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

In this place most of us represent electorates named after famous people relevant to that particular area with a few exceptions such as Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. My electorate of Blair is named after Harold Blair, a very famous civil rights activist and opera singer in Australia. Often I have to explain where Blair is. I say to people that is all of the Somerset region and the majority of Ipswich. But since the 2011 floods, on numerous occasions, I have explained that my region contains the Wivenhoe Dam, the Somerset Dam, the Bremer River, the Brisbane River and the Lockyer Creek and then they know because those areas in my electorate were impacted. If you look at the AEC website and look at the map of the electorate of Blair, right in the middle is the Wivenhoe Dam and to the north of it the Somerset Dam and below that the rivers and creeks I referred to.

Following Australia Day, the electorate of Blair was fighting floodwaters yet again. My heart goes out to the people who were flooded and to the businesses and farmers. I remember the '74 flood when I was a kid and my parents' house going eight foot under the water and me—doing something quite silly when I look back—on a rowboat going out and sitting above my bedroom on the roof of the house. The area around Ipswich, I know very well. The damage this time was not as severe as in 2011 and certainly not as bad as 1974, but people living in the lower part of the Somerset region were very badly damaged. The area around Patrick Estate, O'Reilly's Weir, Clarendon and Lowood was inundated and isolated as were all the country towns in areas up around Linville. Mount Stanley is still cut off. Like last time, there were people that we had to helicopter food in to and there are still areas of isolation now with causeways, roads and bridges cut off.

Over 250 properties are believed to have been severely impacted in the Somerset region. Some of the worst affected homes had about 1.5 metres of water through the living areas. About 165 businesses, mainly agribusinesses, in the lower Somerset were adversely affected. These are big farms, big areas that you can see on the map. They are significant farming properties. Many of these farmers had corn, lucerne, soya beans or other types of horticulture there. They were flooded and they lost their fences. Last night I spoke to Trevor Barber and his wife, Marilyn. They are soya bean and corn farmers in Clarendon in the lower Somerset region. Their farm was submerged in water, destroying most of the crops and causing considerable erosion. They sent me images of what it had done to their farm and it was terrible. The financial cost to them will be severe. For the second time in two years, they have lost their crops to flooding. Like them, Andrew and Roslyn Jackwitz's family farm in Clarendon suffered the same fate. Now I have photographs that illustrate the desolation of their farm as their crops and their fences were washed away, and the topsoil from their prime farming land is just gone. The impact will be felt for years to come.

The mayor of the Somerset Regional Council, Graeme Lehmann, told me about a week and a half ago that he expected the damage bill to be in excess of $20 million because of damaged infrastructure such as roads, bridges and causeways. I expect that will be much higher. Certainly that was the experience last time with the Somerset council. They initially underestimated the damage. Later, when they were able to go through the whole region—and it is the council covering the biggest geographic region in South-East Queensland—they found out that it was much worse. Somerset regional councillor Jim Madden has sent me some photographic images of some of the damaged infrastructure that I have not had the opportunity to get to and I have seen quite a lot of the damage.

In October last year I announced the completion of 70 causeways up towards the Mount Stanley region in the north-west of the electorate of Blair. That was done through NDRRA. That area has been cut off yet again by heavy water and the farmers have been isolated. It is disturbing to see $5 million of repairs literally go down the drain. I note the very wise comments of the member for Hinkler in relation to this. The causeways in the Mount Stanley region need repair yet again. We have to do it. The farmers need them. There are dairy farmers there and beef farmers. We have to do—there is no alternative. These are significant contributors. People have been in these areas for generation after generation. They are Australians. They pay taxes and they deserve our love and affection and our financial support as well.

In March 2012, the Somerset Regional Council mayor, Graeme Lehmann, and I opened the Richards and Hubner bridges at Sandy Creek in the north-east part of the electorate near Kilcoy. That was funded under the federal government's Roads to Recovery program and the Natural Disaster Recovery and Relief Arrangement. Now they are damaged and need repair yet again. The opening of the Alf Williams Bridge over Gregors Creek and O'Connors Bridge in Colinton were delayed due to the passing of long-serving councillor Neil Zabel. The official opening was to be next month. Those bridges are completely submerged and very damaged. It will be very difficult and costly to get them repaired.

