Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The majority of what I am going to say this evening will relate to the floods in Victoria that occurred in such a devastating fashion. But, before I address what happened in Victoria, I would like to offer my condolences and pay respect to the victims of the floods in Queensland. In particular, I would like to draw attention to the speeches given by the member for Wright and the member for Herbert about what has occurred in Queensland. They are both colleagues who started with me in this place in August, and what they have witnessed in that short time as members will have had a huge and lasting impact on them and their communities. The way they spoke about that in the House can leave us all with nothing but great admiration for the job they have done as new members. I think they articulated superbly what happened in Queensland and what the lasting impact will be with regard to both the floods and the cyclones. I extend my sympathy and pay my respects to them and their communities, and all the other Queensland members who are still going through such a difficult time.

In Victoria we also had devastating floods. Two weeks ago I was in Glenorchy, which is a small country town west of Stawell, and I was shown around by a local councillor who had seen their house flooded for the second time in four months. The first flood had had a huge impact on their weatherboard house. It had started to bend the walls and do irreparable damage to the ceiling, because the house in many ways soaked up the initial flood. When the second flood came through, the house literally started to collapse around this local councillor and it is now a complete write-off.

The township of Glenorchy cannot afford to lose any more of its population but, sadly, for this local councillor the option of rebuilding in that small community is now not viable. The tears with which she expressed her disappointment at having to move away from that community—she is renting a caravan on a property and looking at where else she might head—will remain with me for the rest of my life. It showed me how much these floods, as others have articulated so well, have a human cost and a human impact, which we should never forget. As the months and years roll on we must always remember the human cost and the human impact of these floods and make sure that as members of this parliament we are there for these communities that have been impacted.

The second thing I will mention is when I was in Skipton on Sunday. Skipton has been flooded twice in the last four months, and on Sunday I was there again as that community waited for floodwaters to rise for the third time. The emergency services crews were there. The police were there. Local government was there. The Red Cross was there waiting to see what was going to happen. The resilience in that community facing flood for the third time was as admirable a thing as you could ever see. The first flood did a lot of damage; the second flood, in many cases, irreparable damage. For that community to be sitting there and waiting a third time for an event which in many ways would make the task of rebuilding so much harder. For them to be sandbagging, washing, waiting and in the end, fortunately, watching as the floodwaters rose but did not rise enough to inundate the town and the spirit with which they did that is the second thing which will remain with me forever.

I will take a moment to thank the State Emergency Services, the Country Fire Authority, Victoria Police, local government authorities, Red Cross and volunteers for the outstanding leadership they have shown in dealing with the floods and in guiding our community through it. The work they have done can only be described as inspirational.

I also praise the excellent coverage of our local emergency broadcasters, the ACE Radio Network and ABC Radio. Our emergency broadcasters at all times kept the local community informed of every development and as I travelled around Halls Gap, Pomonal, Stawell, Beaufort, Skipton, Wickliffe, Warrnambool, Allansford, Panmure and Mackinnons Bridge, our emergency broadcasters were keeping the local community informed of every development by crossing regularly to the emergency services and other relevant agencies. Even though the information was not at all times at hand, they did their utmost to keep communities informed. I know there were broadcasters who worked upwards of 15 hours to make sure that local communities knew as much as the emergency services did.

I would also like to commend our local newspapers for their coverage of the floods. Not only did they do an excellent job in providing as much information as possible but some of the weekly papers also brought us the human element, which is so important to our understanding of what is occurring on the ground. Even in some of the smaller communities which do not have newspapers but only community newsletters, those newsletters were vital in providing stories so that communities knew that what they were going through was shared and also in providing information after the events of what help was available for our local communities to access.

As I spent time with our affected communities in Wannon, and after helping with the clean-up, I heard many flood stories. The way the water came, the speed and the devastating impact on lives were all very much part of those stories. There was one comment I heard repeatedly, and I think it is very Australian: ‘There were people who were worse off than me, so I went to help them.’ People selflessly gave to help out others. I know of an example in Beaufort of a local businessman whose warehouse was flooding and yet he was working with the CFA to try to help save homes. To me, that was just so indicative of the way Australians deal with these disasters. The selflessness was there for all to see and was the constantly repeated theme that I heard as I went around.

