Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to update the House and the nation on the progress of the Lockyer Valley and how my community is dealing with the after-effects of one of Queensland’s most horrific natural disasters.

It will take many months and potentially years for families to recover from the life-changing floods that inundated the Lockyer Valley on 10 January this year. We still have families, displaced from their homes, who are staying with relatives and friends, and that is starting to become a tough gig for them. We have many families who are waiting for insurance companies that are procrastinating on claims and we have insurance companies which have rejected claims and are squarely in the crosshairs of my fury and will feel the full wrath of my fury as time rolls on. Insurance companies that reject claims are in the forefront of my mind, constantly. Believe me, you have not got off lightly and I have not begun on you yet. I anticipate supporting evidence, in the coming weeks, to support my people with their insurance claims.

With reference to our priorities in the region at the moment, we want to try to get the locals back into their normal routines. That means getting our little service station up and running, getting our little corner store up and running and, most importantly, getting our little pub up and running. The pub is a place where community groups and members would have their meetings of an evening and where the men would come in from the paddocks and have a beer and share their stories of the day’s activities. The winter crops throughout the district are all planted, which brings comfort to our landscape. The paddocks have been sown with cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and a variety of lettuces. On Anzac Day we will start to plant onions and, of course, beetroot, which is a staple product throughout the area.

The landscape is still scarred from the torrent of water that went through the area. However, it gives me great comfort to report that the wonderful acts of kindness and the overwhelming donations of gifts, household goods and cash are making a difference. Cash donations are many; however, there is considerable unrest in the community about the delays in the funds reaching the ground, where they are most needed, particularly those funds from the Premier’s flood appeal. We are seeing a trend away from funds being donated to the Premier’s flood appeal and a stronger concentration of funds being directed to two local funds. Those two funds are the Lockyer Valley Flood Relief fund and the Grantham Community Flood Fund.

Whilst I am truly humbled by the generosity of Australians and the business sector, I would like to recognise a number of organisations which have shown considerable generosity and given not necessarily the biggest donations but donations that come with a story. The Heritage Building Society has given half a million dollars. The Reader’s Digest, an international organisation, has given $10,000—they do not get a lot of return out of it but it was a great effort. The story which touches me is the Alpha Isolated Children’s Parents Association. They have an annual fundraiser up in Alpha where 28 cricket teams come for one day of the year. That is their major fundraiser and they donated all the proceeds of that day, their biggest fundraiser for the year, to the appeal. I would like to acknowledge the donation that Tony Abbott made the other day at a fundraiser in Sydney—he auctioned his bike from the Pollie Pedal fundraiser and those funds were well received. There is also the ACT Wine Industry Network, which we will be making an announcement about tomorrow.

To all of you and to all Australians who have donated, thank you, thank you, thank you on behalf of my people. However, we still have a long way to go. We have a lot of rebuilding to do and there is a short time to get there. I encourage any community groups conducting fundraisers who wish to assist with the clean-up to contact my office, so we can assist you with advice that will get funds to the people on the ground quicker and to those people on the ground who need them the most.

On a lighter note, the spirits of the community were lifted over the weekend by the anticipated visit of a very special visitor, a visitor who gave us short notice, which we overcame as a community, a visitor who was known to everyone in the district and who needed no introduction. Yes, you guessed it—all the way from overseas and having just landed in Australia the day before, it was none other than Kevin Rudd. I mentioned in my condolence speech the bipartisan support that the region experienced and I would like to thank Kevin for his compassion and the way he interacted with the local people.