I congratulate the Somerset Regional Council, which in 2011 had its headquarters wiped out in the flood, for its handling of the flood situation. I thank the council for its expeditious opening of the evacuation centres in all the country towns in my electorate. Up to 150 people were in Kilcoy. There continues to be a recovery centre in the Lowood showgrounds. The council kept the public and the media well aware of what was happening, with constant updates and information. The council's disaster recovery group has been reactivated, with Councillor Jim Madden heading up the economic subgroup to handle the significant impact on local businesses. He will be joined by members of the Business Enterprise Centre Ipswich region, the Kilcoy Chamber of Commerce and the Somerset Regional Business Alliance and ably supported by council staff, including Brad Sully, the manager of council planning and development. This is a council that has learned from the 2011 events and that has responded quickly. I commend the council and all the council staff for the great work that they have done. I also commend the not-for-profit organisations such as the SES, the rural fire brigades and all the local service clubs such as Lions and Rotary that got behind the council.

In Ipswich, the flooding was not as extensive as it had been in 2011. The Brisbane River cuts through Ipswich. The Bremer River rose to five metres shy of the 2011 flood waters, 13.9 metres as opposed to 19.5 metres in the Ipswich CBD. In 2011, it was 19.5 metres. That was an enormous flood. This time, it was 13.9 metres. The council today reports that in Ipswich the expected damage will be $30 million. I spent the Australia Day long weekend knocking on doors in low-lying suburbs like Booval and East Ipswich and Basin Pocket. They were inundated in 2011, as they were in 1974. I was providing assistance, helping people to evacuate, getting muddy, warning people about the flood levels and sometimes hugging people and giving them a shoulder to cry on. Residents were living through what they thought was a recurring nightmare.

I was in constant contact with Councillor Cheryl Bromage, who was the deputy chair of the disaster management group. Cheryl and I are good friends and we spoke again and again. I thank her for her wonderful work in the flood. I thank the Ipswich mayor, Paul Pisasale, the chair of the local disaster management group, for letting the people of Australia know what was happening in Ipswich via his constant and well-thought through media commentary. He let the people of Australia know what was going on.

That disaster management group had two local disaster coordinators, staff members of the council, Craig Maudsley and Bryce Hines, and I thank them for their great work. It is well represented by community and emergency services, including Energex, the Red Cross, the Ipswich District Police, Queensland Ambulance Service, the Department of Transport and Main Roads, Queensland Urban Utilities, the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Queensland Health, the Department of Communities, Amberley RAAF and 9 FSB Army battalion, which is also based at Amberley. The group would not be complete without Ipswich SES headed by Arie van den Ende.

Arie has taken every opportunity to bring the needs of the SES to me and to the Prime Minister, particularly in relation to the need for another sandbagging machine. He made that request once in the past through the office assisting the Queensland flood recovery to the Attorney-General and straight to the Prime Minister. The request was made to the Prime Minister in front of the national press. I was pleased and relieved that the federal Labor government was able to deliver the funding for the purchase of a sandbagging machine. The Prime Minister came to Arie and the Ipswich SES volunteers in June last year to give them the good news.

The SES volunteers in Ipswich and the Somerset region, indeed throughout Queensland, have been inspirational in their efforts to protect businesses, farms and homes and assist in evacuations and road clearing. The Ipswich SES volunteers logged over 3,000 hours of community support. In the 2011 floods, the Ipswich SES volunteers hand filled over 11,000 sandbags. These sandbagging machines, including the one we delivered at the request of the Ipswich SES in July last year, can fill up to 300 bags an hour. I thank the Australian Defence Force personnel who assisted in sandbagging in very muddy conditions which I witnessed first-hand at the Ipswich SES headquarters. I thank the SES workers. I know they ate plenty of sausages and plenty of burgers on that day. They were well fed and they worked so hard. In 2013, the Ipswich SES was able to provide 9,000 sandbags thanks to the new sandbagging machines provided by council and by the federal Labor government.

