Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Who would have thought of this after the 2010-11 floods that affected the people of my electorate and those in the electorates of the member for Ryan and the member for Brisbane? I have often had this question put to me: what would you prefer if you were a farmer, a flood, a fire or a drought? It is a very good question and I do not expect an answer. You could debate the matter with yourself over and over again. I tend to think that, if I were a farmer, I would prefer a drought. Fires are very destructive, as are floods. Floods will wipe out everything on your property, as will a fire. Droughts do not take your house, your machinery or your farm infrastructure. That is something just to think about.

My electorate takes in a little of North Bundaberg. It was a record flood, equal to the 1942 flood. People said they never thought they would ever see it in their lifetime. It is certainly a record for Bundaberg.

In other parts of the Burnett River, sometimes it registered over the 1942 floods and in other places it did not. But one thing is for sure: the rain came down very quickly, which caused the movement of the water to be very quick. That is why it hit Bundaberg in not so many days. It did the same thing in Rockhampton. The local water is never really a problem for flooding around Rockhampton, but it was this time. There is total devastation across two-thirds of my electorate. Fortunately Emerald and Theodore, which were so badly affected in 2010, escaped. But the other two-thirds of my electorate was hit very badly. It affected railway lines and roads to an extent. But I am pleased to report that, maybe because of the action of Main Roads, which has cleared a lot of debris and put drainage along the sides of the roads, the main highways did not seem to be so badly affected as they were in 2010.

There was a lot of destruction on new bridge works. I think in future we have got to spend a little bit more money on bridge ends and use more concrete instead of bitumen because, with this heavy rain, the bitumen will soon lift off and create great holes and wells in the bridge ends, which makes those bridges impassable. When I saw the holes that have been gouged in the sides of roads and bridges, it certainly changed my mind about driving in heavy rain. The holes are so dangerous they could swallow a car in one go.

There was crop destruction along the Burnett River, which runs for about 250 kilometres before it gets to Bundaberg. Some parts the river were five or six kilometres wide; in other places it was narrower. Of course, the narrower it is the faster the water runs. The citrus plantations—oranges and mandarins—and blueberry farms have been hit very hard. Fences have been destroyed everywhere. Over 1,000 kilometres of fences were knocked down in the Banana Shire alone. Hundreds of homes were inundated and some were lost forever; some of them were seen floating down the Burnett River. Some sheds in the Stanwell area were picked up, with their concrete base attached, and dumped on other people's properties. That is how strong the water was.

Very high stock losses were reported in the early days. But as the floodwaters receded, cattle, pigs, sheep et cetera bobbed up on other properties downstream. At one stage one particular grazier thought he had lost 3,000 head. Fortunately, at this stage he has recovered about 2,000 head on other people's properties downriver. A dairy farmer at Mundubbera had a dairy herd of 400 cows. He initially lost the lot; they were washed away. Fortunately he has recovered half to 60 per cent of his herd—and, who knows, he may recover more. There was a loss of herds on the Gayndah Bridge, which is a pretty high bridge. When the waters receded, cattle and timber—full trees—were stuck in the bridge and they had to be removed before the bridge could be used. One particular farmer did not suffer floodwater damage to his shed, but the whirlybirds on the roof of his shed were sucked out and, of course, the rainwater did the rest of the damage.

Irrigation systems were lost. They were bent and twisted. Machinery was inundated with water. A brand new grader of the North Burnett shire was put on a hill which they thought was high enough to be out of floodwaters. It had all the modern gizmos and electronics. It went under. There are many stories like that where cars and tractors and other vehicles and cattle trucks have all been lost. Pump stations have been covered in mud and sand. There are not enough electricians to fix those yet. It is going to take a long time. On the Binjour Plateau a highway between Gayndah and Mundubbera has had great holes washed in the side of the road and people are unable to use it bar one lane.

There were two motels in Mundubbera. They were completely inundated with water. So there is no accommodation as such from motels. My good friend's hotel in Gayndah was washed away completely. He had poker machines, a TAB agency, living accommodation for him and his family and the accommodation in the motel units. That has all been lost. It is very devastating.

