HOST: Prime Minister thank you for your time.
PM: My pleasure.
HOST: How are you holding up?
PM: Look I'm fine but it's been an emotional week for all of us I think, the nation, person by person, has been going through the same emotions as we've watched the absolute tragedy unfolding in Queensland and so much devastation and so many shattered lives. What's fantastic to see today though is how many people in Queensland are just finding any way they can to help others, it's remarkable for the spirit, everybody getting out as a volunteer to do their bit.
HOST: I watched it again for some time this morning, congratulations, our television networks I think have been quite brilliant, but where to know, I mean the communications, the way it's all been handled by the Queensland Government was tremendous, but time wise, when could we really say that we're going to see the old Brisbane?
PM: Well the truth is it's going to take a long period of time to do the rebuilding, that needs to be done right across Queensland. We're in the clean up phase now and you probably would have seen we've got Defence Force personnel assisting with that, so soldiers and people out and they're going to be helping with mops and buckets as well as doing all the great stuff they do with aircraft and moving supplies and engineering assistance and the like. So clean-up, dealing with the actual filth and garbage is all well underway, but the infrastructure rebuilding is going to take a long period of time.
HOST: Prime Minister just exactly how many people have been displaced and aren't able to go back or live in their houses and apartments at this point in time?
PM: Well the reality is many thousands, when you look right across Queensland, people are obviously in different circumstances because we've still got places that are isolated, we've got places that were still anxious about rising floodwaters even as water was starting to recede in Brisbane. So people are at various stages of moving into recovery and for a lot of people it's going to be a long period of time before life goes back to anything that resembles normal. And having seen the places like Grantham that bore the brunt of that wall of water that smashed everything in its way, there are going to be people really grieving and really hurting for a very long period of time.
HOST: Just some of the photos Prime Minister that I've seen in the last few days and some of the damage to the infrastructure, roads that have been washed away, it's very, very hard to comprehend this actually happening in our country but it's going to be a huge effort from everybody to try and get things back to the way they were.
PM: You were just congratulating the media earlier on keeping information to people and I agree with that, the media's done a great job and never has the old saying, a picture tells a thousand words been more true. I think the only way we've been able as a nation to come to grips with the dimensions of this is the TV coverage but also some of the remarkable photographs that have been in the newspapers that capture a moment and really in that moment capture the emotion as well as the physical image about what's happening.
HOST: Of course we've had so much to talk about with Queensland but we can't take our eye off the ball, what about Grafton?
PM: Well I'm here in Grafton today, I've been here to say thanks to the volunteers here and the emergency services personnel who have done such a great job and to talk to the people of Grafton about how they're feeling as they deal with floodwaters and move into recovery. And the overwhelming sentiment here in Grafton and I'm sure it's true right throughout flood affected parts of New South Wales is that yes they're dealing with floodwaters but their first thoughts are for the people of Queensland. Almost everyone said to be today, ‘yes we've got a job to do but gee, it's our neighbours up north that are really doing it a lot tougher than us'. But I did want to come and recognise that there are people here too that have dealt with flood and are dealing with the aftermath of it and we are making available some Commonwealth Government emergency payments to assist people through in the Clarence Valley where Grafton is and in eight other local government areas that are disaster declared, affected by Queensland floodwaters and people are dealing with all of that.
HOST: Well look it's terrific to have you in Grafton today, when you get a quiet moment to yourself you must sort of sit down and I guess be so uplifted when we live in this extraordinary land of ours, but more importantly the people who inhabit it?
PM: That's certainly true, when I get a moment to myself, takes a bit to get a moment to yourself, but when I get a moment to myself I really reflect on the people as I meet, the stories they've told me and then stories of despair and courage and terror and all of those sorts of things, all of the really sad depressing stuff that comes from-
HOST: Oh, I think we've just had the Prime Minister's phone cut short on us, but look we thank her for her time, I mean she's remarkably so busy and covered so much territory over the last few days, apologies about that battery running out on the Prime Minister but she's right, it is uplifting.