JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW 
ABC GOLD COAST MORNINGS
WEDNESDAY, 2 MARCH 2022

SUBJECTS: South-East Queensland Floods

MATT WEBBER, HOST: Jim Chalmers is the member that represents the electorate of Rankin around Logan and Southern Brisbane and he joins me now. Mr. Chalmers, hello.

JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Good morning, Matt. Thanks for having me on your show.

WEBBER: Good to have you too. You've obviously been touching in with your community there. What are you seeing? What have you heard?

CHALMERS: This is the difficult period, as we were just hearing from Kimberly down further into the Gold Coast, now is the time when we start to think about the floodwaters receding. In Logan they were still coming up overnight to that new peak that you mentioned at Waterford on the Logan river but people are now turning their mind to the clean-up. This is a really difficult time. Obviously people feel helpless when the waters are rising but when the adrenaline starts to drop away and the waters start to recede the full clean up and the full damage is revealed to everyone and I think that's when it gets really tough on people. The message for all your listeners who might be doing it tough is you're not on your own and there is help available. We know when this happens typically that there is a flood of kindness, generosity and assistance and I think that'll be the case again.

WEBBER: Specifically your community obviously takes in some of Logan, are there any particular areas of concern in and around your division?

CHALMERS: Around Waterford, around the bridge there around the Logan River has come up very high. In my own electorate there is kind of five or six areas of quite serious flooding, where we've got almost 200 roads cut off. We've got hundreds of homes that we think will be impacted. Obviously thousands of homes have been without power. I spent a bit of yesterday afternoon at the evacuation centre at the Logan Metro Sports Centre. There's a bunch of people there from southwestern Logan around Logan Reserve and places like Munruben who've been cut off from their homes and their homes have been substantially damaged. So there is a lot of damage here, really all the way down from kind of Gympie north of here, all the way through the southeast corner and down into Lismore. Obviously the damage has been really significant. People are doing it tough and I think you know if I could Matt just shout out to the emergency workers particularly the SES volunteers and all the first responders they've had a difficult few days but they've done an absolutely magnificent job. We would be in much more strife were it not for the way that people have banded together.

WEBBER: Any particular message you want to get out to the constituents under your watch?

CHALMERS: Be super careful with the water. I was at Princess Street in Marsden yesterday and the water is still up there and people were trying to work out whether to drive through or walk through and the message there is ‘if it's flooded, forget it’. It's better to be patient with these floodwaters. They are still very high. They'll take a little while to recede so please don't be in a rush. The other thing is if you are feeling a bit down, reach out for help. Neighbours are looking out for neighbours. There are lots of volunteer organisations who are circulating in our community and prepared to help whether it's with meals or showers or charging phones or whatever it might be to help out so people aren't on their own. Typically this is a really difficult time for people's mental health as they start hosing out houses and businesses and trying to take stock of the damage that's been done, so they're not on their own. Everybody is here to help. We'll get through it again.

WEBBER: Appreciate your time as we get close to news time. Thank you Jim Chalmers.

CHALMERS: Thank you, Matt.

ENDS