Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to report to the House in relation to our visit yesterday to Ingham—the epicentre of the coastal floods. I also recognise the report that the member for Kennedy has given in relation to the flooding that has occurred right across the north and the west. The people up in the Gulf Country, in the Burdekin catchment, have been flooded for so long now. They are often a bit out of sight and out of mind. But they are not out of sight and out of mind in the hearts of the local members. They are not out of sight and out of mind any more in the hearts of governments. They know that they will receive the assistance that they need when they are in such desperate circumstances.

For the people of Ingham, yes, there was a lot of rain and a lot of water. They had two floods, one after the other. They were only marooned for about a week, but the people in the north and the west have been marooned for weeks. Of course there are very great difficulties with stock and there will be huge losses in relation to that. In Ingham, the damage has been particularly to homes, businesses, the agricultural economy and the built infrastructure. The raging water washes the roads out and the bitumen literally disappears, and we are going to have to attend to that. We will not know for about four weeks how the sugarcane crop has gone. It may in fact be okay and, God willing, it will be. We will just have to wait and see what has happened to the sugar content, with the cane being submerged in so much water. Of course all of us saw the images on the television of people in their lounge rooms sitting on their lounge chairs, but they had their feet up because just below the top of the lounge chair there was water. They could not move. They could not go anywhere. They were there for a few days. It must have been terribly, terribly distressing.

I met yesterday with Pino Giandomenico, the Mayor of Hinchinbrook Shire. What a terrific fellow he is. The member for Kennedy will agree with me that he is a true community leader. Even though his own home was flooded, he worked tirelessly for his community and led the council operations to make sure that people were as well looked after as they could be. I met with Lindy Nelson-Carr, the state minister for communities and the member for Mundingburra. She was up there making sure that her department, the Department of Communities, was doing what it should. I went into the community recovery centre where there were literally hundreds of people seeking help from the state government, and they were being given that help. There was not any IT around at all. It was all being done on bits of paper. I guess it just shows us that in the middle of such adversity a bit of philosophy which says, ‘You can actually still do it on paper.’ All the claims were being made and all the cheques were being written right there on the spot. Thank you to the Commonwealth Bank for being able to cash those cheques and giving people their much needed assistance.

Of course, there are our own Centrelink people—and I pause for a moment for a commercial, because it is true. The member for Dawson will know that I made this point in our meeting with Centrelink in Townsville. Centrelink in North Queensland is the best performing Centrelink in Australia. All the surveys show this and what I saw in Ingham underscores exactly that. Our Centrelink people work above and beyond the call of duty. They do whatever needs to be done to look after their customers and to look after those in adversity. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people of Centrelink in North Queensland for what they have done.

I want to pay tribute to the Australian Defence Force. They are always there for our country whenever we need them; we all know that. They do what needs to be done. They are out there delivering ration packs. I suppose there should be another commercial here, and that is for the 3rd Brigade of the Australian Defence Force, which the Minister for Defence will know is the best brigade in the country. They were there in their Black Hawk helicopters, flying in and out and making sure that things went to plan. The brigade members on the ground were making sure that people had food. Thank you to the Australian Defence Force, acting in cooperation with the Royal Australian Air Force in Townsville.

An interesting thankyou is to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. For years and years the local commercial radio station was the station that broadcast all the emergency information. Ever since Cyclone Althea it was known as being there for the local people. But it is not anymore. The commercials have given up that role for some reason. But the ABC stepped in on Sunday, at the height of the floods. The ABC staff were in their local Townsville studio continuously broadcasting local information to people who needed it. I think there is a message for this parliament, which is: we must support our ABC. They really came to the fore and fulfilled their role as the national broadcaster, as they have done in the case of the Victorian fires, making sure that people had information.

Thank you to the Hinchinbrook Shire Council for the work that they did in helping.

The people of Ingham, having been through such a terrible flood, are in high spirits. They are Australians. Yesterday in the main street no-one was complaining. People were getting on with their business. They knew and understood that life goes on.

I will finish by observing a point that the member for Kennedy made in relation to the mighty Burdekin River. The Burdekin dam in North Queensland contains an area of water 16 times the size of Sydney Harbour. Today that amount of water will go over the spillway. It is a huge amount of water, which indicates just how much rain we have had in North Queensland, and I think we are in for a lot more. I certainly support the motion.

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