Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The great flood of 2011 will leave a permanent mark, not only on our geography and our homes but also on our character. It will be something that we will talk about for many years to come. Last month’s flood and now a cyclone as well as fires have caused unprecedented destruction, and a public and private cost unprecedented to match. But after all of this we will rebuild, we will repair and we will mend our lives. It will be difficult and, for some, it will be almost insurmountable. Those most deeply affected will need all the support of their families, of their friends, of their community and, I want to also say, the support of their government.

The real story of these floods, the cyclones, the fires and all the devastation we have seen this so far this summer is really a human story. It is the story of courage, of generosity and of hope. I also want to acknowledge the people and families who have lost a loved one—and there have been many. Those in the floods in Queensland in particular, in Cyclone Yasi in the north and elsewhere in the country have been affected by the most severe weather that they have had to endure. My deepest sympathies and my condolences in this time of tragedy to all of those families.

This summer will always be etched in our minds as the one of the great flood that wreaked so much death and destruction and forever changed the lives of thousands of people. Unfortunately, it will be remembered for other devastating weather events right across the country. As I said, from firestorms in the West to flash floods in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania, it seems as though nobody was spared. My electorate of Oxley was also not spared—in fact, it was hit very hard by flooding. The flood and rains came quickly, with a ferocity not seen for many years.

To put it into context, three-quarters of Queensland has been declared a disaster zone. The Queensland government estimates that 500,000 square kilometres are flood affected. To put that into perspective, it is an area bigger than the whole of Great Britain. From Rockhampton to Dalby, from Toowoomba to Condamine, from Brisbane to Goondiwindi it seems that virtually no part of Queensland was untouched by floodwaters—truly, no part has been left untouched when you count tropical Cyclone Yasi.

It is true to say that floodwaters recognise no electoral boundaries and are completely indiscriminate. The floods of 2011 are the worst natural disaster in Queensland’s history. Economically, they are the biggest natural disaster in Australia’s history and the cost to rebuild will be enormous—the estimates are in the many billions of dollars. But none of this can be made up to anybody who has lost a loved one, including one man who was lost at Durack, in my electorate.

Most significantly for me, I can remember the 1974 floods, when I was a young child, but nothing can compare with what we have seen in 2011. In the Lockyer Valley the towns of Grantham, Murphys Creek and Withcott were virtually destroyed by floodwaters, and there was significant loss of life in those areas. Some media outlets reported that the Bremer River peaked at somewhere between 80 and 90 metres. It was actually only 18 or 19 metres but, when you contemplate just how high that is, it is almost too hard to imagine that waters could rise that high. The level was slightly lower than the 1974 flood peak, but it did a lot more damage. There were a lot more people and a lot more infrastructure, and so there was a lot more to lose. In 1974, there were many fewer people, schools and buildings and much less destruction. So, although the river did not rise quite as much, it came pretty close, and the destruction and the devastation will be felt for many more years to come.

In my electorate hundreds, if not thousands, of homes were either directly affected or affected in other ways, and many thousands of people were affected. The flood caused unprecedented devastation. In my electorate at least 17 suburbs were affected, including Goodna, Gailes, Darra, Wacol, Sumner, Sumner Park, Middle Park, Westlake, Jamboree Heights and Jindalee, to name just a few. Almost all parts of my electorate were affected directly by floodwaters. Many people, as with people in other areas, have lost everything. That is a hard notion to contemplate unless you are the person who has lost everything. It is very hard to imagine when you are working to help people clean up and doing things directly. You see the destruction and you see the loss but you do not feel it immediately. It is something that comes a little later on.

Sporting clubs and community facilities such as the Jindalee Golf Club, the McLeod Golf Club, the Goodna and District Rugby League Football Club, the Western Spirit Football Club, the Goodna RSL, which lost two premises, and a whole range of other community infrastructure were completely destroyed and will need enormous amounts of funding to rebuild. Public infrastructure such as roads, rail, traffic lights and a whole range of other infrastructure so necessary to a great lifestyle have all been destroyed.

It will have a huge emotional cost, and it is a very heartbreaking time for many people. I believe that the true outcome of that emotional cost will not be felt for many months. I have seen people come to the recovery centres with a dazed and faraway look, clearly suffering from emotional and physical stress. They are tired and worn out, not knowing where to turn or where to go that night. Where would they sleep? Where would they eat? Who would they turn to? Some people we know slept in stairwells or under bridges when the waters receded. If they were lucky, they stayed with family or friends or at the recovery centres in schools and halls—wherever they could find somewhere to rest for the night and go back to cleaning what was left of their houses in the morning. The emotional scars run deep and they will be felt for a long time to come.

For me it is has also been very personal. My brother lives near the river. He lost his home and is right now trying to rebuild it. He lost all of his possessions. He tried very hard on the day to move everything to higher ground. The first thing he did was to move his animals. He has a bit of a hobby farm and has a few poddy calves and his first concern was to save all his animals and make sure they were safe. Unfortunately, he could not save his treasured motorcycles. The waters came so fast and so high that, by the time, he had finished packing everything to the top floor the waters were starting to lap the top of the bonnet of his car as he was driving out of his driveway.