On the first day of the flooding event, 220 people were registered at the evacuation centre at Ipswich Showgrounds. I thank the Ipswich Show Society President, Marcia Cruikshank, and her hard-working vice president, Rusty Thomas, for facilitating those efforts. I thank the Salvation Army and the Red Cross for their efforts at the Ipswich evacuation centre. I thank Pat Roach and the St John's Ambulance team for their work. Pat and I had a conversation about the fact that we were back at the evacuation centre. She was there in 2011 along with her workers. The look on Pat's face when I arrived there was so heartbreaking. Residents were able to bring their beloved pets and the pound at Ipswich relocated to the showgrounds, which was very important for the people. When floodwaters receded, centres at Ipswich Showgrounds and at Shilo, in the electorate of Oxley, were closed.

At the peak of the flood 47 Ipswich roads were severely affected. The Sydney Street bridge was out and the Hancock Street bridge was out. I make this point to the government: if ever there were a demonstrated need for a second crossing of the Bremer River, it was clearly the case in this flood. We have one major bridge in town, the David Trumpey Bridge, which takes 40,000 vehicles a day. We need the Norman Street bridge from East Ipswich across to North Ipswich, because the traffic congestion was terrible. Thirty-one residential properties in Ipswich were badly affected, with homes in Tiger and Keogh streets in West Ipswich inundated up to the eaves, as they had been in 2011. Fifteen businesses in West Ipswich were badly flooded and 28 UniLink student accommodation units in Churchill were affected. Flooding left about 5,000 people in Ipswich without power.

We are looking to rebuild. The iconic Colleges Crossing Recreation Reserve is very important to the people of Brisbane and Ipswich. It recently received an $11 million restoration following the 2011 floods, of which $9 million came from the Natural Disaster Recovery and Relief Arrangements. The council has yet to fully assess the damage to the reserve, but it will be extensive. It must be rebuilt for the people of Ipswich and Brisbane. As people in the Somerset region and Ipswich assess the damage, they will continue to have challenges in relation to insurance.

I have been a pretty vocal critic of the insurance industry and I was fairly significantly influential in making sure that a House of Representatives Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs chaired by my colleague the member for Moreton, looked at this particular issue of insurance around the country. That inquiry took us around the country. We saw after 2011—and I hope this does not happen again—a process whereby premiums were raised to ridiculous levels and people could not get flood insurance. Things were done by way of postcode. Effectively what was happening was a re-victimisation of flood victims.

I think the insurance industry needs to be monitored in relation to what happens across the country in places like Ipswich, Somerset and indeed Bundaberg, the member for Hinkler's electorate. I thank the government for the extensive assistance they have provided. I hope and expect that the Queensland government—and I have to say this—will cease politicking. If you read the media back home in Ipswich, in Queensland and in Brisbane, you see the LNP state government has engaged in egregious and disgraceful politicking and you can see again and again wrong claims in relation to the degree of assistance we have provided. Indeed Campbell Newman was in Ipswich this morning criticising the federal government's assistance to the region. Instead of pulling together at this particular time, outrageous claims, inaccurate claims, were being made in relation to the degree of assistance provided by the government—so I will only say that much. I thought that the Premier of Queensland and his Treasurer would rise above that and stop playing politics, and I urge them to do so. This government has had a proud record of working with Queenslanders to rebuild communities. We will do that this time as we did in 2011.

I want to make one final point. Today we are seeing in Ipswich the reopening of Coles after extensive flooding in 2011. The loss of the Coles supermarket devastated Ipswich in the middle of the town. Today Coles opened a 6,000 square metre flood proof store employing more than 200 local staff. It is a terrific morale boost for business in Ipswich, particularly in and around Brisbane Street and Limestone Street, so badly affected by the 2011 flood. I thank Coles for doing so. I thank the council and the people of Ipswich. I thank the council and the people of Somerset for their fortitude, resilience and their commitment and for the great communitarian spirit they have shown at this time. I am with them, we are with them, we will not forget them and we will be there every step of the way.

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