Prime Minister
BEN FORDHAM: PM, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Ben.
FORDHAM: It's 2022. We're not a Third World country. How do we still have entire communities cut off and stranded?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Ben, these are terrible, terrible floods, as you've said. These are floods that we have not seen in living memory in anyone's lifetime, and even before that. And so I can understand the great frustration you're seeing expressed. At the same time, there is an enormous effort that is being put in to get to everywhere that people can get to - the SES, I know the Premier has spoken about that, the tasking of the Defence Forces. You know, there's 2,000, not just there in the Northern Rivers, but also responding to flood crisis in south east Queensland and what we've seen here closer in here to Sydney.
But the real focus of the effort is up there in and around Lismore, which has had an experience that no one there has ever even heard of before in old stories, let alone in their own lived experience. But the rescues continue, the food drops continue, the road clearing continues. All of these, I mean, over the next 24 hours, further work in Mullumbimby, Murwillumbah, Crabbes Creek, Ocean Shores, Wardell, Kyogle, Nimbin, Bonalbo. I mean, there's a lot of places they're getting to in the next 24 hours and have already been in those places, particularly over the last 24 hours. There's food drops and helicopter assistance going into Evans Head over the next 24 hours. That should be happening very, very soon. So there's an enormous effort that's going in, Ben. The task is almost unimaginable for a flood we've ever seen in that part of Australia.
FORDHAM: I'm just going to keep repeating what's happening on the Sydney Harbour Bridge as we talk to the Prime Minister Scott Morrison, because I'm now seeing images coming in - this awful crash in the middle of the Harbour Bridge and this car is still on fire at the moment. Emergency services are doing their best to help people, but please stay right away from the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and we will get some more details from emergency services as they come through.
And while that emergency is unfolding, PM, we're still dealing with the emergency in the north with the floods.
PRIME MINISTER: Correct.
FORDHAM: Can you just confirm for me because Bridget McKenzie, the Emergency Services Minister, said there are 5,000 army personnel on standby. I'm told only 455 are on the ground in northern New South Wales. So where are the rest?
PRIME MINISTER: Ah well no, the figures are higher than that, Ben. In terms of those on the ground, they increase every day. There are 2,000 that have been on standby, on the ground, both there and in south east Queensland.
FORDHAM: But when we say on standby, are they, are they actively working to help people at the moment, because I'm told ...
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, they're available for tasking. What we've done with these floods has been different to previous occasions. What we've done is we've put Brigadier Galloway is a head of the task group that is deploying all ADF support in flood assistance, what's called Flood Assist. As of last Thursday, state governments were given the authority to directly task ADF units to be able to go in and providing support, and there were 2,000 who were available to be deployed. And those ADF are continuing to roll in where they've been tasked, and ...
FORDHAM: And we appreciate what they're doing. But the concern, and I'm just relaying to you what I'm hearing from locals, because I've spent all weekend talking to them and they say, it's great to have them on standby, but we need more boots on the ground. Can I just read a few comments to you, because I've agreed to do this from people in the north. Jackie in Mullumbimby says, there are elderly, pregnant mothers and tiny babies stranded. People are lost and missing. Cars destroyed by floods are leaking fuel all over the streets. Lily says, my son and I were choppered out after living on top of a local pub for days. I lost my breast milk supply from the dehydration. We didn't have enough water to make formula. Jed, who's part of the Mud Army up north in New South Wales, says the Government was too slow to act. The clean-up and recovery has been organised and coordinated by untrained civilians. It's filthy work. There's dirty water and sewage everywhere.
I appreciate that these responsibilities are shared between the Commonwealth and the state and also local government. But I'll tell you what, PM, they're still crying out for help.
PRIME MINISTER: I know, Ben, and that's why the effort continues. I mean, specifically, food drops were were done in Mullumbimby by the ADF within the past 24 hours, as they were in many other of those centres. There are difficulties getting into a lot of these places currently. I mean, the ADF just can't miracly get through things that you can't get through to get to a particular location. That's why they're using the helicopters and other supports. That's why they're doing road clearing. I mean, we are in the worst of this disaster up around Lismore at present, the worst of it. And that means there's always difficulties, whether you're a fully advanced developed economy or not. The horror of what this flood has delivered upon those Northern Rivers community is without precedent. And so we're going to just keep working as quickly as we can with the state governments and local governments to be able to get in there and provide that support. But over 100 lives were directly, have already been directly saved by the efforts of the ADF literally winching people to safety, as have the brave efforts of so many in the SES. The command centres are there in both New South Wales and in Queensland, which are being coordinated by their very experienced teams and as I said, there's 2,000 who have been there, available and and have been tasked over the last three or four days, and that number ramps up to 5,000 over the next couple of days. And so it is well beyond anyone's expectation of what that flood was going to do.
FORDHAM: PM, I was planning on talking to you about a whole range of things, but we do have a major emergency unfolding on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I'm sure you'll understand why I've got to leave it here. Thanks so much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Hope everything's safe there as well, Ben [inaudible].
FORDHAM: Good on you. Prime Minister Scott Morrison.