I think it has been mentioned before in the lower house that Lizzy Connelly from Eidsvold was a very lucky girl indeed. She went to bed, there was heavy rain and she got up to have a look around. The waters picked her up and threw her out of the house, down over the yard, over the fence, across the highway and over another fence. Fortunately, she ended up in a plantation of trees. The trees were pretty branchy and leafy and for the next five hours she clung to these trees along with a big brown snake in the same tree as she was. I think they were both pretty frightened. She lived to tell the tale and it was a marvellous and miraculous escape by a very brave young lady.

I will go through my electorate, where four or five shires were flooded. I will start with the north, with Rockhampton, Neerkol, Kabra, Stanwell, Bajool, Mount Morgan, Alton Downs—and Alton Downs has been under water twice in the same flood. The road from Mount Morgan to the dam has been very badly damaged. I have seen that with my own eyes. The Neerkol bridge has been washed out. That is on the main Capricorn Highway from Rockhampton to Emerald. So it has been severely damaged. There is a side track there now until the bridge is fixed, which will take months. Take Wilson's farm on the Yeppoon-Emu Park road. They have sent me photos. There is a lot of erosion and a lot of gouging of soil.

If you head into the Banana shire, the towns of Jambin, Wowan, Goovigen, Baralaba were all heavily affected. I was talking to a lady in Wowan who had not seen her husband. He was safe. He was on top of a roof. What happened on the Sunday and the Monday, probably at the peak of the flood, was that all the telecommunications lines went out. Telstra did apologise profusely. They had two lines in Queensland. One south of Mirrimbah got washed out and they could not get in a chopper or a vehicle to join it all up again. There was another one near Kingaroy. Again, they could not get in vehicles to fix or repair. So most of those flood affected areas were out of communications. That led to a lot of confusion and misinformation as to what was happening. Well, there was no information at all. It was all hearsay.

That is what the people of our electorate had to endure. As you move south to North Burnett, Gayndah, Mundubbera, Eidsvold and Monto, all had major damage. South Burnett towards Kingaroy and Wadeye had huge flood waters, again doing damage to farmland and fences et cetera. My good friend Paul Neville, the member for Hinkler, described the scene at Bundaberg, so I will not go into that again. Needless to say, there are still people assessing their losses. My staff have only today got into a place called Winfield, and Battle Creek, which is a fair way north of Bundaberg. They have been cut off and no one has been able to get in there.

I experienced a fair bit of difficulty getting around because the Army, which do a great job, came in. When the Army come into your area—and fortunately they did—they do take control of the fuel, so some private helicopters and planes were short of fuel. That was not a big help to me but the fuel was better off being used by the Army for the rescue of people than for my cause. People stood shoulder to shoulder. Some had no outside assistance. I ran into two ladies at Stanwell. The police could not get in. They just took control of that area. They rounded the people up and made an evacuation centre for them in the Stanwell hall. For 2½ days no-one knew they were there, but they kept them calm. They raided their own fridges and fed the people. When the police finally did arrive they were amazed to see what a good survival job they had done.

Throughout the electorate there are all sorts of stories and there will be more over the coming months. The emergency services, the volunteers, the police and the Army all did a wonderful job and there was no loss of life. That is something we can be grateful for. The government assistance is starting to flow in now. We only have South Burnett and Banana, which will be declared in the next day, I hope, with some funding and the AGDRP, the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payments. Once that happens it is going to take a long time to rebuild. A lot of the farmers, who are devastated, are still paying back loans from the 2010 flood, so they are going to be hit hard. They say to me, 'We don't want to owe more money.' I had the services of John Cobb, our shadow agriculture minister, and Warren Truss, Leader of the Nationals. A lot of politicians, including the Prime Minister, went to Bundaberg. We elected to do the country areas. All those people came to Bundaberg and up north to Burnett and Rockhampton.

I thank them all. There are too many to mention, both state and federal politicians. I want to also thank our colleagues in Canberra, whatever electorate they come from. They rang on numerous occasions to offer their condolences and help. I thank them very much.

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