Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:
State and Federal Labor Government’s have abandoned farmers devastated by the central QLD floods. Premier Anna Bligh was in Emerald and Charleville during the floods for the photo opportunities and media coverage but when it comes to the offering any real assistance to those hardest hit she has “left them to rot”.
National Party member for Charters Towers Shane Knuth is angry and frustrated. All of his efforts to bring the issue to the State & Federal governments attention have been ignored. Agmates calls to the Preimers depart about this issue were never return. AgForce has also been lobbying State and Federally for these farmers without success.
Member for Charters Towers Shane Knuth (on right) with Hog and Melanie Jones and Julie Dillion standing in front of the Belyando bridge which was submerged by the river for the first time since it was built.
Mr Knuth told Agmates - “I’ve made several approaches to the government on behalf of the affected farmers on the Belyando with no response. There are cattle out there dropping like flies from three day sickness. The Sandflies are eating flood stranded cattle and those poor people that live there alive.
Given the severity of this event and the huge infrastructure losses in the Belyando/ Emerald districts the Government is simply being tight fisted and mean spirited, offering a lousy $150,000 in assistance packages.” Mr Knuth said.
“In Cyclone Larry, some producers accessed a combination of low interest loans and grants of up to $500,000 to assist in the rebuilding of their business. People here have suffered millions of dollars in losses and the government, just because these people are isolated and out of the media spotlight throw $150,000 at them like you’d throw a dog a bone.”
“It’s a disgrace, the Premier is prepared to let good honest farming families go to the wall, while she sits in the air conditioning in George Street preparing to spend $500,000 of tax payers money to keep the media from exposing her parties mismanagement and neglect.” a furious Mr Knuth told Agmates.
A loans manager of one of the rural lending banks who asked not to be named told Agmates that they have a number of clients in the worst hit arrears. He told us that there was no way these people would be able to meet their upcoming interest payments and if they did not get immediate low interest long term assistance from the government, the consequences would be dire for them.
Mr Knuth suggested Agmates speak to the Luke family at Bygana to get an idea of just how badly affected some farmers where. I contacted Dan and Leanne Luke and asked them if they would share their situation with the Agmates.
The Luke’s property Bygana is 23,500 acres on the Belyando River and 32 days after the flooding 50% of the property is still under water. Government authorities have classed the property as “out of flood”. This rating means that the Luke’s can still assess a government helicopter to check on stranded cattle but they have to pay the fuel costs.
Photo of Dan Luke walking through flood waters with his dogs to check on stranded cattle
Below is a map of Bygana emailed to us by the Luke’s showing the the areas still underwater. Of the 23,500 acres they have only approx 5,000 acres that is unaffected. Flood water initially covered 18,500 acres. A month after the floods 12,000 acres is still covered in water up to 1 metre deep in places.
Whilst being flood bound Dan and Leanne have had plenty of time to access their losses. “We did a tally over a couple of days and we stopped after we got to $3 million in losses” Dan said. “it was getting a bit depressing so we gave it away”.
Those losses include about approx 400 head of adult cattle, nearly all of their machinery, dams, fencing, 30kms of newly laid poly pipe, the road out of Bygana .
What has been a bitter pill to swallow is the huge areas of improved Buffel grass that has been killed. The Luke have progressively improved their country over the years planting it to Buffel grass. “As the water is finally soaking back off our country we are seeing that we have lost our pasture. Buffel can’t cope with being submersed for days and we estimate we have lost nearly 7,000 acres without whats still under the water.”
This photo shows some of the 1,000’s of acres of dead buffel grass.
Dan admitted that the $150,000 low interest loan on offer would probably cover the cost of repairing the dams, but not much else. He and Leanne were grateful for the support local member Shane Knuth had given. “He’s written a few letters and tried but we are not getting our hopes up. We are pretty isolated here, no one really knows whats happened.”
The photo’s above and below show how the water has made the country a dank rotting mess. When the water goes after a month all thats left is dead grass and with a green slime on the ground.
“Dan said, that they were no worse off than a number of other families in the area. We’d welcome Premier Anna Bligh or any other Labor politician to come and have a look for themselves. We’d be happy to show them around, but they’d have to come by light plane or Chooper, there’s no road left”.
Below is the Bygana house. This photo was taken on the 16th of February and shows the flood water starting to rise again after further heavy rains the night before further up the river.
Cattle that survived the flood water are dying from three day sickness. “We are doing our best to save them but it’s really difficult. The Sandfly and mosquito’s are in plague proportions. They spread the disease from beast to beast and with the water everywhere is really difficult to get to them. The photo below is of 2 head that died at this gateway.”
We spend a lot of our time dragging dead timber in heaps and setting fire to them. The cattle stand around in the smoke which gives them some relief from the none stop bitting insects.
“We have approximately 12,000 acres of Bygana just like this, waterlogged and rotting.” The next 3 photo’s give you an idea of just what it looks like from the air.
This is a photo of a machinery shed that is about 50 metres from the house. It was taken after the peak of the flood.
Finally, there are some on Bygana that don’t think it’s all bad news.
Have your say - Leave a message of support for the Luke’s and other farmers struggling to cope with huge losses, or have your say about the Queensland Governments leaving the Belyando / Emerald flood ravaged farmers to fend for themselves.
What on earth are the state and federal governments thinking? Hang on, they probably aren’t thinking, with the our QLD based PM too busy looking at himself in the mirror and planning is next media grabbing policy, Premier Bligh thinking what outfit she will wear tomorrow.
My heart goes out to all of those effected by these flood waters, and the losses experienced are enough to make a weaker man give up and walk out. Both Governments handed out money left, right and center after Cyclone Larry for those who were affected. What makes these producers any different, they might not have had the wind, but they had the greatest wall of water anyone would have seen. And for water to still be there after 35 days, it is something that is just incomprehensible. I wish the Luke’s and all the other Central Queenslanders effected by this flood the best of wishes on the road to recovery. May you have plenty of sunshine in the next few weeks.
Those people in the flooded areas have our thoughts and prayers and I would hope that both Federal and State politicians will quickly reassess the issues and provide assistance where required.
However, I thought it rather rich to hear one of the major banks calling on the governments to quickly provide low interest loans - what is stopping this very same bank, along with other banks, in immediately setting up low interest loans for their customers affected by these floods ?