Magic.
Here we go.
Okay.
Second speaker
after lunch,
that's always a challenge.
Who had the
pasta for lunch?
So I could
know a little bit,
work it, who I've got to
give the eye contact with.
Man [off camera]: [laughs]
Okay. And the beef, you
know, the protein will slow you,
your metabolism
down, so I need to,
need to keep the eye
contact with that.
But just out of interest,
so I understand who's in
the audience, so, who
in the audience is from
government,
works in government?
Just give me a
bit of an idea,
local government?
Keep your hands up.
Good on you, right?
Waving the flag, mate.
And industry,
industry groups,
industry sectors,
representatives?
Okay.
Look, when Neil stuffs
it, I have to fix it.
Audience [off camera]: [laughs]
That's essentially
how it works.
I'm sorry Neil.
It's Mother Nature.
You just tell
us how much,
how much it gets stuffed.
But what I'm gonna do,
we've just got a short
period here.
There's been an awful lot
going on in Queensland in
the last 12 months.
And there's also
more happening now,
as you saw from out there.
So what I'm going to do is
to give you a snapshot of
the things that
we've been dealing with.
You would have seen a lot
of the stuff in meteor and
images and so forth.
But I would give you a run
down on where we're up to,
who we are as a
reconstruction authority,
and then a couple
of examples of,
I guess what I'm
calling policy in action,
so to speak, where we've
identified some gaps and
tried to, to rapidly
respond to those to I
guess change the face on
how reconstruction is,
is being dealt with.
And then I'll finish with
a few happy snaps which
will show you basically
how things were and how
they are now.
So just to give a
bit of a background.
Last year, we actually got hit
with seven different events.
So when the Authority
was first set up,
we only had about 66%
of the state declared.
By the end of Cyclone
Yasi turning up--and a few
other floods came around
the place--we ended up
with the whole
state declared.
So that's 73 local
government areas,
the whole state.
So you can see there, the
area down the bottom is,
is that
famed--and you know,
where all the floods are
in the rivers--is that
famed area equivalent
to France and Germany.
It's a very big
state, I'm finding.
More recently, though, this
year we've had more hits.
And you would have seen
the St. George and Roma
and Mitchell and
so forth going out.
And you can sort of
see the comparison.
Just sort of flip back to
the previous one if I can.
So that one there--
see the dark red there?
Several areas
got hit again.
So you've got areas
that have been hit twice,
three times.
Roma, for example, got
hit twice last year.
Dolby, it got hit a couple of
times last year as well.
It got hit
again this year.
Okay?
So the challenge around
that in reconstruction is
how you get on
with the task,
because you got this continual
moisture coming through.
Okay, so who's
the Authority?
Just to--a very
quick snapshot.
Basically, we're a
statutory authority that's
been set up under a piece
of legislation passed
through Parliament
in three days.
Had bilateral
support, basically,
to get on with the job.
We've got some pretty
powerful pieces of,
I suppose,
legislation there,
which draws on some other
aspects of legislation,
as mentioned in
the precursor.
I was the Coordinator-General
up there.
There's a, there's an
act--State Development and
Public Works Organisation
Act--which has some pretty
strong powers.
A lot of those are
drawn across to the,
to the Reconstruction
Authority Act.
And then there's a whole
range of other things
which allow us to get on and
do some stuff pretty rapidly.
The other aspect to it is,
all the money to do with
reconstruction comes
via the Reconstruction
Authority, so it doesn't
go via the different
agencies, as it would under
a traditional environment.
Basically, the two
treasuries--federal and
state--got
together and said,
"Yes, we want it to come
through." So we can track
the dollars, where
they come in and go out.
Part of the Authority's
role is to actually manage
and coordinate the distribution
of that money.
We don't treat it
like a grant scheme.
We actually treat it like a very
arge capital works program.
Okay?
Which is most of the
works--I'll show you in a
sec--most of the
works is roads.
We did a, a State Plan.
And you would have
seen the military guys
involved, Mick
Slater originally,
and now Richard Wilson,
both Majors General.
They brought in a bunch
of guys from the planning
areas in the military,
and they were great.
Working closely
with those guys,
come up with a State Plan,
which effectively distills
down to these
three activities.
But essentially what it
did is set up what they
call lines of
reconstruction.
And those lines of
reconstruction link into
the various interest
groups and the various
industry groups
and so forth.
So there's an economic
line of interest in
reconstruction, which
links into tourism,
mining,
agriculture, and so forth.
So we can draw
intelligence from off the
ground, what's happening.
And we can find out, well,
what's not working and
what is working?
Is there particular
freight groups
that aren't
working properly,
and how do we link that
into the roads line of
reconstruction?
So put this really good
network of communication
in place.
You'd think it would
happen naturally.
But by everyone in
the room being focussed,
it actually brought
everyone's mind onto the
task at hand.
And I have to say,
everybody went about it
the right way.
They just
couldn't help enough.
So where are we
at the moment?
Well the first phase was
really about the recovery.
Get the Band-Aids
on and get the,
get the roads open,
get the trucks moving,
get the freight happening,
to get the economy
re-ignited.
Then we're into
the hard phase now,
which is the
reconstruction.
And that's what we're well
and truly up to our neck
in at the moment.
$7.5 billion worth
of work to be done.
