Interview with Adam Spencer, ABC 702

Subjects: Queensland floods

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

17 January 2011

ADAM SPENCER: First of all, how is the leg? We heard about the infection you picked up when you got just a little bit too keen trying to help out.

KEVIN RUDD: It's fine, I've been getting lots of antibiotic treatment on that. I think I'm not Robinson Crusoe there, there's a lot of bugs flowing around in the river at the moment so yeah, it's one of those things that happens when you're amidst a flood cleanup with a lot of muck coming out of the risen river.

ADAM SPENCER: And I get the impression your electoral office became a bit of a centre for organising pushing people in the right direction. What was taking place at Kevin Rudd central during the last few days?

KEVIN RUDD: Well the key thing is to make sure you're responding to individual local needs. Some parts of the community on Brisbane southside needed just physical grunt, that's teams of people going through with mops, with hoses et cetera; others there's just a basic supply problem with water, feeding people, we've done a fair bit of that, because the electricity's been off in these areas for a long, long time. Then on top of that - basic supplies of Dettol, cleaning gloves as well as the rarest commodity of all in Queensland at the moment, gumboots.

ADAM SPENCER: [Laughs] We actually had reports that so many people turned up over the weekend, the mayor of Brisbane is now saying look unless you've got a pick-up truck or serious carrying capacity, please don't come any more at the moment, there were traffic jams being caused by so many people trying to help out. That must have been very heartening.

KEVIN RUDD: It's been great. I think what's happened is that people have discovered neighbours they never knew they had. Going right back to the time when water started rising last Tuesday night, a street called Ryan Street in the west end as the waters began coming from nowhere, we discovered that people suddenly would have 20 or 30 folks from around the neighbourhood just arrive wading through in waist-deep water to help get people's furniture out. We were doing that until about one or two in the morning, getting furniture out, people working really well together and this is a story repeated a thousand fold across the - local communities right across Brisbane. And by and large it's been a community effort.

ADAM SPENCER: And at the same time we're hearing stories this morning of looting, of people preying on victims, of people posing as shonky - posing as tradesman when they've got no qualifications at all, asking for money up front to help with cleanups et cetera, is that just inevitable that there's a small portion of humanity that will do those sorts of things or is it disheartening to think that there are people preying on these vulnerable individuals in communities Kevin?

KEVIN RUDD: Well look I've got to say people here in this community would be deeply, deeply disappointed if we saw that sort of stuff here. And look, let's just be realistic about this. In normal community life without a natural disaster there's going to have a microscopic proportion of population going to do bad things. That applies when you've got natural disasters as well. What I stand back and see overwhelmingly across the communities of Brisbane is communities pitching in, you know, providing food and water and accommodation and all those sorts of things for people in dire need.

I'll give you one example - again in the afternoon and the morning when flood waters were rising rapidly, distribution centres for sandbags became the meccas of the southside of Brisbane. And then what happened was that there are not enough council workers to do the work, so out of nowhere they materialised, the Morningside Football Club for example, 100-120 volunteers who organised themself like a group of Rommel's field army, throwing out sandbags on the back of utes right across houses, right across the southside, getting it out there at a critical time when people needed to get their levee banks up. This is the real story of what happened, both in the preparation and the cleanup. Obviously you're going to have some bad eggs but overwhelmingly it's been a terrific community effort.

ADAM SPENCER: We saw footage in Sydney last night of the Governor General struggling to maintain her composure as she dealt with some of the individuals and some of the tragedies they'd experienced. Anna Bligh has been going it seems non-stop. She's been the human face for many people of the tragedy, of the floods in Queensland. The Prime Minister's been there, have you spoken to any of these people? How are they bearing up Mr Rudd?

KEVIN RUDD: Yeah I spoke to Anna most days. Her state seat of parliament is in the middle of my federal electorate and obviously we know each other well anyway through the previous work that I've been doing. And her state electorate has copped a lot of the direct impact, particularly around the suburb of West End and South Brisbane which if - folk are from Sydney, if you're standing at the Botanic Gardens and looking across the South Bank, that's all of her state area and all of my federal area. So she knows from her own community, houses and streets and friends and neighbours who have literally gone under and so therefore she's been dealing with it at a very local and personal level as well as her state responsibilities.

I think where she's been great is this; calm, cool, factual presentation of the information at hand as well as obviously demonstrating a deep compassion for what's going on. But I've got to say I see that at most levels of government.

ADAM SPENCER: And whilst there is a long way to go on this , in some ways South East Queensland returns to work today but we should not be naive, there is a massive task ahead of all of you isn't there?

KEVIN RUDD: Well look just having driven around the place a lot in the last several days, basic questions like physical infrastructure, the physical cost of redoing roads, it's just massive, bridges which have been knocked down. Then you go to the impact on people's businesses, a lot of the work that my teams and myself before my foot went bung a couple of days ago were doing was providing some supplies to people trying to get muck out of basements of commercial buildings, you know, around west end as well, and this is affecting small businesses everywhere.

The roll-on consequences for the economy are huge and therefore I'm concerned also that the roll-on consequences for employment but they're a tough mob up here. They'll get it done, but the key challenge Adam is not for this to be a flash in the pan outburst of spontaneous community involvement - it's for all levels of government to get their sleeves rolled up for the next three months, six months, nine months and 12 months, forget the politics, get the rebuilding and the recovery done.

ADAM SPENCER: Okay I'll let you go and roll up your sleeves and get back to it. Thank you very much for your time Kevin Rudd.

ENDS

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