PM: I want to make some comments about Cyclone Yasi, then about the circumstances in Egypt.
For many weeks now, as Australians have watched and hoped and sent their best wishes to the people of Queensland, the people of Queensland have had to meet the most destructive forces of nature.
It's happened over so many weeks, and every day over the dreadful weeks that Queensland has faced, the people of Queensland have met what nature has thrown at them with courage and determination.
I think the whole nation has watched and admired the way the people of Queensland have responded day after day.
At the same time, the people of Queensland have responded by showing a very special brand of mateship, getting out and helping each other in times of crisis, and I think the whole nation - indeed, I reckon the whole world - has marvelled at that spirit of mateship in Queensland.
Today, of course, we are seeing the people of Queensland tested again; tested again by this very savage cyclone, and what I want to say to the people of Queensland, particularly to the people of Far North Queensland, is in the hours of destruction that are coming to them all of Australia is going to be thinking of them. Our thoughts are with you.
In this time, as you face these frightening hours, we are with you in spirit, and in the days and hours beyond this cyclone, we will be with you on the ground, making a difference. The people of Australia will be there to help the people of Far North Queensland through.
Today, I've had the opportunity to Senator Jan McLucas, one of my Labor team, a senator who lives and works in Cairns. I've had the opportunity to speak to Warren Entsch, the Member for Leichardt. I've had the opportunity to speak to Bob Katter, the Member for Kennedy. I've had the opportunity to speak to Ewen Jones, the Member for Herbert.
Each of them is in their community in Far North Queensland, spreading words of reassurance and showing great community leadership. I want to thank them for that, and I want to wish them well in the hours ahead as they provide that community leadership role in their local communities.
I've also had the opportunity to speak on a number of occasions with Premier Anna Bligh. Premier Anna Bligh and her emergency management team are facing this crisis with the same steely determination that has got them through so far, and of course our best wishes are with Premier Bligh and with her team as they work their way through.
As the cyclone has threatened, preparations have been made and the Australian Defence Force has played an important role in those preparations. I want to thank them for their work to date. They engaged in the biggest hospital evacuation we've seen airlifting people out of the Cairns public and private hospitals. They assisted with evacuating residential aged care. They've flown sandbags and foodstuffs in. People from our Defence Force have been involved in the doorknocking to get warnings through to people in the mandatory evacuation areas.
Of course, the people of our Defence Force will continue to be there, making a difference.
I've also had the opportunity to be briefed today by the leadership of our Australian Crisis Coordination Committee. It is meeting and will continue to coordinate Commonwealth Government efforts as we work with the emergency management personnel and the people of Queensland to meet this crisis.
As the cyclone passes through and the hours that follow afterwards, arrangements are already being made to make available assets from our Australian Defence Force. Helicopters and aircraft will be available. We have 4,000 soldiers in Townsville who will be available to help. We have Naval assets that are sheltering further up the coast that will also be available to help.
As soon as it is possible to do so, we will make sure that our Centrelink systems are up and running to assist people in affected areas
But before we get to that stage, there are many, many dreadful frightening hours ahead for the people of Far North Queensland. This is going to be a very difficult night, and to the people of Far North Queensland, I say to them as they face what is probably the worst cyclone that our nation has every seen, this is a powerful natural force, but the courage of the people of Far North Queensland is an even stronger force again.
The people of Queensland have got through some really difficult days in the weeks of this summer some incredibly difficult days, and in those days of difficulty they've prevailed, and in these days of difficulties they will prevail again.
And we will be with them every step of the way, making a difference as they recover from this cyclone. We certainly won't let go. We will be there with the people of Far North Queensland.
I do want to say something, too, about Australians in Egypt who are facing difficulties of a different nature.
Earlier today, Qantas announced that it would provide free flights to assist people evacuating Egypt. That is, they would provide assistance for people who are taken by the evacuation aircraft to London or to Frankfurt. They would assist them with their onward journey using spare capacity.
I want to thank Qantas for what is a very generous gesture, something that will make a difference to Australians who find themselves caught up in difficult circumstances greatly beyond their control.
Today, we've seen circumstances in Egypt change again as the President of Egypt has declared that he will not run again for another term at the elections due later this year.
