 Good afternoon and thank you very much indeed for joining us here at Kedrin the State Disaster Coordination Centre. To give you an overview on what happened in the last 24 hours, at Theodore there has been some rain overnight but I'm able to report there's been a minimal impact. We are advised that the electrical assessments are still ongoing in town at Theodore and they are progressing well and the Salvation Army has established itself in Theodore and is providing our meals. The Australian Defence Force has very kindly come to assist in regards to restoring some of the water supply for the town which has sustained some damage to the water treatment plant mainly in the motor environment in that respect and the repatriation of Theodore is commencing today. In respect to Condamine repatriation has commenced however I've got to say there is some restricted access there has been rain which has caused some roads to be flooded again however they're working through those issues and a majority of the power has now been restored to the town and the Recovery Centre has been established at the primary school. In regards to Rockhampton, Rockhampton did peak at 9.2 metres and is currently sitting at 9.15 metres and receding albeit slowly. It is anticipated that the major flood levels will remain in and around Rockhampton for about the next seven days. Now we say about because obviously there's a lot of impacts on the environment there and that could be even sooner depending on obviously the amount of water that's still coming. There is some revised figures in regards to inundation of homes that has been revised from 400 down to 150 and the officers do report that a cow was located alive on North Keppel Island and it had to come from Rockhampton. Now that is a 20-minute boat journey from Rockhampton to North Keppel so that is an incredible journey by that particular animal. I am advised that the animal is alive and well. In St George there is a repositioning of resources there and a further 10,000 sandbags I understand is to be delivered this afternoon. Hydrology also has been revised and this has been revised to a peak of below 14 metres over the weekend as most of the predictive rain for the area has now fallen further to the east and is outside of that particular catchment area. And looking at our weather over the next couple of days we are advised that the weather we can expect some rain anywhere between 20 and 50 millimetres over the Burnett-Wide Bay area and we are also expecting some small pockets of rain of about 100 millimetres. However I would refer all weather inquiries to the Bureau of Meteorology site which is regularly updated. I would like to pass over to Warren from Emergency Management Queensland with a few details. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Emergency Management Queensland is continuing to work with other states and discussing the support that they have offered but I can announce to you today that 23 SES volunteers from Victoria are arriving this afternoon and they will be deployed into the southeast of our region to assist with flood cleanup. Also we have one person arrive today from the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management in New Zealand that's a forward reconnaissance person. He's working with us now because on Saturday there are 15 other persons arriving from New Zealand. They are quite skilled in flood response and particularly in emergency management so we look forward to them joining us. We're going to insert into their teams we have four team leaders coming from New Zealand and we're going to insert into those teams local state emergency service volunteers to assist them and I guess assimilate them into Australia particularly our weather. The person who came forward this morning is quite concerned about how hot it is here. I'd also like to say that Emergency Management Queensland is involved in the coordination of state agencies and how we go about the donations that are being offered into those communities and one of the things Emergency Management Queensland is pushing and that is the message that we ask that all donations be given in cash to the Premier's Disaster Relief Fund. There was a press release yesterday from St Vincent's to Paul and they stated that while they want to help people rebuild their lives the best way to do that is with financial support and therefore they're keen for those cash donations to go to the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal from where they can get financial assistance then that financial assistance can then be given back into the local communities. So whilst people out there are generously wanting to donate goods it's extremely difficult to get those items into the communities because of closed roads and all of the other issues with getting goods in there so cash is by far the most effective way to immediately help people now who have been affected by these floods. That is all thank you. In regards to I don't have the exact numbers yet but if you were to contact the local disaster management group they'd be able to help you with that. That's a very much tactical operation being run at that local level. They I'm advised that people have started to return to Theodore. Yes. No I don't sorry no. Can you clarify the law on forced evacuation? I will basically the issue about evacuations is contained under the Disaster Management Act. I don't have a copy with me now. But when a disaster is declared the powers that are contained within the Disaster Management Act and the provisions do allow certain activities to occur in a community and that is readily available on the site. But they include arrest? We haven't actually had any situations where we've had to do that. Yeah. Just the mayor of Rock Hampton had just sent us things that were refused to be evacuated and now feel fulfilled in order and that he is considering forced removal. Well I'm not aware of that particular media release but what I will do when I leave here I'll actually look that up and talk with the officers in Rock Hampton. Again that's probably more a matter for the local disaster management group. Just in regards to that I believe there was a there was a person arrested for a break and enter offence and that person I understand has received a custodial sentence. Well I don't have any other details on that at the moment unfortunately but again that's probably if you were to make inquiries with Rock Hampton they would have more details in that regard. Yeah. No I think it might have been overnight. No I don't sorry no. Again the purpose of this centre is about the strategic overview of looking at disaster from a whole estate perspective so I'm looking at quite a few areas at the moment. The rain that's I mean it's not been that much but the rain that's arrived so far is that hand for just going to make a lot of correctment to the law? The rain that has occurred has obviously cut some roads sorry has cut some roads in Dolby in the Dolby area they have reported the rise of some of the creeks and that's obviously made life a little bit more difficult however the officers are using a workaround in that regard and they're using some helicopter assets that they have there but we wouldn't anticipate that that will cause them to stop they'll work through that and push on. Are you sorry I'm sorry I'm sending word on the highway near Jandawi? Yes near Jandawi the the water has come across the road we received that report this morning but again that's