I have also had some loss, although I have to say that it is to a much lesser extent. My office has completely gone to the floods. When I say ‘completely gone’, I mean a 100 per cent loss, everything that was in it. We did think that the water might come close to the office but we did not think it would be so high. We moved things off the floor and onto the desks. Later that day we thought that, if it were to come anywhere close to the door, we should take a safety precaution and move them to the tops of the cupboards. Unfortunately, when the water goes over the top of the roof it is not going to make much difference. So there are more than 12 years of memories, everything that one keeps in an office when your office really is your second home has a lot of significance, and it is a difficult loss. Many things in there just cannot be replaced. I can assure people that we did keep working, though. On the side of the road, under two marquees, we set up a fantastic office with just pen and paper, a couple of camping chairs and a table. Maybe I should be cautious in how I say this but we were just as effective. For all the technology that we have, sometimes your best work can be done with just a table and chair and a pen and paper.

While the scope of these floods and the devastation has been unprecedented, so too has been the response. There has been a truly awe-inspiring response from so many people—from friends, family and people we rang, from neighbours and from total strangers who just walked in off the street. We have heard stories already. There are so many others like those, of people doing extraordinary things at personal cost and in their own time, of people giving up work for two or three weeks. Some people I know are now in their fourth week; they have taken holidays to be able to help people they do not know. Many houses have had to be stripped of all their possessions. All internal fixtures and fittings were ripped out. Walls had collapsed. Ceilings were demolished and insulation removed. There was mud and stench everywhere. Everything had to be hosed and shovelled. It is quite a demeaning thing for somebody to have to do that to their own home.

In all of that ruin, many personal treasures were lost. People lost their jewellery and things that were very close to them. I have one great story to come out of all those piles of rubbish and rubble that you see on the sides of the roads. Somebody actually went through and was helping a little old lady search for her wedding ring that she had lost. The likelihood of finding it was almost impossible, but everyone felt that it was so important to this lady that we had to give it a go. You are not going to believe it but, yes, we did find it. It was just amazing to find this mud covered little thing that meant so much to this woman. It was all that was left of her life.

Many other people came; they came from everywhere. Some of them came alone with a pair of gloves if they had them; some brought brooms, mops and buckets; others just brought their labour. Many brought food. In fact, we had an oversupply of Sunday-bake cakes. At one stage we were saying, ‘We love the cake but, please, no more. There’s going to be a health issue here eventually.’ The amount of food that people brought and the generosity they showed were truly unprecedented. It has been said already, and I want to repeat it, that it really does typify and characterise what Australians are and the way we come out and help each other in times of crisis. We might argue over small things because they seem important at the time, but when disasters happen and people need each other we are there. It really is a true reflection of the Australian spirit—that sense of mateship is something that I think only Australians truly understand.

The clean-up has been a massive job and is mostly complete, but it is still quite eerie to drive down certain streets in my electorate that are completely pitch-black at night with no electricity. Roads are still covered in a brown tinge and house after house is empty, with no windows or doors and nothing inside, just pitch-darkness. You see some people in tents, believe it or not, and others in caravans trying to protect what is left of their homes or trying to rebuild. It is an incredible sight. Tradesmen have come from New South Wales and Victoria. People have come from Perth and from all over Australia to help. We had so many volunteers that at one point we could afford to send teams of 20 or up to 50 to clean houses and get the job done in a matter of hours when normally it would take days or weeks.

Great stories are coming out, some that are as yet are unrecorded, and I want to relate a few. A very large lorry of polar ice arrived in Ipswich and the driver asked, ‘How much ice would you like?’ It was really hot and we needed to keep drinks cold, so not only did we get the drinks for free but we kept them cold for free as well. There was one catch: if I could supply a large, commercial sized generator they would keep providing ice for as many weeks as we needed. With the help of the ADF we were able to organise that. It was a really fantastic thing for them to do. A man driving a Mr Whippy ice-cream truck turned up at the Goodna flood recovery centre. He was from Byron Bay, it was his day off and he filled his truck and drove around my electorate giving away ice-creams until he had none left. It was an incredible act of generosity. He said it was not that far to drive from Byron Bay to Ipswich, but what he did made so many people smile on that really hot day. There are so many other stories of people coming to help from many, many different places all over the country. Places like Westlake and Jindalee are a little better off, and once people from those areas finished cleaning their homes and streets they volunteered to help out other parts of the electorate. I want to pay tribute to that generosity.

