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

I rise to inform the House, yet again, of another disaster that has bestowed itself upon the Lockyer Valley. I was first elected in 2010, and it just feels like groundhog day, having to come into the chamber and once again share stories of loss of life and the complete flattening of agricultural product. It happened on Friday in the form of a hailstorm, affecting roughly 40 farmers. It was a small belt, about half a mile wide, that went through town. It de-roofed sheds, picking them up and throwing them three or four kilometres down the road. It snapped off power poles. Think of the ferocity! Signs on the side of the road—Brisbane 200 kilometres, Toowoomba, Darwin—laid flat as if a dozer had run over them. Mother Nature was cruel in the way she dealt a blow to the Lockyer Valley. Corn crops that would normally be seven or eight foot high—the odd thing about that, when you witness the aftermath, is that it looked like a slasher had gone through and just taken these crops off the ground—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:26 to 16:45

As I was saying, when you run a slasher over a corn crop there'd normally be debris lying on the ground, but the ferocity of this weather event just cleared it. There is nothing; there is absolutely nothing.

Spare a thought for people like Joy Greenwood, who lost her life. She was simply going about her tasks in the afternoon, down feeding horses or animals. A tree limb fell on her, and unfortunately Joy lost her life. My heart goes out to her partner, Colin, and her entire family, who will go through the process of mourning as they deal with the unfortunate consequences. Spare a thought for the growers, the 40 growers, who have had their crops destroyed. It is unfathomable to see and to work and to water and to have all the input costs—the fertiliser costs, the labour costs—to get this product up out of the ground only to have it destroyed. Just at the time that you would start picking your harvest, where you'd have the money in the bank and you could use the profits to go and plant the next crops, it's just not there. I want to acknowledge the amazing work of the mayor over there; the president of the growers association, Mick Sippel; and Jim McDonald, the state member. (Time expired)