Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday, 3 September, I hosted a community meeting at St Peter Chanel School, in The Gap. The meeting was to bring together constituents of the Ryan electorate—particularly those who live in The Gap—to discuss ways in which they could be assisted by a number of insurance companies. This is relevant, because on 17 November 2008 the beautiful suburb of The Gap endured what one constituent called a minitornado. That minitornado destroyed so many homes and so much property and brought incredible physical damage to The Gap. It also left an incredible emotional and mental scar on the suburb, on the people and on the families of The Gap. Amongst the scars was that of coping with recovery. A key aspect of that was claiming insurance for the enormous physical damage that was done to property, home and physical infrastructure such as cars. We thank God that no-one’s life was taken.

The enormous stress that visited the families of Ryan was there for all to see last Thursday at St Peter Chanel School. At that meeting scores of Ryan residents expressed their dismay at how difficult it was, how stressful it was, for them to recover compensation or insurance from the insurance companies of Australia that they had been insured with for property damage, for infrastructure damage. The tales of grief and the emotion that was expressed on that evening at The Gap is something that will stay with me for a long time to come. I want to thank all those who came along and confronted probably demons, because I know many people have said to me that the last 10 months have been hell on earth, the last 10 months have been months of sleepless nights. They express gratitude for bringing together insurance company representatives to try and resolve outstanding issues.

I want to retail to the House the words of one constituent of mine who has very kindly allowed me to use her name, Simone Mackinder, from The Gap. I think her experiences eloquently paint a picture of exactly the terrible stress that Gap residents had to endure.

After waiting patiently for the three months for anything to happen, someone suggested asking for the money and organising repairs for ourselves. By this point, we had already been making most of the phone calls and getting quotes anyway, as the insurance company people were not making many, or any, efforts to that effect.

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We also had one car written off and another requiring a week’s worth of repairs. When I went to collect the ‘repaired’ car, I was pretty much treated as if I was a liar and a fraud by the insurance company. Only some of the damage to our vehicle was deigned to be repaired by the assessor. Incredibly obvious storm damage was instructed to be ‘left untouched’ by the repairer. When I promptly called the insurance company to ask why all the damages had not been repaired, I was made to feel like I was attempting to make false claims and told to ‘call back when I had calmed down’.

Simone goes on to say in her in email to me:

We have almost finished our repairs, after nine months, and yes, while the insurance companies did finally come to the party, I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling a very bitter taste in my mouth still when insurance companies are mentioned. We did not ask to be put in the path of a freak storm, but there you have it. We also did not ask to be treated with suspicion and feel like we had done something wrong.

Simone goes on very eloquently in her email.

I want to take this opportunity to thank in particular the insurance companies that did send representatives. They do deserve acknowledgement, Suncorp in particular but also Apia, RACQ and CGU as well as NRMA. I want to thank very much Ruth and Pierangelo Molachino from The Gap, who rang my office to say that their stress miraculously disappeared when Suncorp called them on the Friday and said to them that they have now no worries because they will be paid out, a reversal of their previous decision where Suncorp did not want to pay for retaining wall damage but now they will do so. I want to thank very much all those insurance companies that have supported the people of The Gap in this terrible hour. (Time expired)