It is very moving to hear the stories and see damaged homes and farms. I would like to particularly note what the member for Murray said in here two speeches ago on the impact these floods have had on our rural communities and especially our farms in western and north-western Victoria. There is talk of upwards of $2 billion to $3 billion in lost income for our farmers. Recuperating from that after many years of drought is going to be extremely difficult and is going to make the recovery of communities which have been flooded difficult as well, because it is the farms that ultimately provide the income that sustains a lot of the businesses in those communities. Hearing those stories—and they have been articulated here in this place—is dreadful. But, at the same time, I must say that it has been inspiring to witness the true resolve of people who have lost so much and their ability to give when you would think that the natural inclination would be to help oneself.

The flooding in many parts had to be seen to be believed. I have seen bridges with holes just ripped out of the centre of them; fences dragged for kilometres; and silage bales, which can weigh three-quarters of a tonne, delivered five kilometres from one farm down to another farm by the force of the water. It is going to take a long time for these communities to rebuild because the damage has been so destructive. Yet I am sure that in our communities in Wannon people will pull together and that that true community spirit will lead us to rebuild our communities and to move on. We have already seen that in Panmure, where the local football oval and netball courts were destroyed by the floods. Within two weeks there was a community working bee and already the repair job has started to make sure that, for the opening of the football and netball season, the recreational reserve will be in a fit state so that the community can gather again and move on.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my parliamentary colleagues Greg Hunt, Bruce Billson, Scott Ryan and Alan Tudge for assisting with the flood clean-up in Skipton, Wickliffe and Beaufort. Special thanks go to Alan Tudge for bringing members of the Salvation Army and Crossway Baptist Church to assist and also to John Kavanagh, Chairman of the Skipton Progress Society, for organising the local business owners meeting when my colleagues came to visit. Our community meeting in Skipton with all the businesses that had been impacted by the floods was an incredibly moving hour and a half. We heard firsthand from those businesspeople how they will seek to rebuild after the damage of the second flood. We heard the raw emotion, the uncertainty and the difficulties that they are facing in dealing with just the financial burden that the floods are causing them. They were concerned not so much for themselves but for the people that they employ and also whether they will have the money to keep employing those people, knowing that if a job is lost to that local community it is that little bit harder to make sure the community flourishes and thrives.

One of the things which struck me from talking to the people at these meetings is that they expect that one of the roles of government will be to support and invest in the long-term infrastructure of their communities. Right now, especially in western Victoria, I think that that, more than anything else, is what people want to hear from our government. With that in mind, I wrote to the Prime Minister. I will place on the record now how much I appreciated the phone call I received from the Prime Minister after the floods, asking me whether there was anything she could do and telling me that there was a contact in her office who I could call at any time with regard to the flood. Because of that phone call I have taken the opportunity to write to the Prime Minister and suggest that our communities in western Victoria need a one-off Roads to Recovery and bridges payment.

Having travelled around the local government areas, such as the Northern Grampians shire, Ararat Rural City, Pyrenees shire, Corangamite shire and Moyne shire, I saw that the devastation to the road and bridge infrastructure in all these local government areas will be a lasting legacy of these floods unless swift government action is taken. I know from talking to John Forrest that local government authorities in his electorate of Mallee are in a similar situation. I also know from talking to Sharman Stone that there are similar problems in her electorate of Murray. The devastation to the road and bridge networks has a major impact on these local communities. It prevents people from directly accessing their workplaces. It hampers the access of school buses, fire and emergency services and farm and freight transport. Many of the bridges are on secondary freight routes and, apart from the movement of freight, they are key economic assets in connecting local communities to the broader road networks that they travel on to get to work and school.

Prior to the floods some councils were already struggling to afford the maintenance and upgrades necessary to keep these roads and bridges open—these are not large local government authorities. Local residents, having been impacted by the floods—in some cases for the second time in four months—are not in a position to face further rate hikes.

So, to assist local government areas across Australia, including Wannon, that are already facing pressures in maintaining this road and bridge infrastructure, a one-off federal government roads and bridges to recovery payment directly to local government is, I believe, an absolute priority that must be addressed. I understand that mayors right across western Victoria will be supporting the letter that I have written to the Prime Minister by writing their own letters requesting such a payment. The Roads to Recovery program, which the former coalition government implemented and the Labor government has continued to support, would seem to be the ideal program to provide this support to local communities. I hope that the federal government will look very closely at this proposal as part of the package that it puts forward for Victoria.