Even if you are trying to
do that as a single set of
infrastructure, you know,
in a planned environment,
it would be a challenge.
We've got it
across the whole state,
and we're
trying to get the,
get that mobilised.
So what that meant is we
had this co-op support.
We operate a
pretty delegated model,
which is allowing local
governments to get on and
do their roads, Department
of Main Roads to do their
roads, the range of
agricultural agencies and
so forth, the
DPIs and so forth,
working on with
those different people.
And what our role
is, to coordinate,
making sure that
that all happens,
and happens in accordance
with the rules set by AMA.
So where are we up
to at the moment?
Basically, there's $4.3
billion worth of activity
happening in
Queensland at the moment.
So in that figure, you can
see up there about $3.1
billion of that is either
complete out to market,
out to tender,
under evaluation,
under construction, or
in the process of being
closed out.
So that, that is what's
happening in Queensland at
the moment.
I've got about another
$1.2 billion will be
hitting the market in the next
two or three months, okay?
So as you can see, it's really
starting to ramp up.
If I showed you
a graph of the,
the previous--we generate
these numbers every month.
But perhaps if I
showed you a graph,
of the previous for
you to see,
this strong, there's
all this last year,
this massive ramp
up of activity.
You can't start
works overnight,
but once the
mobilisation happens,
we're seeing a
really good pick up.
So that's the sort of
overall programme.
What I wanna do here is
just jump into a couple of
areas where we've actually
sort of seen some gaps and
trying to sort of accelerate
some activities.
We've done a
bunch of things.
You would have
heard about Grantham.
I'll talk about
that in a minute.
Floodplain management.
Basically, we looked and
saw there's some gaps.
It's sort of fell between
different agencies.
You know, the Bureau of Meteorology
is interested in it.
AMQ is interested in it.
And so is the Department
of Natural Resources.
But nobody was really sort
of grabbing it and working
out, well what is
the floodplain?
And you saw the
size of Queensland.
It's enormous.
So I'll talk
about that in a sec.
Rebuilding a storm prone,
storm type prone areas.
The storm surge that came off
Cyclone Yasi was
quite significant.
It was, the devastation
we saw up there,
was akin to what
we saw in Grantham.
Fast-moving water
with just a huge surge.
So, I mean, you would have
seen the tsunami pictures
up of Japan--similar to that
but on a smaller scale.
But when the water
just starts moving,
it just doesn't stop.
Picks up debris and
just keeps going.
So the whole house is just
picked up and moved about
200 metres and then smeared
across the countryside.
So we saw that on
the storm surge,
and we saw that with
the flash flooding.
So two areas where we
saw this sort of really
significant damage--flash
flooding and storm surge.
Wind-resistant housing.
Again, knowledge is
increasing around,
around cyclone impacts.
We're working with the
cyclone testing station there.
Electrical
infrastructure's an
interesting one,
where you know,
right from residential
houses through to office
blocks and commercial,
people haven't had a flood
for 30, 40 years, and
the amount of commercial
buildings that actually
had their transformers in
the basements, okay,
filled with water.
You think, "Oh, why
would you do that?" I can
guarantee, go
around many towns,
you will find them
in the basement,
because it's the
cheapest place to put 'em.
But that's
what knocked out.
So basically, most
of Brisbane's legal
fraternity couldn't get
back into their office,
because all these CBD
office buildings had all
their power taken out.
And the automatic trigger
for when the power goes
out, is for all the lifts to
go down to the basement.
So all the lifts filled up with
mud as well, okay?
So those sorts of things
are the sort of lessons
being learned out of this.
The resources for
reconstruction.
The big issue also is, is
how much material is out
there, aggregate?
Can you get
petroleum products out,
as in bitumen
products and so forth?
What sand and gravel and
all these competing things?
Plus we've got the
mining sector happening.
And we've got the coal
seam gas happening at the
same time.
So everybody's competing
for labour and competing
for resources.
So we've done a
paper on that,
which sort of looks
at where we think the
hotspots are going to be.
No great surprises.
I mean, when you look at
those red hotspots that I
showed you on
the maps before.
That just coincidentally
happens to be where all
the coal seam and mining
is at the moment as well.
So we have a couple
of really tight areas,
as far as needs for
human resources go.
Okay.
Floodplain management.
I've touched
on that before.
I wanna go through
this, but in detail.
But essentially,
what we're saying is,
you know, most of
Australia and Queensland
particularly, is
in a floodplain.
We've mapped the
floodplain now.
26% of Queensland is
actually a floodplain.
Okay?
Most towns are
actually flood,
in floodplains.
So what it is, is this
issue of saying you can do
an element of protection,
but also you can do a bit
of preparation
for it as well.
So one of it is,
well, Queensland houses.
Get up on stilts,
water comes in,
water goes out.
And probably the classic
of that is Depot Hill in
Rockhampton, where
it was, you know,
you would have seen for
several weeks just prior
to Christmas and
just after Christmas,
people sitting on their
doorsteps in Rockhampton,
with the water up there,
some of them refusing to
leave and so forth.
But when the
water went out,
they were some of the
first people back into
their houses, because they
were all up in Queensland.
It's the low-set brick
houses with the plaster
border on the side that
are the ones who have
suffered the most.
00:10:51.875,00:00:00.000
Okay.
