Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aged Care, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Monday, one of the most destructive cyclones ever seen in Australia crossed the Far North Queensland coast with 300 kilometre an hour winds that lashed an area that extended from south of Cairns to Cardwell, several hundred kilometres along the coast. It also travelled several hundred kilometres inland to the central and southern tablelands. An area about half the size of Tasmania is suffering the effects of Cyclone Larry. It was a terrifying ordeal. It lasted a number of hours but, thankfully, most of it was experienced in daylight. For that we can only be thankful.

The photos that many senators would have seen in the newspaper and on the television portray an horrific result of this horrible cyclone, but to see it first hand is almost numbing. You can hardly describe the enormity of its effects in words, it was so devastating. House after house has been extensively damaged, particularly along the coast. For example, at Babinda, a small sugar town, the mill looks like it would never start again, although we are assured that it will be up and running at the end of the year. House after house is unroofed or structurally blown apart. Innisfail is much the same, especially towards the coast. At Mission Beach, in particularly, the rainforest is unrecognisable as rainforest at the moment.

But we cannot forget that the area of the Atherton Tableland, which does not often get cyclones like we get on the coast, has suffered very significantly. As a tablelander I have to say that I feel a bit for those people because they have been a bit forgotten in the media discussions. To those towns of Ravenshoe, Millaa Millaa, Malanda and Atherton, for example, that have suffered significant damage, we are thinking about you.

The state of play at the moment is that the overall damage bill looks as if it will be something like $1.5 billion. That is a very expensive cyclone. At the moment about 1,000 people are homeless. There have been 6,000 homes damaged or totally destroyed. A very large number of commercial business or farm buildings have been damaged or destroyed. There has been severe damage to roads, bridges, rail infrastructure, and power, water and communications infrastructure. The damage bill to public infrastructure is presently at $600 million and rising. Can I say that I thank the government for finally agreeing to fund the flood proofing of the Bruce Highway around the Tully area. When you have a cyclone like this, it spurs the government into some sort of action, and I thank the government for finally handing over the cheque.

Primary producers have been hit hard, mainly in agriculture, as you would imagine. As you know, the banana crop has been totally destroyed, and those banana growers who tried to diversify and move part of their plantations up onto the tablelands to avoid an event such as this have got it at both ends, and I really feel sorry for them. My heart goes out to those growers. The cost to the banana industry at the moment is $300 million, which is similar to the effects on the sugar cane industry in North Queensland.

Fruit and vegetable crops have also suffered significant damage. Avocado production has basically been finished—certainly until we can get trees standing back up, with flowers on those trees and maybe some fruit next year. Dairy farming is a significant industry on the tablelands. I do not know how they are coping without power. We know that many generators have been brought in. I have only ever had to hand-milk a herd of dairy cows once in my life, but these people are looking at three weeks before they will have power on in some parts of the Atherton Tablelands. Some of the flowers that we saw at the Commonwealth Games came from farms that were devastated by the cyclone.

At the moment, we are looking at 4,000 jobs gone across all sectors. However, we have an absolute army of people who are there to support us, and that is what I want to focus on tonight. More than 1,000 emergency workers are in action as we speak. Defence Force personnel were in action by Wednesday. We thank them. The police, the fire brigade and ambulance officers were in action from the minute it started, and we thank them. The SES—those wonderful, orange clad SES people—do an enormous amount of work. They plan and get into action. I know the effort they put in prior to an event like this, and it works. To each and every one of those people, I give our sincere thanks. I heard the Governor-General talking to a group of them today—he was up in North Queensland today—and they were so tired they almost could not speak. Apparently they have been working 14 hours a day. So I say to those SES people: look after yourselves; this is going to take some time, so do not overdo it.

I also pay my thanks to workers from the state and local governments and the Commonwealth government. Significant numbers of Centrelink people have moved in and are working over weekends. I thank them very much for that. As you know, local government people are the first port of call. They devised the disaster management strategy and they put it into action, and they have done a terrific job. I also particularly want to pay tribute to Ergon workers, who have been working in very difficult circumstances. It is very dangerous, and they are working an enormous number of hours. As I said, it is going to take three weeks for some customers to get power back, but Ergon workers are doing a fantastic job. They are also making sure that people know what to expect, with regular radio broadcasts about what is going to occur.

Teams of tradespeople are starting to work together, and this has to be structured particularly well. I understand Qantas has brought a load of some 100-odd tradespeople into Cairns today. I also know that a lot of people in Cairns are putting up some of these workers so that they can live free of charge. I cannot list the number of charitable organisations that got themselves organised and into effect, basically from Tuesday, making sure that everything that could be provided was being provided. I thank the state and federal governments for their response—the cash support is very welcome. But I also particularly want to thank those people who are donating to the Premier’s disaster appeal. I understand it has collected over $1.5 million now. We are going to need a little more, so if you can find a few more pennies we would certainly value it. We will use it well.

On Saturday night we had a great night in Townsville. The North Queensland Cowboys defeated the Melbourne Storm. It could not have been a more appropriate contest that we had. So North Queensland knocked off the Storm last Saturday night. It is the view of North Queensland that we will defeat the other storm, Cyclone Larry, as well. I thank those fans of the Cowboys, and the Cowboys themselves, for raising $150,000 that night.

Most important of all is that neighbours are helping each other out. Whole communities are providing support to each other—physical labour and cleaning up each others’ yards. It happened in my street, and I thank my neighbours for helping me clean up my yard. A fine example of this is the Hmong community in and around Innisfail. They have been devastated. Their entire vegetable crop has been wiped out, but they have formally volunteered to pick up as many of the bananas that are on the ground now as they can.

We are a resilient mob in North Queensland. We are strong and we stick together. I am a little concerned that that strength and the stoic nature of North Queensland may be a problem into the future. I say to men who are feeling troubled: please do not bottle it up; please make sure that you seek the counselling that you need; please make sure that we continue to talk. The other group of people I want us to be vigilant about is children. Children who witnessed this event may need support into the future. It was terrifying, and we will need to be there for them. I might take an opportunity later in the week to make a longer contribution. Finally, I want to thank the media for their support in helping us through this event. (Time expired)