Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Tax Laws Amendment (2011 Measures No. 1) Bill 2011. It is important that all Queenslanders who have had their lives shattered, their farms damaged and their businesses destroyed have confidence that all Australians are behind them in their rebuilding effort. Queensland makes up just over 20 per cent of Australia’s population and certainly contributes more than 20 per cent to the wealth and income of this country. The federal Labor government is stepping in to rebuild Queensland. These were the largest natural disasters in our history: the floods in South-East Queensland and Cyclone Yasi in North Queensland. Without the cyclone’s impact, it is estimated that the cost of rebuilding South-East Queensland and Queensland generally will be $5.6 billion.

My electorate of Blair covers Ipswich and the Somerset region in South-East Queensland. In it I have the Brisbane River, the Bremer River, the Lockyer Creek, Wivenhoe Dam and Somerset Dam. It has been in many ways flood central in the last few months.

The impact on lives is extraordinary. The floods have devastated local communities in the western part of Ipswich, from Rosewood through to Riverview, up through the Brisbane Valley and into the Kilcoy region. Roads, bridges, ports and community infrastructure have been damaged by floods. Just last week I was up in Mount Stanley, which is way north in the Brisbane Valley, where a dozen or more roads were cut off during the flood crisis. The culverts, which were built about 60 years ago, have been damaged. As you drive across in a four-wheel drive, there is still water crossing those areas. Every time it rains, the water comes across. I was up there to visit and speak to some farmers, along with the former deputy mayor of what was then known as the Esk Shire, Simeon Lord. Simeon is not necessarily a card-carrying member of the Labor Party, I assure you. He has strong views and is well known and well respected in the community. He talked to me and some of the farmers in that area of Mount Stanley about what life was like for them in the flood and how we need to rebuild the roads, the bridges and the essential community infrastructure.

Queenslanders and people across the country have been extraordinarily generous with their time, effort and money. Contributions to the Somerset Regional Council’s flood relief appeal and to the Ipswich mayor’s flood relief appeal have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Indeed, the mayor’s appeal in Ipswich is edging close to $1 million now. And the Premier’s flood relief appeal is in the millions of dollars. But we need billions of dollars to rebuild Queensland. At the time of the flood, Centrelink and the ADF, two great arms of the federal government, came in and gave great assistance. I pay tribute to Centrelink, as I did in a speech last night when the relevant minister—Ms Plibersek, the Minister for Human Services—was here. There was great work done by Centrelink locally. We need to rebuild Queensland. The payments that were made during the time of the flood put money back into the hands of people. I want to note that the councils also have received significant assistance from us. The third-quarter financial assistance grant for Somerset Regional Council was brought forward by this government. That totals $611,237. Ipswich City Council received a $1,127,394 grant—money brought forward to assist them to rebuild. And we put $2 billion into Queensland government coffers to make sure that they can do work to rebuild Queensland.

The flood affected areas in South-East Queensland are truly devastated. My estimation is that around 90 per cent of people who have been flood affected in my electorate are still living away from their homes—in caravans, in tents, in motels or bunking with people. They are not back in their homes. If I drive at night through places like North Booval in Ipswich or some of the country towns in my electorate, there are hardly any lights on, because people are not back in their homes. So any way we can give them assistance to mitigate the circumstances that they find themselves in will be beneficial for them, their families and the local communities.

This legislation exempts from taxation the disaster income recovery subsidy payments made to victims and the funding given to New Zealand residents. This benefits my local community because it puts money back in people’s pockets and they do not have to pay it to the Australian Taxation Office. I did not realise there were so many New Zealanders living in South-East Queensland. There are about 180,000 people from New Zealand living in South-East Queensland. Put that in context. The member for Herbert says it is more people than live in his city. It is more than the number of people who live in Ipswich and more than the number of people who live in Toowoomba. You can see why, when New Zealand play the Wallabies or the Kangaroos at Lang Park, so many New Zealanders turn up to watch them play. We provided help during the flood in terms of our disaster relief recovery payments to them. This legislation makes sure that we do not take money out of their pockets.

I think our proposal with respect to the response in South-East Queensland in particular—the way we have structured the raising of the money, investment of the money, the application and the rebuilding—is the right thing to do. We found savings of $2 for every $1 we raised for the levy, so it was the right way to go about responding to an unprecedented natural disaster.

