SYMPATHY FOR FLOOD VICTIMS

SYMPATHY FOR FLOOD VICTIMS

On behalf of the electorate and people of Wills I extend my deepest sympathy to the victims of floods both here in Australia, and other nations around the world, and their families.

Queensland has suffered great loss of life and loss of life’s endeavours and prospects. We have been all astonished by the power of the floods and the scale of the havoc they have wrought, and moved by the personal tragedy and resilience of their victims.

We have seen hundreds, perhaps over a thousand lives lost in Brazil, devastation on a scale rivalling that in Pakistan last year, reminding us that floods around the world are getting worse.

In Victoria towns which I visited only recently are now underwater, and New South Wales and Tasmania have also been hit. Farmers and businesses face an uncertain future. Homeowners have lost everything they have built up over a lifetime.

There will need to be consideration of the causes and consequences of such fearsome phenomena- of the role of climate change, of planning where we live and where we don’t, of the role of insurance. But let us first support the victims using our own particular talents, and remember the words of John Donne:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as  if a promontory were; as well as any manner of thy friends or thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Kelvin Thomson, Federal Member for Wills.