Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales) (6.45 pm)
—I also rise on this motion of condolence with
regard to the natural disasters that our country has
experienced over the last few weeks. My eldest son,
David, and his wife Tammy, along with their threeweek-
old baby boy, live in Cairns, as well as my only
daughter, Rebecca. On the Wednesday of the morning
that Cyclone Yasi was to arrive in Cairns, it was a
frightening experience to talk to the children and to
sense the fear in their voices about what was going to
happen. Thankfully, all there came through well.
But, in relation to the floods, we saw frightening
scenes on television at Toowoomba, Ipswich, Brisbane
and out through the river system. The Condamine has
been flooded several times this summer—including at
St George, as of course my colleague Senator Barnaby
Joyce is well aware.
I would also like to refer to northern New South
Wales. On 11 January at Tenterfield, just south of the
Queensland border on the New England Highway, they
experienced some 220 millimetres of rain over several
hours, which effectively cut the town in half. Many
houses were inundated with water. The Dumaresq
Valley flooded, and the damage that has caused to
farms down that valley, and the loss of income, has
just been huge. Some say it was larger than the 1976
flood; some say it was on par. It was pleasing to
note that last week Senator Joe Ludwig, Minister for
Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, visited that area
between Tenterfield and Bonshaw, along with the
member for New England, Tony Windsor. All I can
say is that the loss of income to the farmers has been
huge. One farm I visited, when we went up there to
a meeting at Mingoola, had lost 8,000 bales of hay
—at $10 for a small bale, that is $80,000; two fourwheel
motorbikes—probably another $10,000; and
200 tonnes of pumpkins—$360,000, at $1,800 a tonne.
It was quite amazing to see the damage to the road, the
washout of the bridges, the approaches taken out—not
two metres long and two metres deep but probably 50
metres long and 10 metres deep, like a river just carving
out a whole new river system alongside the bridges.
I saw 2,000-litre fuel tanks five metres up in the
trees and the pumpkins hanging off the centre pivots
like Christmas decorations. The damage has been
huge, including hundreds and hundreds of kilometres
of fencing. I was doing some quick calculations the
other day. Just for a five plain-wire and one barbedwire
fence you are looking at $2,000 per kilometre to
replace. The cost is huge, and these people have lost
their income for the year. Their concern is, of course,
like most on the land: how do they pay the bank?
It was not only the hay area and the irrigation
areas but the wineries up there that were affected.
I pay a special tribute to Nick De Stefani at Reedy
Creek Winery, who coordinated so much in the area.
A helicopter came in and evacuated 19 people and
then proceeded to drop supplies to those others who
were stranded. Nick De Stefani’s winery, Reedy Creek,
suffered huge destruction of their grapes—no doubt a
huge loss of income for the next 12 months for them. I
also visited Zappa winery. Cassegrain Wines also have
wineries in the Tenterfield Valley. The loss to these
industries has been huge.
I commend those who have done so much to help
their neighbours in a time of huge demand, when
Mother Nature was certainly very severe on our
country. As Dorethea Mackellar would say: a land of
droughts and flooding rains. How true that is. The
Tenterfield Shire estimates a damage bill of between
$2 million and $3 million; the Inverell Shire, damages
of around $900,000. We know the infrastructure will
get going and will be repaired. But my concern is
for the industries along there—the farmers, many of
them young farmers. We know the average age of a
farmer is around 57 or 58 these days, but these young
people have had plenty of setbacks before in their lives.
They will need some assistance. Let us hope that some
interest rates subsidies of some form are forthcoming to
help these people get through their financial troubles.
That is probably their greatest concern. As I said, the
infrastructure, the roads, will be repaired. The loss
of bitumen was amazing—just torn up and washed
away. This is in northern New South Wales. Much of
the concentration has been on Queensland, where so
much damage has been done. There is also Victoria
and Western Australia, where there are now fires.
Cyclone Yasi in Queensland caused a huge amount
of damage to places like Cardwell, Tully, Mission
Beach and elsewhere. For the farmers up there, with the
banana farms and the sugar farms—especially when
sugar is at such a tremendously high world price—it is
devastating to see the loss of income.
I will be brief in saying thank you to so many
volunteers who helped their fellow Australians at a
Tuesday, 8 February 2011 THE SENATE 52
CHAMBER
time of need. We know that all of us in this place
support the actions to help these people get back
on their feet, the businesses back on their feet and
the infrastructure repaired. We do have to give these
people some assistance so they can get through their
financial woes and be there next year. No doubt
that Aussie spirit will help them, but some financial
assistance with their interest rates would be of great
help. Let us hope that that is forthcoming.