Cyclone Yasi

In Grantham and beyond, they searched for bodies in battered houses and hot, swampy fields. Clearing debris from footpaths, roads and yards. Eighteen months before, they’d fought the inferno in southern and central Victoria, fighting fires, saving lives, and making endless cups of tea.

They’re Australian volunteers - thousands of them - who left jobs and families to lend a hand to the natural disaster recovery efforts that swept across our eastern states in the past three years.

Their work saved lives and homes. Comforted hearts, and made towns livable again. Actions fit for a reward of huge proportions. But here’s what they got instead. A muddled up medal with serious eligibility issues and a confusing criteria that ignored the efforts of thousands of others. And a bungled up awards ceremony. Seem unfair to you? Well, here’s how it happened.

Continue reading "A muddled medal: Our volunteers deserve more" »

Life was not meant to be easy for cassowaries.

I am writing this as I enjoy an escape at my in-laws hideaway retreat in the middle of a rainforest in Far North Queensland. It’s raining.

Heavy tropical rain is best experienced in a dense rainforest setting. It is a unique form of entertainment for a city slicker - especially when many of the other trappings of modern city life are non-existent. There is no mobile phone coverage, no town water - just a bore - a sub-soil waste management distribution system and very poor and infrequent radio reception even with an aerial. My link to the outside world is a satellite broadband set-up for internet - no television.

Continue reading "Wary Cass another of Cyclone Yasi’s victims" »

The Queensland floods are the most economically damaging natural disaster in Australian history – but as reconstruction begins, we should be wary of a different type of deluge, of a far more avoidable type.

In December last year, ANU academic Peter McDonald made headlines when he suggested that foreign workers should be rushed into the country to work below Australian minimum wages and conditions.

Professor McDonald argued that Australia needed to accelerate the construction of major infrastructure and that the best way to achieve it would be to put the projects out to international tender, allowing the winning bidder to bring their own workers to remunerate and treat as they see fit.

Continue reading "Foreign workers are not the solution to a quick cleanup" »

FLOODS, cyclones and bushfires have torn apart people’s lives and communities in recent weeks, but it’s their legacy that could be even more painful.

Hearts went out to the victims of the Queensland floods in particular, galvanising a wave of support around the country and raising hundreds of millions of dollars in donations.

At the same time, floods and bushfires spanning the eastern states through to the west spread the suffering.

Continue reading "Pain will persist well beyond this summer’s disasters" »

The Gillard Government is determined to get a victory on carbon emission penalties within 12 months, and a key factor in this political process could be the latest weather reports.

The general public was more receptive to the arguments for global warming the last time the weather was big news, when Australia was dealing with record drought and lethal bush fires.

They might be willing to listen again following the counter events of massive flood and wild winds across much of the continent.

Continue reading "Wild weather could help blow in the new carbon tax" »

4PM UPDATE: SEE BELOW FOR DAVID’S PICS FROM MAGNETIC ISLAND TODAY

Regular Punch reader and commenter David Pierce spent the night in his weatherboard home on Magnetic Island, 8km off Townsville, bunkered down against the fury of Cyclone Yasi with his wife and two children.

“My darkest moment came when the wind shifted and stuff was breaking up and hitting the house,” he told The Punch this morning. “The worst part was not knowing what was hitting the house.”

Fortunately, Pierce and his family got though the night. (Check the wind gusts at a nearby weather station on this link). And as he spends today cleaning up the debris in his yard, he has no doubt why Yasi’s human toll has been so low.

Continue reading "Survivor’s tale: over-warned is better than under-prepared" »

Update 6:05am : Cyclone Yasi has been downgraded to a category three storm, but remains dangerous. The “very destructive” core, with gusts up to 205 km/h, is continuing to move inland west of Cardwell towards the Georgetown area. The full extent of the damage isn’t known yet but the communities of Mission Beach, Tully and Innisfail, 50km north of ground zero, are the worst hit. There have been no reported deaths or injuries so far. Read more as news.com.au live updates.

Political grandstanding over the Government’s proposed Queensland levy will look extremely silly, if not downright nasty, after the brute force of cyclone Yasi blows some perspective into the debate.

Anything which might delay, limit or compromise the reconstruction of lives and vital economic production in Queensland will be isolated, highlighted, and no doubt condemned.

If a cyclone can have a silver lining - even one as catastrophic as Yasi - this is it. It will blow away the political smoke and flummery and concentrate the minds on all sides.

Continue reading "Yasi set to blow some perspective into levy debate" »

Update 6:05am : Cyclone Yasi has been downgraded to a category three storm, but remains dangerous. The “very destructive” core, with gusts up to 205 km/h, is continuing to move inland west of Cardwell towards the Georgetown area. The full extent of the damage isn’t known yet but the communities of Mission Beach, Tully and Innisfail, 50km north of ground zero, are the worst hit. There have been no reported deaths or injuries so far. Read more as news.com.au live updates.

Queensland, already suffering from the floods, is now taking another hit - and this one has been described as “more life threatening than any experienced during recent generations”. Join news.com.au’s live blog here:

Or go to news.com.au for the latest updates on Yasi’s approach, the projected path, and news from the ground.

Feel free to share any thoughts or words of support for Queensland here.