PM: Thanks for coming along today. I want to take this opportunity to provide an update to the Australian community about the circumstances of the Queensland floods and the federal government assistance that is being provided.
On Friday I had the opportunity to travel to Queensland and to tour in the some of the flood affected areas. We know of course that many Queensland communities are facing very difficult flood situations, for some communities it's the biggest ever floods that their community has seen.
We know some communities have moved into recovery mode already, for example I was in Bundaberg and floodwaters were receding, but we also know Rockhampton is still to experience the peak of the floods. In these circumstances I wanted to explain the work that is happening in Queensland to assist the Queensland community with the floods that they face. These are devastating floods, already 1600 homes have needed to be evacuated and many thousands of businesses have been affected and as I've indicated we are still seeing floodwaters rising in Rockhampton.
We have been working with the Queensland government to provide assistance to flood communities. We have been working with the Queensland government, including through the provision of support from the Australian Defence Force. I has the opportunity a little earlier today to talk to the Chief of the Defence Force Angus Houston. What they set up over the last few days, and it has been a full operation for a period, a joint task force out of the Enoggera base, and with that join task force of around 80 personnel, assistance is being provided as necessary to assist with the Queensland floods.
Today what is happening is that a C130 is moving food supplies from Amberley, so that they can be taken to Mackay and then moved by road into Rockhampton. 50 tonnes of food supplies will be moved by this method today and tomorrow. Of course it's possible that that road will become impassable and already contingency plans are being made to move food either by barge or by helicopter into Rockhampton by Defence Force work. So I do want to take this opportunity to say to those Defence Force personnel thank you for everything you are doing and everything that you will continue to do in coming days to assist people in Queensland as they battle these flood waters.
I also want to be clear about the assistance that's available for people in Queensland at this time. When I was there on Friday I met people in evacuation centres, we have already announced and triggered a special payment to assist people who have had to leave their homes. That's the Australian Government Disaster Relief Payment and that provides access to emergency assistance, $1000 per adult and $400 per family*. The hotline that people can ring to access this has been in operation over the weekend, it is of course still in operation now and will be for a long period of time to come. The number to ring for those relief payments is 180 22 66. Now that emergency relief payment is there for people who are in the immediate time of crisis, having to leave their homes perhaps in an evacuation centre, needing access to emergency payments.
Today with the Queensland Premier I am announcing a further set of payments and assistance. This further set of payments and assistance is for communities and individuals as they move into recovery mode. They do contain some addition forms of emergency grant assistance should that be necessary, but the focus of this assistance through our natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements is to enable people to start the rebuilding and recovery process. Particularly for families who return to homes that have been flooded and damaged these payments include assistance of up to $1660 dollars for individuals and $4980 for families and that's to replace essential household contents. In addition families and individuals can be eligible for assistance for repairs to their homes and dwellings, that assistance is of up to $10,250 for individuals and $13,800 for families.
Of course whilst houses are affected, businesses are affected too and we know many businesses caught up in these Queensland floods will sustain flood damage and obviously the losses that come from the clean up and then not being able to trade and operate as normal for some period of time. So the assistance that I am announcing today with the Queensland Premier includes grants of up to $25,000 for small businesses and primary producers for cleaning up and recovering and we know for example that there are primary producers that will use some of that assistance for things like emergency fodder for stranded animals as well as the general clean up and recovery that is necessary.
In addition small businesses and primary producers can be eligible for concessional loans of up to $250,000 as their businesses and farms strive to recover from these flood waters. So these are the forms of assistance available for communities that are moving into the recovery phase.
Obviously as floodwaters recede we're going to see a lot of damage, we're going to see a lot of roads that have been damaged, bridges that have been damaged, schools and essential community infrastructure that's been damaged. We will work with the Queensland Government to provide recovery packages to communities to assist with the necessary rebuilding.
We will only be able to assess the dimensions of what is required as flood waters recede and we are able to see what has happened as a result of the damage from the floods.
All in all the Commonwealth government assistance flowing will be in the order of many hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a very very severe set of floods, affecting communities that are very geographically dispersed and the Commonwealth Government will be there, working with the State Government and with local government, in the time of crisis and as communities move into recovery.
