Christmas Day Storm Adjournment Speech

Many residents were enjoying the lightning from their back decks, watching the storms rolling in—and it was one fantastic display, but they did not know what was coming. The force of the winds was truly incredible. Houses were ripped apart and trees were completely twisted around and ripped from their stumps. Residents were huddled in their bedrooms while their houses were literally dismantled around them.

Within 30 minutes of the storm passing residents went out to see the damage. They immediately brought out their chainsaws and started clearing driveways and roadways so that emergency vehicles could pass. The next morning the true state of the damage was revealed. Many houses were destroyed and a lady lost her life. Volunteers continued to clear the roadways to allow traffic to pass. Many areas had no mobile phone coverage and no internet so communication was impossible, and therefore they had no idea what was going on. A lot of places also had no power for upwards of 12 days. I want to say thank you to my rural fire brigades, the mums and dads, teachers, nurses, teacher aides—and I will mention Michelle, a lovely lady at my local school—who spent many days on end clearing roads so that traffic could move. Tradies with heavy vehicles and heavy machines cleared driveways. People looked after each other and looked after their neighbours.

To add to the issues on New Year’s Day, we then had a flood. Houses that were already subjected to large amounts of damage were inundated with water through riverine flooding and also through their ceilings. To people like Brendan Gold, who is a first officer of Guanaba Rural Fire Brigade, and Matt Walker, who is a first officer for Coomera Valley Rural Fire Brigade: thank you. Thank you to your teams and for your efforts. To all those families who got out there and helped: thank you for all your efforts. To Gary, Marg and Nicole from Samaritan’s Purse: thank you for your efforts. To the Energex crews who worked 12-hour shifts day and night: thank you for your efforts. You have made a huge difference to my community. We will be forever in your debt. Thank you.