Faced with such a big challenge, it is extraordinarily important to provide help, and I think one of the biggest helps we can provide is the granting of up to $25,000 and offering of low-interest loans of up to $250,000 to small businesses. The assistance we are providing to local NGOs we are doing in consultation with the states. The states are rolling it out through the departments of communities, particularly the Queensland Department of Communities. I know a number of sporting organisations in my electorate have received that assistance. Everything from the dog obedience club in Ipswich through the Ipswich Basketball Association have received assistance through money from the Department of Communities in Queensland—money that is given by us, as well, through our levy and what we are doing to assist the Queensland government. This is important legislation. It is important for local areas as well.

I must say that those opposite have adopted what I think is a simply bewildering response with respect to the flood crisis in South-East Queensland. At a time when Australians stick together and expect bipartisanship to prevail, I am flabbergasted by the response of those opposite to the flood ravaged regions of South-East Queensland. I say this genuinely and personally. I could not believe that they would do that. They have so many members from the area: the member for Ryan, the member for Longman, the member for Maranoa. They have members from all throughout Queensland and Brisbane as well representing the LNP, and yet they opposed what we were doing with the flood levy. It was hysteria. It really was a slap in the face for South-East Queensland and Queenslanders generally. You did not need a poll to know that Queenslanders wanted other Queenslanders and the federal government to give them a helping hand and stick together in this matter.

I was shocked at the response of the coalition. Their lack of preparedness was shown by the response of the Leader of the Opposition when he tried to find savings. His idea was to cut back the NBN funding, and that was the very organisation that people were crying out for in places like Toowoomba, Ipswich, the Lockyer, the Scenic Rim and the Somerset regions. They are crying out for the NBN, and his idea was to delay and cut it back. His idea was to shave money off the BER funding that provided the very multipurpose halls which were used as evacuation and recovery centres in the flood crisis in places like Fernvale and Esk. It was a bewildering and flabbergasting response from those opposite.

I think the legislation here is important. It exempts the funding in relation to the DIRS. To put it in context, the information I have in relation to this is that, to date, Centrelink has processed over 664,000 claims for the Australian government disaster recovery payment in Queensland for floods, paying almost $715.1 million. It is an enormous amount of money. It has processed just under 72,000 DIRS claims in Queensland for floods, totalling over $54.9 million. That is why these payments are important. It is a huge amount of money going into the hands of individuals. In Ipswich about 3,000 homes were inundated. In the Somerset we are talking about 600 homes inundated—or pretty close to it. They are people who receive money whether they are New Zealanders or Australians. They receive money to help them because so many people lost everything. They lost their furniture, they lost their clothes, they lost their possessions, they lost their mementos—the things that they found important.

That money—the $1,000 per adult, the $400 per child and the $170 per person given by the Queensland Department of Communities—was absolutely vital not just to stimulate the economy but to give people some hope, some chance in life to rebuild. I am on the record as being critical of the means testing that the Queensland government has done in relation to this. I have been pushing the envelope on this issue, trying to advocate for my community in terms of our response on this issue. In fact I have been critical of all levels of government, but I do honour and thank all those levels of government—Centrelink, Ipswich City Council workers, the ADF, Somerset Regional Council workers and the Queensland Department of Communities. We have had a fantastic community response, a coordinated effort, to try to rebuild South-East Queensland, particularly in my electorate of Blair.

I am convinced that this government is on the right track towards recovery for South-East Queensland. I cannot say the same for those opposite, particularly when the Leader of the Opposition started listing off the flood affected electorates in Queensland and actually listed your electorate of Petrie, Madam Deputy Speaker D’Ath, where there was not any flooding. He could not even work out the electorates which had been flooded. That is the extent of the concern and consideration the Leader of the Opposition has for the people of Queensland—he did not even know which areas were flooded and what electorates people were harmed in. He did not understand the flood geography of Queensland, and he did not even understand the electoral demography of Queensland. That is the extent to which the Leader of the Opposition has concern for helping the people of South-East Queensland rebuild their lives.

This is good legislation; it will help my community and I warmly support it. I commend the government for being on the right track with flood recovery in South-East Queensland.

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