probably more due to the recent rain and so obviously when that rain starts to slow down and the creek starts to drop the highway will be open again. Are people still trying to drive through? I haven't had any reports in all in fact I think that the community being outstanding now that they I think the message is slowly getting through is that it is dangerous and I've seen some photographs of of people that are putting little signs on the road closed signs to say you know can you read I think is one that's on one particular website so the fact that we've and the fact that we've had no further reports has been very encouraging in that regard. How many extra police that would normally serve in South East Queensland? I don't actually have those numbers the we have a cell that's looking at logistical redeployments and support of officers in the field a cell a planning cell looking at fatigue and also and supply for officers in the field and I would have to consult with them to get the exact numbers but as requests come in so that particular function addresses those and officers are sent to those areas because obviously we need to maintain a fatiguerally for our own people that are working in some very hard environments and look at rotating those people through. Well my advice from this morning is yes a cow was located on North Capital Island it was alive and well and they believe it's come actually from Rockampton so it's a 20 minute boat journey and that's a long swim in anybody's book. Do you know which property it came from? No I don't sorry. I don't know how would you know that probably. Probably if you were to inquire with the disaster local disaster management group in Rockampton they may be able to do that for you but it is rather interesting. Do you know how much livestock has been lost? We don't know and that's one of the tragedies of this along with obviously all the other inundations and damage that's been caused I think the hardships right across all aspects of the community have been huge we haven't even been able to start looking at that aspect yet. Do you expect once the waters go down to find bloodstock and I think that once waters go down I think people go back they'll see obviously see the effects of the flooding and I would then say that we would probably get a true picture of what has actually occurred because we're seeing reports now of road damage of rail lines and being scaled out especially around the Alpha Jericho area we're seeing you know the washouts on the roads so I think there's a lot more to see once the waters have subsided. Yes sir. You mentioned yesterday of course that you were looking for a term to work for. Yes. I think about 1,000 out of the 6,000 available might be deployed at any one time. Yes. So maybe 5,000 not utilized. And not quite there's another 5,000 who are registered state emergency service volunteers but they are probably in some cases back at their workplace just to pick somewhere there's a whole bunch of those people in Normaton but we're not bringing them out to do it I think they're staying in Normaton for what might happen in the Gulf. So yes 5,000 but they're not available for deployment. I would think there's probably another couple of hundred we could call on who are have yeah most of these volunteers have jobs and they have lives as well so during the day they just may not be available. Don't they get notice a week's time? Yes that's correct and there's a process in place where they can talk to their employer to see where they can get off work to actually do this. Some cases that happens and other cases it can't happen. So potentially we'll be talking a lot more when we come home and we can be available in a week. Yes correct. And this operation will go on for? Not so much this operation this operation will go on we think for another couple of weeks during the cleanup but this is the beginning of the wet season so we are managing ourselves now so that we don't suffer fatigue early and we're still available and capable to deal with what happens in February and March. We are speaking to Tasmania and South Australia and we've accepted their offer but not just yet. We have sufficient people to do what needs to be done right now and again there are sort of a reserve which can come along if another event happens and we suspect it will sometime before the end of the wet season. Have you heard of the story from other states that you had earlier, looking at territory or? No, no not at this stage. Is the use of interstate SES a boost to grading awareness and empathy throughout the world? Yes it is and that is exactly why the Association of State Emergency Services have a protocol drawn up between all states and agreed to by all states and it is about mutual support. It works in two ways I would suggest one is it is a support that we obviously need but it's all about learning as well we can learn from each other so it's a good opportunity to bring people in to see how we do business and to learn from them as well. You want to help fundraise throughout Australia? I suspect it will this is through you people is receiving a lot of oppress and a lot of acknowledgement about the work done by volunteers and a good for instance is we're just today saying goodbye to five Victorian emergency management specialists who've been in our coordination room. I suspect they've gone away after learning quite a lot and I know we've learned a lot from them about better ways to do business so it's been well and truly worthwhile. Would that lead to conclusion then that you do have domestic SES staff available to be deployed that you're using interstate staff so that it might be able to raise more funds from interstate? No no it's it's about taking up the offers that were made from interstate because of mutual support there could come a time in the future where they'll ask us for support and that's what this is all about it's about mutual arrangements. We do have other state emergency service volunteers throughout Queensland who could be available but the logistics of getting people as for instance from Burktown to St George is not is not easy and more to the point we need those people in the Gulf because it is the wet season they could easily be isolated in any time so we must strategically leave SES volunteers in certain locations. A lot more of the few SES volunteers in South East Queensland are able to serve the baby young Tullin boss and at the last minute they're Tullin if they're not made and there's some growing frustration there that I'll pick up the paper and they seem to save people maybe four people from the South Island or 15 people from New Zealand doing the job they want to do and they've been told that they're not needed. It's not so much a matter of not needed it's a matter of yes we have you in reserve we know you're there and we'll take you when we really do need you somewhere. Right now we're managing who we need to leave in specific places and who we can send to other places. Thank you. Superintendent with repatriation occurring in the mind you'll be reducing the SPS presence. There's no plans at the moment obviously there's a community there that's been severely traumatised that needs support. Our officers are there to provide support to the community and we're leaving those officers in situ at the moment but again the amount of time that they'll be left there is a local issue it's a tactical issue that the local police commander will determine. Thank you very much indeed.