Prior to the floods, I had been fielding calls about the looming drought conditions taking over the mid-west plains and was positioning to secure supplies of molasses as producers were already reporting unavailability of supply. I had regular calls every few days from a number of graziers who were desperately looking to the skies.
At the time when the Townsville flooding situation started, I felt obligated to join my colleague Nick Dametto in the city. The Townsville and the North West economies are closely linked so I spent a day over there to observe the damage and interface with victims and coordinators. It was also fortuitous that one of those meetings that day was with the Woolworths national government relations manager, who I would later contact for some assistance with the western floods.
The flooding had already started with the heavy rains over the weekend and, as you do as a western MP, you get on the phone to friends on station properties and ask where the rain falls have been.
The first reports were that there has been a lot of damage and might have had losses in the hundreds but one comment came back to me was "a few losses can hurt but you'd rather have options going forward rather than be stuck in the grips of the drought". Little did we know that this was only the precursor to the tidal wave of devastation.
By early that week I had called a couple of mayors and others as I felt it necessary to start alerting the media that we had a problem on our hands and that we might even be facing losses in the thousands. I didn't know that we would later be talking in terms of hundreds of thousands. I distinctly recall taking a call from one of my friends off a station who rarely calls me with any problems but very calmly and solemnly said to me "you better be prepared here because I think you are going to be counting the losses in the hundreds of thousands. Those big company places are going to be wiped out completely then the gulf so you will probably be looking at over four hundred thousand." At this point I realised the enormity of what we were facing and we were still only at the start of it. I was still thinking that there is no guarantee that this rain is going to go away anytime soon.
I was still luckily in Townsville as this was progressing throughout the day. This was a good thing as I was able to talk directly to state-wide media and indicate to them that you have an issue every bit as big as the Townsville Floods happening right now out west.
After talking one TV journalist into going out there I got onto my office to try and book flights for them for the day, only to hear that the management had turned them down. This was very disappointing.
I then contacted my Dad's office and we concentrated then on getting media out there to tell the story and start putting some pressure on government to act.
I remember at this stage saying to the journalists that we could be facing losses in the hundreds of thousands and thinking this may be too early to call, but it was on good advice and people needed to know how big this disaster was.
This was a continued focus for us as Dad's better-resourced office started working on getting the national media out to Richmond and Julia Creek.
I had started discussing the problem with my father at this stage and on the Monday he was demanding that the Australia Defence Force be immediately engaged in the emergency assistance, which was essential.
We agreed that the councils would now be facing perhaps one of the largest ever logistical exercises in their history and they would be completely under-resourced.
At this time I was starting to get heaps of calls from angry people chasing assistance for fodder drops and general aerial assistance so they could at least see what was going on around their property.
I was advised by some at this time also that the fodder drops aren't as straight forward as they sound and if they aren't performed by experienced 'stock handling' pilots then they can do more harm than good.
Two things had become apparent by this stage. Firstly; it wasn't just the water that was rolling the cattle it was the strong winds causing hypothermia doing arguably more damage. Secondly; it wasn't just the cattle dying, it was basically everything but the fish. Native birds and all the kangaroos were being found dead everywhere.
I knew I would have better access into Richmond and Julia Creek that were cut off having my pilot's license for fixed wing aircraft. The charter planes seemed to be flat out carting food to cut off towns which included Cloncurry at this stage (this was another issue I was wrestling with at the time - the potential for groceries to run out in Cloncurry) and helicopters were a very scarce commodity.
Avgas was gold at this point as the helicopters that were working flat out keeping cattle alive and moving stranded people needed all the available avgas. I could however fill up in Mount Isa or Cloncurry and fly in and out of Richmond and Julia Creek so I took media in early that week to get the stories out there and at the same time Dad got the national media out there in his charter to start filming local people to tell their story. This meant I could get in and out without taking the precious avgas.
Amongst meetings with councils and all other levels of government, from this point, I just made myself available for anyone who wanted assistance and like Dad, just tried to stay out of the way and let the emergency services do their job. I skipped my first week in parliament in about six years to make sure I was available on the ground.
My father was then in parliament the next week, which as many would recall, was a hung parliament where he had a close relationship with the Prime Minister. His office impressed upon the top dog the gravity of the situation in the North and it was essential to the aspiring future PM to get on the ground. This became a reality and the Prime Minister's visit was very well received when he visited the next week.
I do recall on one of my many trips into the isolated towns over those weeks flying up to Normanton to pick up the mayor Jack Bawden and flying near the junction of the Flinders and Cloncurry rivers. I was at about 6,000 feet and as far as I could see which was about a 50km radius in every direction was just water. I wondered, how could anything be living in that entire area?
One of my strongest memories during that time was talking quietly to one of the chopper pilots who I think have been the real heroes of this disaster. I asked this bloke if he was starting to feel the fatigue and he said "no, but I did take some time off as my boss saw I wasn't doing so well and he was right so I just took the day off'.
To put this in perspective, this was a bloke that would work 24/7 if he had to, his issue was day in day out dealing with the distress of dying livestock. The trauma that went along with having to destroy animals or leave bulk animals that you could do nothing to help seemed to weigh a heavy toll on him. I didn't grow up with animals on station so it's not something I really understand but this did give me a glimpse into the heartache that this event caused.
I think the look in the eyes of the town business people that know the impact on them is still to come is something that still weighs heavily on my mind.
There is still more to be done, and I am putting the pressure on myself to ensure this disaster doesn't soon become a memory to those in Brisbane and Canberra whose help we still need.
