Crisis gets worse in the bush

HOW will the governments, both state and federal, approach the multi-layered drama unfolding in the state’s northwest?

This flooding, which has swamped hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of grazing country, has so many battle fronts. The welfare of people is number one. Mental health is being talked about as a priority. Many of the people who are alone in homesteads cut off by floodwater, running creeks and boggy roads have the constant stink of rotting carcasses outside in their paddocks to remind them of what has happened. There is no escape. Some have dead animals washed up against their houseyard fences.

There are no clean-up crews, no hearty bands of volunteers swinging by to lend a helping hand. It’s every man and woman for themselves.

There are children whose schooling over the School of Distance Education has been disrupted. Many of these children have lost their ponies, their dogs have drowned on their chains and their pet poddy calves have been swept away.

They will also be witnessing the stress their parents are under. What can the School of Distance Education can do for these children living in the bush in isolated homesteads who are tearing apart inside?

What is in store for communities like Hughenden, Richmond and Julia Creek? Each one of them has suffered during the severe economic downturn caused by the seven-year drought.

Now, with drought broken by a historymaking flood, bigger even in the Flinders River than 1974, there will be no recovery. With so many hundreds of thousands of cattle dead the economic situation has become dire. The towns depend on these producers for their own survival.

Thousands of kilometres of stock fencing will have been destroyed. Station machinery and vehicles will have been submerged.

There is a crisis in the bush now, the likes of which has never been seen before.