JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
TODAY SHOW
MONDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2022
SUBJECTS: Queensland flood emergency; Flood of kindness and generosity in drenched Queensland communities; Courage of the Ukrainian people in the face of Russia’s vile act of aggression.
KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: Welcome back to this special edition of The Today Show, live from the banks of the Brisbane River. We're at the Howard Smith Wharves this morning, where they're busily preparing for that rise in waters to about four metres, it's at three-point-two metres now, so it's fast approaching in the next couple of hours. A couple of Brisbane locals join me now, Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers and 4BC's Scott Emerson. Lads, good morning to you. Jim, to you first of all. You're down in Logan. That area down there is of significance this morning, we've seen how fast the waters are rising and we know a search is underway there this morning for someone, hopefully that turns out okay and that someone wasn't missing, but it's been incredible the amount of water falling.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: It's been diabolical overnight in Logan, it was just unrelenting, until a couple of hours ago. Down that way, it wasn't that long ago, 2017, we had a horrific flood. It's looking like being something like that today. We need to make sure we're all keeping safe, looking out for each other and looking after each other, because it's going to be a difficult day or two ahead.
STEFANOVIC: It is. We flew in last night and there were areas that were just completely covered, that I haven't seen covered before. That's the tricky thing with this one, because it was hovering over the coast for so long and so much fell.
CHALMERS: Yeah, if you speak to the Bureau of Meteorology, basically it sat above South East Queensland for much longer than they originally anticipated. And it was just that unrelenting rain - you would have had it at your place too, Scott - just unbelievably unrelenting rain. A lot of people are waking up, it's not raining right now, but as you said, the tide's coming up in the Brisbane River. A lot of people would be waking up in Logan to the whole place under water, and so it's going to be very tough,
STEFANOVIC: Awful. Scott, we were talking before about even just getting logistically into the Howard Smith Wharves this morning. Everyone knows a backstreet route anywhere in Brisbane right, but this time around you had to take three or four different backstreets.
SCOTT EMERSON, 4BC: It was amazing. Of course, I'm from the Western suburbs there - so Coro's cut, Milton's cut - I was tracking through the back of Red Hill, Paddington, Indooroopilly - to get back. Look, as Jim just said there, it has been unrelenting in terms of what's been happening. This is a contrast between 2011 and now. It was almost a dry flood in 2011, there was sunny skies as the water was raising. But here we've seen the rain just bucketing down, day after day, and we are now seeing of course a high tide at eight o'clock today.
STEFANOVIC: It's fortunate the rain has stopped because it would have been a close thing today, right? And because they haven't done pre-emptive releases from the Wivenhoe Dam. We heard the Premier under the pump yesterday at a press conference about that very thing, it's in the manual now you can't do that. Brisbane people have, I think, a very sceptical read on whether or not any government can handle the release of the water from Wivenhoe because of what happened before.
EMERSON: 2011, there was concerns about the releases from Wivenhoe, that they were done at the wrong time and just exacerbated the level of flooding. Under the manual - which was revised after 2011 - still, you can't do pre-emptive floods. So we saw this rain bomb coming, but under the rules there you can't release until the rain hits the ground.
STEFANOVIC: Why can't we get this right? And this is 10 years on. I mean, I know things are difficult and that you can't read what's going to fall exactly, precisely. But surely you see a weather event coming?
EMERSON: Well, this is the real problem. I think that's going to be the question a lot of people are going to be asking today as we head towards four metres with the Brisbane River - still below the 2011 level of 4.46 metres. With so many areas - Jim's area, my area, across the boarder - being flooded, people will say why can't we get it right. Exactly right, Karl. Ten years on, the manual still doesn't seem to be coping with what we're experiencing.
STEFANOVIC: Jim, what do you think about that? I mean, is it time that it got bigger or got taken out of someone's hands? I mean, if you're inept at something, surely you're not in charge of it again?
CHALMERS: If there are more lessons to be learned from this flood compared to last time, then let's learn those lessons. But the focus today needs to be looking for people who are missing. Eventually, when the when the floodwaters start to recede, we need to be helping people with the clean-up. There's some federal assistance for people who are badly affected. They should go onto the Services Australia website to see if they're eligible.
But what typically happens, and what we should focus on - and you guys know as Queenslanders - whenever we have an episode like this there is a flood of generosity, and people come from everywhere to help out. So I think the main message to people who might be watching your show, is when you wake up this morning and you're feeling down about it and you might be feeling on your own, you're not on your own. There is help available to you and people will come from everywhere to help you clean up.
STEFANOVIC: Yeah, and there is going to be a massive clean-up. We're just looking here just towards the Story Bridge there, and there's a huge amount of debris here. All the walkways here - the river walk about two hundred metres away from us here, that was built in 2014 I think, that's completely covered. These are kind of iconic, new iconic parts of Brisbane.
EMERSON: The repair bill is going to be phenomenal, across the board - all the way from Gympie all the way to the Goldy - that is just the reality here, you're quite right. I mean the ferocity here. I don't know if you can pick it up on the mic, hearing the roar of the Brisbane River at the moment. It's almost like me at the beach. That's the kind of roar we're hearing.
STEFANOVIC: Sounds like waves, yeah.
EMERSON: And, look, it's only going to get more and more. We're so saturated, so soaked at the moment, all the water's going to keep flowing in. Even though it's dry here at the moment, the rain's eased off and gone south, that's going to keep happening for a couple of days.
STEFANOVIC: It'll be three or four days won't it. Let's talk about something else, the other massive story obviously happening around the world right now. Vladimir Putin, I mean he's almost threatening to go nuclear. There's some questions about his mental status this morning. But regardless of that, this is ongoing. Is there anything more Australia can do? Is there anything more that the world can do, Jim?
CHALMERS: First of all, he's shown that he's not bound, not just by international law, but by basic standards of human decency. So we should be very careful about any of those kinds of pronouncements he makes.
There was an announcement overnight of some talks. Obviously, we want there to be talks, if there's a choice between talks and bloodshed, but you can understand why the Ukrainians are sceptical. From an Australian point of view, we should be supporting the Ukrainian people financially, we should be supporting them with weapons, we should be tightening the screws on the Russian economy and on Vladimir Putin himself and his cronies. Because there needs to be a response to this vile and unprovoked act of aggression.
STEFANOVIC: It's awful, isn't it?
EMERSON: I was talking to Australian Ukrainians on my show and you just feel for them, the tales they were telling. One woman was saying about her sister-in-law, heavily pregnant, gone to the hospital, she's hiding in the basement at the moment, just wondering what's going to happen now. And this madman is out there threatening, saying oh look I might bring out the nukes. This is where it's going. These fake threats that he's going to consider nuclear deterrents. Karl, you just feel for the Ukrainian people. As Jim just said there, Australia should be doing all it can in terms of financial help but also what other support we can provide.
STEFANOVIC: There's massive, obviously, international news going on at the moment. That's the focus for a lot of people, and rightly so. But for everyone in South East Queensland right now, in Northern New South Wales, this is the big deal. Good on you guys, thank you for being with us today.
CHALMERS: Thanks, fellas.
STEFANOVIC: We will be back with more live information coming to you from Brisbane in just a sec.
ENDS
