Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Moore, a Queensland senator, for the question. In relation to the storms that lashed South-East Queensland last week, I was able to get a first-hand account of the damage caused by those storms, which have taken a terrible toll on the people of Queensland. Our thoughts are with those thousands of families that have been caught up in the disaster. The storms, of course, first hit on the afternoon of Sunday, 16 November 2008, when 69 millimetres of rain fell within 30 minutes, causing local flooding in Brisbane. The storms brought heavy rain, hail and wind gusts of up to 130 kilometres per hour, causing branches and trees to fall across roadways and, of course, onto houses. Fallen power poles blacked out over 80,000 houses in the region. About 4,000 homes were seriously affected and 1,800 were uninhabitable within the suburbs of The Gap, Keperra, Ferny Hills and Ashgrove, which were the worst affected. Brisbane was officially declared a natural disaster area by the state government. Tragically, one man was killed when he was swept away in a stormwater drain while attempting to photograph the storm.

As emergency services crews began cleaning up and tarping properties that had lost roofs, a second major storm struck South-East Queensland on the night of Wednesday, 19 November, causing widespread flooding across the region. Flash flooding swept through areas between Toowoomba and Ipswich, with falls of more than 200 millimetres being recorded up to midnight. One woman, tragically, lost her life when she was washed away with her car in flooding near Laidley. Major highways and suburban roads were impassable, train lines cut and emergency services told people not to travel unless it was absolutely essential. The Rudd government swung into immediate action on Monday. The Prime Minister, Mr Kevin Rudd, visited affected areas in Brisbane’s north-west and immediately— (Time expired)