Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start my remarks, I note the presence of Minister Farrell, who has had a big week thus far this week. It's good to see you here at the end of today's sitting day, Minister Farrell.

The Gulf of Carpentaria has been hit with catastrophic flooding during the course of 2023. Whilst it is usual for the Gulf of Carpentaria to experience large rainfall events, the latest events have been catastrophic. Given the gulf community is one of the most remote communities in Australia, the scale of the events needs to be recognised by everyone in this place. To underline the significance and catastrophic nature of the rainfall events, we should bear in mind that communities in the Gulf of Carpentaria region have been without supplies for months. Communities have been cut off for months. The road network has been consistently cut off. The airstrip in Burketown has been flooded, and this has restricted the ability of planes to take off and land, which has meant that smaller capacity helicopters have been the only way to bring essential supplies into the community or to evacuate people in medical emergencies.

This week a delegation of senior representatives of the Gulf of Carpentaria community arrived in Canberra to discuss their concerns and to provide their perspectives on what is happening in the Gulf of Carpentaria and on how we as the nation's parliament should respond to what is happening there. I pay tribute to Councillor Ernie Camp, the Mayor of Burke Shire Council; Councillor John Clarke of Burke Shire Council; Mr Dan McKinlay, the CEO of Burke Shire Council; and Mr Troy Fraser, the CEO of Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council. I would like to thank each and every one of you for your leadership in the community at this extraordinarily difficult time. I'd like to thank you for coming to Canberra, for leaving your communities in order to make the forceful representations which you have made in Canberra during this time, and thank you for the passion you have for your community. It was an absolute privilege and honour to meet with each of you during the course of this week. The passion and the concern you have for your community shone through in the meeting which I had the honour of attending with each and every one of you.

I'll take this opportunity to put on the record of this place what this community needs moving forward. Everyone in this place needs to give careful consideration to the very reasonable requests that are being made by the representatives of this community. First is the need for Gregory-Burketown-Doomadgee road flood-resilience works. The need for these resilience works has been demonstrated by the most recent catastrophe. There is a need to raise a number of crossings in the region to assist with the reopening of these communities and their access to the broader road network in Queensland. It is estimated that these works would cost up to $75 million, but they are absolutely essential. We cannot have a situation where communities in our country are isolated for months and months on end. These roadworks are necessary for these communities.

There is also a need for waste transfer stations to be constructed in both Burketown and Gregory. We also need to look at the opportunity for people in this community to access community health and wellbeing facilities of the nature that we all take for granted when we come to a place like this, which includes a 25-metre, four-lane swimming pool. We've got one in Parliament House. The communities in the Gulf of Carpentaria deserve to have the same facility in their region. The Burketown airport runway needs to be raised so it's flood proof. That is such an obvious request that no further comment is really needed.

The Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council need a Doomadgee disaster evacuation centre. They need somewhere safe where, in the event of an extreme rain event such as the current one, everyone can come in from the outstations and find safety and support. Again, that is not too much to ask. We have many such centres in other places in Queensland, and the people of the Doomadgee Aboriginal Shire Council deserve the same facility.