Babinda where the trees were totally devoid of any leaves. The waters were starting to rise with the rain that was continuing to come down. It was an amazing feeling. It was a great relief when I was able to reach my mum, but I was devastated at the impact, particularly as I got closer to Babinda, of the destruction in the community. In Innisfail, I think, about 65 per cent of their buildings were damaged; in Babinda, I think it was closer to 80 per cent. Whilst it is a smaller community, it certainly suffered very badly.

The other thing that I noticed as I travelled through the area was the sugar cane. As we know, sugar has been having a hard time in recent years, but the industry was faced with a bumper crop and record prices for the first time in many years. Not only was the cane lying on its side as a result of the wind but also in many of these areas it had been ripped out by its roots. I understand that about 60 per cent of the crop in these affected areas has been lost. As the Attorney mentioned earlier, about 100 per cent of the banana crop has been lost.

This was a rather unusual cyclone. Its intensity was not unlike that of Cyclone Tracy which hit Darwin, but it moved a lot quicker. Whereas the local impact of Tracy was about 40 kilometres from where it hit the landfall, with Larry, because it was moving so quickly—something like 25 to 30 kilometres an hour—the intensity was maintained as it went over the mountains into areas deemed to be cyclone-free. Areas as west as Ravenshoe and Herberton in the Atherton Tablelands suffered very severe losses. Other industries, such as dairying, horticulture, aquaculture, rare and tropical fruits and plants and flowers, have all been quite severely damaged and will be without income for a considerable period. It will take some years before the macadamia and avocado industries recover. It will be at least a season before other industries, such as the sugar and banana industries, start to recover.

It took a couple of days for the impact to really set in. I have to say that the response of the emergency services was nothing short of outstanding. My full credit goes to all of those emergency services on the tablelands and the coast that responded pretty much immediately and provided food and emergency accommodation. Ergon was out there almost immediately looking at repairing services. A large number of areas have now had their power restored. Today Ergon announced that it expects the majority of its areas outside of Innisfail will have power restored within seven days. That in itself is absolutely amazing.

When such a disaster occurs, unfortunately the media tend to focus on a few negatives, but there were many positives from within the community. I acknowledge that the Leader of the Opposition went with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to visit the area within a couple of days of the disaster. I understand they did not go there earlier because they did not want to get in the road; they thought they would let things start to happen before they arrived.

I also acknowledge the outstanding contribution of the Premier of Queensland. There was an all-of-government response. Johnston shire’s Neil Clarke deserves special mention for the work that he has done after seeing his community almost totally destroyed. My colleague the member for Kennedy has also worked very much on the ground with the community. Other mayors in the tablelands shires—and of course Mayor Byrne, who is in this place today—were also involved in offering community support. ADF helicopters and on-the-ground crews have done a wonderful amount of work. Greg Goebel from the Red Cross has been in there, as has the Salvation Army. But there have been lots of others.

The business community has been absolutely unbelievable. For example, Better Homes, a building company in Cairns, basically closed their business and shifted their entire workforce to Innisfail for a week. They took two apprentices, nine carpenters, a handyman, bobcats, trucks and equipment and moved down there for a week. They come home every night because they do not want to take up accommodation that is in short supply. They go back in the morning with supplies. I congratulate Wayne and Jenny Cavallaro and give them recognition for the work they are doing. Domino’s Pizza, for example, within a couple of days, sent down 2,000 pizzas to Innisfail. A young woman who has a business in Atherton—Jill Fisher—rang me and said: ‘I have a catering business. It’s a mobile kitchen. Unfortunately, since the cyclone, business has stopped, but I really don’t want to sit here and feel sorry for myself when I see what is happening in Innisfail. Can I take my mobile kitchen down to Innisfail and start cooking meals at Babinda or wherever I am needed? I will do it free of charge.’