Now, of course, it's not possible for us to say at this point what affect this will have on the situation in Egypt, what the reaction to this announcement by the President will be.
As I've said on other days while this circumstance has been happening in Egypt and as we've had to look to the safety of Australians there, as I've said on other days, the future of Egypt is in the hands of the people of Egypt as it properly should be. We understand their very legitimate desire for change, for freedom, and for democracy. We believe that there does need to be a transition process that is orderly and peaceful, and we are continuing to call for calm and restraint at this time in Egypt. We, obviously, don't want to see anyone caught up in violent incidents.
So, circumstances in Egypt continue to develop. So does the need to keep providing evacuation assistance to Australians. As has already been made clear, we will continue to run evacuation flights as necessary to assist people to get out of Egypt. Commercial flights do continue to operate. There is a great deal of pressure on the airport, and people will have seen that that has caused a great degree of disruption and delay, but commercial flights are operating, so some Australians are availing themselves of commercial flights, and we continue to make available the evacuation flights to assist to meet demand to get people out of Egypt in these days.
Finally, can I conclude by saying, on another matter, Tony Crook today - one of the crossbench members of the House of Representatives - has publically indicated that he will support the Government's flood levy legislation. I very much thank him for taking that approach. I very much thank him for taking that approach in circumstances where the flood levy legislation is necessary to finance the rebuilding we will need to see in Queensland and in other parts of the nation.
I'm very happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) given what's happened in Cairns?
PM: Well, I think our focus right now is on what is happening with the cyclone and helping people through and helping people in the hours and days of recovery after the cyclone has passed through.
Yes, of course, there's going to be rebuilding.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, where will you be monitoring the situation from tonight and in the coming few days?
PM: I'll be here in Canberra. The crisis coordination committee is meeting here in Canberra. We are linked in at every level: to the Queensland Government team; I am obviously directly linked in with Anna Bligh, talking to her regularly; and we have coordination arrangements where people from our crisis coordination committee and people from Defence sit in on the very regular emergency management committee meetings that Anna Bligh and her team have in Queensland.
These arrangements have been very useful ones during the days of the flooding crisis. It's what has enabled us, at every stage, to meet the requests of Queensland for Defence Force assets in particular, as well as Centrelink and other assistance, and so we will keep those arrangements in operation.
JOURNALIST: On the levy, Prime Minister, do you still rule out any increase in the levy to a bigger bill in Queensland?
PM: Look the levy proposal I outlined last week is the Government's proposal, that's it, but this is not the time in my view for talking about some of these political matters. I did want to thank Tony for his indications today but we'll have plenty of time in the days ahead and in the next Parliamentary week to talk about the levy, my focus today is on the circumstances in far north Queensland.
JOURNALIST: Have you considered what the new damage bill might be, obviously it's going to-
PM: It's impossible for me to understand the damage bill of a cyclone that hasn't hit communities with full force yet, I think simple commonsense would tell people that, this is not the time for talking about legislative or other arrangements, this is the time for focussing on the welfare of the people of far north Queensland. But I do want to say the Government's levy as announced is the levy that we will bring to the Parliament next week.
Phil?
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister could I ask you about Egypt, do you support President Obama's call that President Mubarak should start transition now and not wait until September?
PM: Well as I've indicated we believe that there should be an orderly transition process, that we want to see that being a peaceful transition process. The people of Egypt are calling for change and we very much very much understand that call for change. As I said I think as recently as yesterday it's not appropriate for me as the leader of another nation to specify what that change should be, but there does need to be a transition, we want it and I think the people of the world would desire that it is orderly and peaceful, but the shape of that transition that does need to occur, needs to be shaped by the people of Egypt; it's their nation, their aspiration for democracy, and that's what democracy is about, the people of Egypt shaping their future.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister on the cyclone, has Premier Anna Bligh asked for anything in particular from the Federal authorities and secondly in your talks with the local MPs, what was their feeling about what the community feeling on the ground?
