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

I am standing here today to report on the devastating cyclone that ripped through Central Queensland on Friday to Saturday morning. It is very sad in a lot of respects because places such as Biloela have had four floods since 2010-11. Jambin in particular and Goovigen have been severely hit by raging floodwaters. The Callide Dam flooded its gates. The first that Biloela people realised this was when the water came into their houses. These are houses that have never been flooded before. I was talking to one chap from Biloela who said that his grandfather had never seen a flood in this particular area. He told him where to build his house. Of course, you can guess what has happened. His house has been flooded. It happened because two dams upstream of Biloela burst at the same time, flooding the low-lying eastern Biloela area. There have been a lot of other houses damaged in the area and a lot of properties down the Callide Creek have been devastated, with fences wiped out and herds of cattle lost. Hopefully they will have found some more today. There has been widespread loss of electricity and phone service. Roads have been wiped out. Bridges have been lost. Really, it is a devastated area.

I tried to get into some of the parts of my electorate in the Callide Valley on Saturday but was turned away when I got to Callide Creek. There were people on the other side of the bridge, but there was a five-metre section of that bridge that had been washed away. Fortunately there was a fallen tree at one end of the road and another fallen tree at the other end of the road. The two trees probably saved lives because there would have been no way to see the gap in the bridge until it was too late. That act of God, as I see it, certainly saved lives. Those fallen trees at both ends of the bridge protected people from going into the hole in the bridge.

Gracemere and Mount Morgan suffered, as did Rockhampton and Yeppoon. The Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss and I did a tour of inspection of that area yesterday, but there were so many parts in my electorate we just could not get to to assess the damage. When people have no phones, no internet and no way of communicating, it is very hard to assess the damage that has been done. I am still getting calls today, and no doubt I will tomorrow and the next day, as people on those properties bring to our attention that they can use their roads again and put the flag up to say, 'Hang on. We need help.'

Another disturbing thing from the cyclone was that service stations went out. Marmor service station in particular has been badly damaged. People's generators only lasted a small period of time before they ran out of fuel, and then they could not get more fuel from the service stations. In Rockhampton there was a service station that came back online with generators. I noticed a pile-up of cars going into the service station. The queue of cars to get fuel went back about five or six blocks.

It started off as a category 1 cyclone which no-one really thought too much about. We thought, 'We can handle this. We've done it before.' But it quickly went through the different categories and, by the time it hit Yeppoon, it was a category 5. That is the worst cyclone you can have on any sort of reading.

The people of Central Queensland were taken by surprise. They did not expect the blow. There was a terrible amount of damage, with trees and power lines falling. About 600 electricity lines had to be repaired before we could get power to most sites. All the refrigerated food had to be thrown out, of course. The emergency was with the hospitals. The Mater hospital had generators but no fuel for the generators, so they were caught out. The main aim was and is to get essential services like hospitals, ambulances—those sorts of facilities—up and running as soon as we could. Hopefully, today, we have had a bit of success. The Army Reserve based in Rockhampton was out yesterday, and I believe that some 200 to 300 servicemen from Townsville will be lobbing on the city, hopefully today. Ergon, the electricity company, is sending in reinforcements from all over Queensland. It is a credit to the volunteers.

I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker Prentice, were very much involved during the Emerald floods and that you know exactly what can happen when all hell breaks loose. It was not so much the wind in Biloela that caused problems as the release of water out of the dam. In 2013 we had the big flood that wiped out Bundaberg. The water that rushed through Jambin on Saturday morning was two metres higher than during the floods of 2013. That is how much water came down. I was talking to a grazier. He said that he had never seen water like that: it went past his eyes in a flash. He said it was amazing. He estimates that he has lost 500 cattle. I hope he has had some luck today in finding some of those cattle. You never know where cattle end up when they are in a flood situation. The tally so far is that Biloela has had 200 houses and about 200 properties flooded and Jambin and Goovigen were totally evacuated. Theodore was the first town ever to be totally evacuated, in the 2013 flood, and now we have to add Jambin and Goovigen. That is pretty sad. Most roads in and out of Biloela are still damaged or cut. Graziers have no fences left. They have asked me to get the agriculture minister into that area as soon as I can. There are no phones, no electricity, no fuel and no generators. We have NDRAA assistance from the federal government and the state government is helping out with its financial packages. The federal government's package is $1,000 per male or female adult and $400 per child.

My heart goes out to the people of Eidsvold. On Tuesday morning, they had an earthquake that measured 5.8 on the Richter scale. They started the week with an earthquake, which could be felt at Gladstone, where I live, which is probably 400 kilometres away, and then on Friday they had the flood situation. They survived. They are very resilient people. The road from Mount Perry to Monto has been cut. Bancroft and those areas out there have got no services.

It has been a hell of a few days. I take my hat off to all those people who are going about getting the place back to normal. Yesterday it was 42 degrees, that really steamy, muggy weather. I know how hot the army uniforms are, but those guys struggled on, mulching trees. The schools are all wrecked, although a lot of kids would have gone back to school today, with a bit of luck. Many houses around Mount Larcom, Gracemere and Mount Morgan were damaged. There was a lot of damage and it will take a long time to fix, but we will survive.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Member for Flynn. I am sure the chamber shares your concerns for your constituents. There are no further speakers. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 192B. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 17:45.