We saw this sort of generosity on the Sunrise program on Channel 7 when David Koch and the crew looked for tradesmen from all over the country. They came together in Sydney. Again, Qantas came forward in support—and full recognition goes to Qantas as a corporate citizen—and flew 120-odd tradesmen to Innisfail on Monday to start helping in the rebuilding. We saw 40 firefighters from the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Gatton. There were 15 volunteer nurses from the Gold Coast Hospital. All of these people came together. General Cosgrove said, ‘While it is devastating for the community, at the end of the day, with the community spirit that we see, there is no doubt at all that the community is going to be built better and bigger in the end.’ The member for Canberra is in the chamber. She will recall similar community spirit when the Canberra bushfires occurred not so long ago.

But there are a couple of things that we really need to do, and I would like to quickly focus on those in the time I have left. First of all, I think all of us in this place can get the message out that Far North Queensland is still open for business from a tourism perspective. Do not cancel your holidays. Please come up there, because that will help to keep the economy going. In Cairns, for example, 40 per cent of our economy is tourism. If people stay away, that is going to add to the problems we already have.

Freight subsidies are another thing. I appreciate the Prime Minister’s announcement on support for generators and fuel, but we should understand that freight that is brought into places like Innisfail and Babinda is a backload. Primary produce such as bananas et cetera is taken down south and then fresh fruit and vegetables and other things are backloaded into these areas. But there is no fresh fruit—no bananas and so on—to take south any more, so we need to look at ways to reduce freight costs. If we do not do that, when trucks bring produce from the south and are taken back empty, it is going to increase the cost of these products by 60 to 80 per cent for a community that cannot afford it. So we need to look at this and take it into consideration. I appreciate the fact that our support is able to continue to move it—it is a moving feast—and this is one area in which we really need to do it.

On income support, I think Centrelink and the Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey, and his team have done a fantastic job. But there are many thousands of people out of work, particularly in the banana industry, and we need to keep their skills in town. Maybe we could look at a work for the dole project or some sort of subsidy—they would normally get social security, because they are out of work—to allow them to continue to work on the farms as part of a massive clean-up. We can keep the skills base there to help the farmers to clean up their farms so that they can start to replant and get their production back. We can still retain the work base within those communities. They cannot afford to lose it.

There is another area I am concerned about because of personal experience. I have a couple of very aged relatives who have lost everything. An uncle of mine, Max Anderson—I am sure he will not mind me using his name—lived at Miriwini and his house was totally destroyed. He is in his 70s and suffers from chronic emphysema. There are a lot of Max Andersons out there—maybe not with emphysema but of that age—living in old houses. Remember that in Babinda and Innisfail a lot of young ones move out of town and go to Cairns, Townsville or further afield for work once they leave school. But the old people stay there. There are lots of elderly women, like my mum, still living in town. They do not want to leave because it is their home town. They are living in houses that have been there forever, but these houses have been demolished by the cyclone.

My uncle is insured but it is an old house. The insurance company said they would pay him out completely—$130,000—but what is that going to build? The insurance company are doing fine—they are doing the right thing—but $130,000 will build nothing. In his 70s, with a health condition and on an age pension, there is no way in the world he can do it. So his only option is an old persons home, of which there are none in Innisfail or Babinda. A lot of people are in this situation. There are a lot of elderly people there and we have to relocate them out of their communities and into Cairns, Townsville or other places. Understand that a lot of people stay there because of their independence, because of their association with the community and also because of their pets. I propose that maybe we can respond to this situation by looking at some sort of group housing for these individuals within their community, where they can have a garden and where they can keep a pet. We could be looking at 10 or 12 of these in Babinda and 10 or 12 in Innisfail. To give them an alternative, they could use their insurance money to pay, if you like, for the strata titling of their unit. It is infrastructure which can stay for the future and it will keep these elderly people in their own towns. If we take these people away, we really do not have a whole community any more. There should be a bit of lateral thinking here in order to keep these people in their communities. (Time expired)

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