Can I conclude by saying, of course, we have seen one confirmed fatality as a result of these floods and there is one person missing. I would want to say to the families and friends of the person who has died that my best wishes and thoughts are with them at this very difficult time, for the person who is missing we obviously hope for the best. I would also say to people that floodwaters are dangerous, fast moving water, rising water is dangerous, so I would ask everybody to please abide by the instruction of emergency services personnel and police as to how to move around and deal with this dangerous situation.
I'm very happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, how can people physically get this assistance? You're saying it's there for them, how do they get it?
PM: I can go through a set of telephone numbers which would be the first way to do it and people in evacuation centres will also be able to get assistance to access payments, but if you will bear with me as I go through some telephone numbers I would be grateful. For that emergency assistance payment of $1000, say for someone who is in an evacuation centre, who has had to leave their home because it's full of flood waters, the number to ring is 180 22 66. For people who are looking to access the recovery monies, that is the money for household contents, for repairs to dwellings, the assistance that I talked about for small businesses, that number is 1800 173 349. We all know primary producers have special needs and as a result they have a dedicated hotline and that dedicated hotline is 1800 623 946.
Now clearly in these disaster circumstances, and we've seen it in other natural disasters, there may be problems with people not having identification or documentation when people have moved because they knew floodwaters were coming, obviously their focus has been on getting themselves and their families out and safe, for people who have been evacuated by boat out of rising floodwaters they may well not have taken anything with them, normal identity papers or receipts or things that we usually carry with us and have access to, but may not have in these circumstances. So they personnel who deal with these grants are used to dealing with those sorts of difficult circumstances people can find themselves in.
JOURNALIST: Are those numbers available now?
PM: Yes indeed and the 180 22 66 was available throughout the weekend and people were contacting it over the weekend.
JOURNALIST: Several times you've mentioned that the money goes up to an amount, is there any means testing or any assessment for families to say look you need this or you get half of this money?
PM: It's a set of eligibility criteria and the amount of damage that people have sustained will be different in different circumstances, so I think it's best for people to make contact and for their individual circumstances to be worked through.
Can I say all of this assistance that's flowing through what we call the Australian Government Disaster Relief Payment, which is that emergency $1000 for adults or $400 for children and these forms of recovery assistance, which we call the Category C assistance under the natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements, these forms of assistance are obviously going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and the rebuilding is going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. All of this is in addition to the contribution the Commonwealth made to the Premier's Disaster Relief Fund, than contribution was of $1 million, but what I think has been very very heart warming is that the amount of money in that fund now is money that is being donated, not by government but by businesses and by mums, dads, Australians around the country, who through their $5, $10, $20 want to show their own way of supporting people in the Queensland floods, so I think it is really heart warming to see Australians pull together and for people to go and make sure they've put their bit of money into that relief fund.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, is the government considering forms of assistance (inaudible), for example the coal industry?
PM: Well we do know that a number of mining operations have been affected by either large amounts of water being in the pit of the mine itself, or by supply routes being cut, so that the commodities can no longer be got safely to market. Now for those bigger businesses, many of them have used what are called forced majeure clauses in their contracts, they're not allowed to keep up supply at this time. Ordinarily bigger businesses can find their way through recovering from disaster situation, but we'll obviously be talking to those businesses as they work through recovery. The assistance that I've outlined today is for smaller businesses and primary producers.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, there has been criticism that the government wasn't doing enough, do you think these measures address that?
PM: I think this is a time where we're all pulling together, where people on the ground are working as hard as they can. Having had the opportunity on Friday to be in Bundaberg and Rockhampton, to see the devastation in Emerald, to meet with people who are providing emergency relief, I think local government level people are doing everything they can, State Government level people are doing everything they can and the Federal Government is working through what we can best do is provide the Defence Force assets, and they have been provided. I've talked to you about the assets that are actually working today, but of course other assets have been provided in days past, for example the provision of habitat by the Defence Force that has been done to assist flood affected communities, so I think our Defence Force personnel are there working away hard in operation flood assist in Queensland and as a government we have triggered these payments as quickly as possible to get relief to people.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, we're always on the doorstep for any other nation that's in need first of all, have you had any contact from any international leaders in the last 24, 48 hours asking what we need?