PM: They were showing the kind of resilience and courage and determination that we've come to associate with the people of Queensland in these very dark and difficult days, all of them have been out and about talking to community members, Bob Katter was in the town hall at Innisfail with 300, 400, 500 people with him, so they are out and about in their community with a great deal of determination and resolve and the thing I think has become the hallmark of the people of Queensland during every stage of this crisis has been a determination to prevail in difficult circumstances and each of the Federal representatives I've spoke to today is showing that same determination.
JOURNALIST: When you look at the scale of the preparations so far, the evacuations of hospitals and that sort of thing, do you think that everything that can be done has been done, are you satisfied that north Queensland is as well prepared as it can be?
PM: Look I'm satisfied that very appropriate arrangements have been entered into to prepare for this crisis, I mean what has been done is a huge mandatory evacuation to get people out of low-lying, most at risk areas from tidal surges. Very good advice has been provided to people about how to prepare in their homes; to medically evacuate two hospitals is a huge thing to do and it has been done, to evacuate residential aged care is a difficult thing to do and it has been done.
Queensland has faced cyclones in the past, this is a cyclone of savagery and intensity, we know that from what the experts at the weather bureau are telling us, but Queensland has drawn on its past expertise in meeting cyclones to prepare for this one. That doesn't make the wait any easier for people and people are facing some really dreadful hours in front of them as they wait, as it builds, and there seeing it get worse around them and getting their way through. But the people of far north Queensland, they're made of very tough stuff and we'll see that on display.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister is there any need for a full Cabinet meeting to be brought forward to deal with this crisis (inaudible)
PM: We have been co-ordinating, through a Ministerial committee, the response to the floods, so that has brought together Ministers who represent all of the relevant departments and agencies for recovery. We will continue to use that style of arrangement to bring together recovery here. The tragedy of this in some ways is that this has been such a difficult summer and such a difficult for the people of Queensland, we've seen all of these days unfold and what has happened during those days is we've become more and more practiced at these arrangements and working with Queensland Emergency Management. So all of the systems that we need to co-ordinate with Queensland are in place and have been used (inaudible) this crisis.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister do you intend to travel to far north Queensland once it's safe to do so?
PM: I would want to be in far north Queensland but the timing of that needs to depend on how recovery goes, absolutely the last thing anyone would want to do is to use an aviation asset that could be better deployed for immediate search and rescue work, so I will time a visit bearing in mind that the most important thing we can do in the hours as the cyclone passes over is get on with the task of clean-up, or search and rescue, of making sure people are ok.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister just in relation to Egypt, you're saying that flights will continue as necessary, what's the latest advice you have on the prospect of the airport remaining open and this continuing? Can you characterise what the expectation is over the next few days in Cairo?
PM: I've got no advice that would suggest to me circumstances at the airport will change, circumstances for a period of time now have been: airport open, flights getting in but a degree of chaos in the sense of long delays, lots of people, lots of pressure on the airport. I don't have any advice to me to suggest that that is going to change and we, because of the pressure on commercial flights and because of our desire to make sure Australians were got to safety, that's why we're running the jumbos in to pick people up.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister does the fact that we have another disaster on our hands make a compelling argument to pass the flood levy next week?
PM: Look we'll deal with all of those discussions next week, I mean the focus now has to be on the emergency response for far north Queensland.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister (inaudible) suspended Question Time when the Victorian bushfires were on for all of the week (inaudible) given over to condolence motions. In the wake of this latest disaster will you consider suspending Question Time for the entire week to mark (inaudible)
PM: Look no consideration's been given to anything like that yet, our focus has been on the absolutely immediate, what we need to do to make sure Defence assets are prepositioned, what we need to make sure we're ready to run out Centrelink services as soon as possible after the cyclone's passed through. I'll speak to Minister Albanese about Parliamentary matters and he'll liaise with his counterpart as necessary. You are right that there is an agreement at this stage for Tuesday to be given over condolences and reflections on the summer it's been and on everything that nation has been through and most particularly the people of Queensland have been through.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: We have 4000 soldiers stationed in Townsville.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible)
PM: They too are sheltering, as you would imagine as people have been instructed to do generally and preparations have been made for them and their families to shelter appropriately, but they are there on the ground, 4000 soldiers so that's a considerable complement to bring to the recovery task and any necessary search and rescue tasks.
Thank you.