On that, I would like to say that, while the plan and response that the federal government has put forward for rebuilding Queensland has been incredibly admirable, we are looking for such a plan now for Victoria. We need the Commonwealth to come out and articulate how it is going to help and assist in Victoria, what money it will dedicate to Victoria and how it will do this. I hope that we hear this sooner rather than later, because in many of the communities I am starting to get questioned about where the Commonwealth assistance to Victoria is.

In addition to infrastructure funding, the recent floods across the country have showcased the dire need for additional funding for the Bureau of Meteorology to ensure that it is well-equipped to adequately monitor and predict fast-moving, intense weather events such as these. Currently, the flood-monitoring infrastructure in the Wannon region is extremely inadequate and in many areas nonexistent. Indeed, there are no automated formal flood warning systems in the Glenelg-Hopkins region and there are only manual flood warning systems at Dergholm and Fulham Bridge. Townships such as Beaufort and Skipton and many waterways, including Mount Emu Creek and the Glenelg, Wannon, Hopkins, Merri and Moyne rivers, do not currently have adequate flood-monitoring systems, resulting in poor information for these communities regarding expected flood levels and flood time estimates. Similarly, Fiery Creek, north-west of Beaufort, and Wattle Hill Creek, Portland, lack flood warning equipment. I also understand my region has very few online Bureau of Meteorology rainfall stations.

People in Beaufort, Skipton, Wickliffe and surrounding localities could have saved more of their possessions had they received an indication of the flood level and estimated time of arrival. As it was, these communities were caught off guard yet again and for the second time—and for some even the third time—in six months some of these people have lost everything. I will give you an idea of what I experienced in Skipton on Sunday. Warnings were issued for flood in Skipton for the third time in five months. I went to Skipton in the afternoon and already they had been warned that the flood would occur at 10 o’clock; then it was to occur at two o’clock and then it was to occur at four o’clock.

I joined up with the SES in Skipton and went with them to do the latest round of flood measuring. What that entailed for the SES officer who was in charge at that time was to get down on his hands and knees and look through shrubs left over from the floods from the previous time to try and get an indication of how far the river had risen in the last two hours. In the 21st century I think we should be able to provide better information, better technology for our emergency services to do their job. The Bureau of Meteorology needs increased resources to enable it to provide early warnings about floods. Recent flood events have highlighted that my electorate is deserving of increased investment in flood-monitoring stations and funding for flood modelling. I urge the government to consider providing assistance for improved flood management and to invest more resources in the Bureau of Meteorology and its flood-warning system in Wannon and across the nation.

I wish to urge the federal government to allocate a tourism payment of the like received by Queensland to try to assist places such as Halls Gap and Pomonal in my electorate and those towns along the Murray that also rely on tourism. The devastation in the Grampians National Park has to be seen to be believed. The damage to walkways and bridges means that two-thirds of the park is closed and will probably remain so for three to six months. Right now, towns in the region such as Halls Gap and Pomonal need help in getting the word out that, although a large part of the national park is closed, they still need people to visit.

The jazz festival is on in Halls Gap this weekend. If we could get a record crowd there, that would be the best thing that people across Victoria and Australia could do for the town and the region at this time. As events occur throughout the year, if people could just keep in the back of their minds the idea of a trip to Halls Gap, that would have great benefits. It would help businesses which have been devastated by the floods and, the year before that, by the code red alert warning which emptied the town. That could be an ongoing contribution to helping western Victoria recover from the floods.

The federal government can also play a role here. I commend them for what they have done in offering money for tourism in Queensland, but I ask them to think about making a similar payment to either the regional tourism operators or jointly with Tourism Victoria to make sure that people are aware that all the tourist towns in western Victoria are open for business as well. The roads, although ripped apart in many places, are still open. As long as you are prepared in some places to take alternative routes, you can get to those towns. By visiting and putting money into those local economies you can make a huge difference.

I would like to end where I began: by pointing out that we should never forget the human impact that the floods, the cyclone and, in Western Australia, the fires have had. We should remember that people will be left with that impact not for months but for years. The government and all members of this House should remember that there is going to be an ongoing need to make sure that all these communities have the help that they need to recover.

We also must remember that we can make a difference, when we get rains, cyclones or fires like we did, by making sure that we can always improve on the way we prepare for those types of events. In the case of floods, it means by making sure that the technology is there for our catchment management authorities so that they can predict as best they can levels of rainfall and what impact that rainfall will have on communities which are prone to flooding. If we can remember those two key things going forward, as members of this parliament, we will be able to make a difference when these events occur in the future, as they will.

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