PM: I have had an approach from the Prime Minister of New Zealand. You are right, we do come and assist others in times of need and people would recall that we did provide some needed assistance to New Zealand with the dreadful mine disaster and we very quickly helped move some equipment that they didn't have available, but that Australia did have available. So the Prime Minister of New Zealand, conscious of that, has made an approach and said New Zealand is standing by to assist should that become necessary.
JOURNALIST: Is that it?
PM: That's the approaches at this point. We have had an enquiry too, I should say, from the American Embassy in Canberra indicating that should we come to the view that there may be something that the United States of America could provide that we needed, that of course they would respond. But in these circumstances, dealing with flood waters, flood communities, what we've got there at the moment is some wonderful emergency services personnel, police doing remarkable job, our great Australian Defence Force. I know the Premier of Queensland has been in contact with a number of her counterparts and other states are going to provide assistance as necessary, so at the moment, through our own Australian resources we can manage these circumstances.
JOURNALIST: Would you expect just a phone call from Indonesia?
PM: I think international leaders, we have in times of past natural disaster had assistance from Indonesia, for example with the very devastating bush fires in Victoria there was an offer of assistance from Indonesia, so I can't guess the future for you, but I think we're a nation that does respond very generously when other people are in trouble and we've seen in the past other nations respond very generously to assist us.
JOURNALIST: You said that there's a C130, but are there other drops? I mean given that that area is supposed to be to total area of France and Germany combined, what else is being used to take supplies in?
PM: The main supplies issue at the moment is in Rockhampton, given the size of the population and the rising flood waters, which is why that is the focus of the airlift today, but I don't want to give you the impression, because certainly it wouldn't be correct, that that's the only thing that Defence has done over these days of flood crisis in Queensland. They've evacuated people by Black Hawk helicopter, they've provided habitat, flown it in so that it can be used for emergency evacuation and assistance. What they're being asked for now, and of course we respond to the request about what's needed, what they're being asked for now is to get 100 tonnes of food into Rockhampton and they're going about that task, but having had the opportunity to talk to the Chief of the Defence Force today, Angus Houston, through the joint task force that they've set up there, they are well postured to respond to incoming requests over the coming days and I have certainly spoken directly to Premier Bligh, I travelled with her on Friday and I have stayed in contact with her since and she is well aware that if there is anything they need that Defence can do, then Defence will get about the job of doing it, that's why the taskforce is there and together it's liaising constantly with the Queensland emergency management personnel.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just one last question. On another matter, it's been almost three weeks, 17 days I believe, since the Christmas Island disaster. We're assisting people with identification in Queensland. There are relatives of people who probably died on that boat who still have no idea what happened there, they don't know whether they're alive or dead. Is there not something more you could be doing for these people?
PM: The Australian Federal Police made it, I think, clear at the time of this disaster that the disaster victim identification process does take some time. I understand it puts a lot of stress on family members and we've seen in other disasters that that disaster victim identification process does take time and that puts pressure on, but the Australian Federal Police, I believe, are doing everything they can, they work to very strict protocols because they absolutely need to get it right to make sure that when identify a body from a disaster, including a disaster like Christmas Island, that it's the right identification.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, in NSW today the Premier is (inaudible), there are questions about (inaudible), do you have concerns about (inaudible) in NSW?
PM: What I would say is if I was a resident in NSW I would certainly want to be assured that if a government asset was being sold off that appropriate value for money for that asset was being obtained.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) a report saying that the public (inaudible) results of schools is actually (inaudible) those public schools in Britain. What would you have to say about that in regards to My Schools?
PM: I'm all for school transparency, that's why I created the My Schools website, to give parents, teachers, indeed the government, more information than we've ever had before about what Australian schools are doing and how they're performing and I created the My School website and brought that transparency into existence because I absolutely believe it makes a difference to education quality and results. I'm not in favour of simple league tables, that's why the My School website is a comprehensive and rich source of information. But more information for parents and teachers and the community is good for schools, good for school results.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: As I made clear at the time of the Christmas Island disaster, our search and rescue zone for maritime incidents is huge, absolutely huge. A very big responsibility for search and rescue, we don't want to see anybody come to harm at sea, so I think my primary message would be to the crew of the Sea Shepherd and to any other vessel in the area, that they need to conduct themselves appropriately so everybody is kept safe. The important thing is to make sure everybody is kept safe in what is a remote, dangerous and very inhospitable part of the world.
[ENDS]
* Provision is for $400 additional per child