At times like these it is always difficult because there are so many people to thank, but some people really do stand out. They give so much that you must mention them. From day one, Cathy Beauchamp from Westlife Church just got on the ground and became a general on site. She helped organise the effort and did an incredible job. I must mention my wife, Margy. They are still on the job, but for many weeks those two women ran the recovery centre. It is an unofficial recovery centre, but it became the site of many thousands of volunteers. At one point last week we counted that we had fed over 15,000 people. Reverend Tania Eichler, from St Catherine’s Anglican church in Middle Park, Tammy Rowe and Trevor Bryce from the Salvation Army in Middle Park, Rowan Truss from Good News Lutheran Church in Jamboree Heights, Allan Morris from Shiloh Church in Goodna, Phil Cutcliffe from Westside Community Care and so many others assisted. It was so great to see the church community come out in their hundreds and hundreds to help everywhere they could and do everything they could. They opened up their homes, their churches and their halls and gave everything they had.

Rotary clubs and Lions clubs assisted and many people came to help prepare meals. I also want to make special mention of Maxine Norsgaard, who ran another unofficial recovery centre at the Redbank State School. She became known as the ‘Queen of Redbank’ for her efforts. She is finding it difficult to extricate herself from there, knowing as she does every single family in the area. Cathy Easte, from the Darra Community Group, did an incredible job coordinating Centenary Village. Many sporting teams helped out. Professional teams, including the Gold Coast Titans, the New South Wales Waratahs and others, and amateur teams did a lot to lift morale if not to clean houses. I took my kids to clean houses for a day so they would understand just how important this task was. We saw busloads of really fit young people turning up to the electorate and asking what they could do to help. So many people were assisted; it was an incredible effort.

I want to make special mention of the ADF and in particular the RAAF at Ipswich. For the first few days they were not there—they were getting themselves organised to help—but when they appeared it was almost like a ray of light, a miracle. When military folk arrive there is a sense of stability and calm. They provide structure. It was so reassuring to know they were there to help. People felt much more at ease. It was not that everyone else was not doing a good job; it just makes a difference when you see hundreds of people in uniform. I say an enormous thanks to them for risking their lives in many areas and for simply coming and shovelling mud—just helping ordinary people. They did a fantastic job. It is pretty special when you see ADF equipment and kit arrive, either in a big Unimog or tethered to a Blackhawk helicopter.

I want to make mention of some other very important people. A Goodna family of four were living at the Gailes Caravan Park, which was washed away—there was nothing left. Those four adults lived in a tent for about three weeks before accommodation could be found for them, but they were very lucky. Some businesses have lost everything, but some really great bosses tried to not only keep their businesses running amidst the devastation but keep their workers on the payroll. Nellie Gatehouse and her husband run the Army disposal and industrial sewing business in Sumner Park. The business is more than 100 years old and has been through everything, but unfortunately it will not survive this flood and will be forced to close. Lots of people have lost everything.

I recognise, too, people like Tara Smith and her friend Robert, from Sydney, who pulled up in their little old Winnebago one day and said, ‘We’re here to help.’ They have been there for nearly four weeks now, helping every single day and doing everything they can. They were so moved and compelled by what they saw on television they felt this urge to drive up and do everything they could. They have been an absolute godsend.

Don Peden from Truck Cranes Australia in my electorate keeps these fantastic guard dogs that he absolutely loves on the huge compound for his trucks and cranes. He was so worried about their safety because of the rising water that he sent out one of his blokes who is a great kayaker to go in a kayak and make sure that the dogs were okay and that they were not going to drown. They saved the dogs; it is a great story.

I recognise other people from the Salvation Army, the Goodna RSL, the Redbank Plains RSL, Global Care, Chaplaincy Australia, the Goodna SES and the Australian Children’s Trust. Kim Wilkie, the former member for Swan, is very familiar to people in this House. He has gone up to Queensland and will be spending the next six months there working for the Australian Children’s Trust to help in the rebuilding effort following the efforts he made in Victoria after the fires down there. So, special thanks to him.

John Grant from Ipswich is an amazing person. His name has been mentioned in this House many times in the past. I want to mention his name today for a very special reason. He has a dealership right in the centre of Ipswich. It was completely flooded. He lost a brand new showroom but saved most of his cars. His main concern was for his staff. His second concern was to get the place cleaned out. In the middle of that he was giving trucks, utes—yes, utes as well!—and cars to absolutely anybody who wanted one to help in the clean-up effort. A more trusting, caring and generous man I have never met. He is an absolute saint. And John continues to help to this day. He has driven up to Grantham four times to help up there and he has given trucks, utes and cars. His generosity is beyond belief and he expects nothing in return. He is a great person.

I also want to thank Mark Edwards from the Ipswich Regional Community Church for an incredible effort. He housed, in the middle of the night, 180 frail aged people from the Salvation Army retirement home when it got flooded. I recognise the goodness of him and his congregation to look after these very high-need, high-care people for four days. It was an incredible effort. And there were so many others.

My last word is to thank generation Y. I want to thank generation Y because this is the first opportunity that this young generation, so often maligned for their perceived arrogance or lack of empathy or ability, were able to demonstrate that, just like generations before them, when they were needed they turned up and worked hard. They are great people and I wanted to make sure that everybody in this place understood that. The young are really great people and they help just as much as everybody else.

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