 Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. What I'm going to do is give an overview of the situation in central and southeast Queensland. I'll then ask the BOM to provide an update and fill in any sort of gaps in what I say, and then we're more than happy, of course, to take questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a very significant rain event for central and southeast Queensland. Yesterday I asked Queenslanders in that part of our state to be alert and certainly not alarmed. I must say today, though, that the situation has deteriorated, and again I urge everybody in the affected areas in central and southeast Queensland to do whatever they can to ensure that they take into account the messages that I'll be giving today, and I particularly urge people to listen to radio stations, which will be broadcasting emergency messages and advice about what people should do, and that is probably their best way of continuing to get a feed as things develop. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll start by going to the Rockhampton area. We have seen the weather system move south from Rockhampton, and late yesterday it parked itself over Gladstone, and it then continued to rain very heavily overnight. We've seen falls of 400 to 500 millimetres in that area, and we are then seeing it continue to then move south, affecting the Bundaberg region and the Burnett River catchment, then progressively to the Merrie River and Merrie Bar, and then, of course, the southeast Queensland area, the very important creek catchments, and also the Somerset Wyvern Ho system. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation now at Gladstone with a disaster declaration. The issue there is that we have had significant inflows to a longer dam, and that dam has at least five and a half metres going across the spillway. Immediately downstream, there are four to five hundred properties that could be impacted, and there has been an evacuation taking place downstream. Of great concern, though, right now is there is another dam, a saddle dam, which blocks off a particular gully, which leads back down towards the Boyn Island region, as I understand it, which has another five hundred homes there. The concern is this. If it continues to rain, we are concerned, and I stress it's a concern only at this stage, that we could see water overtopping that saddle dam, which could ultimately lead to significant amounts of water coming down that creek. So that is something that the QPS are particularly taking very seriously right now, and I urge people who are contacted by the QPS downstream of the saddle dam to absolutely immediately heed any warnings or directions from the Queensland Police Service. If I now move further south of Correction, before I do that, I need to talk about the Kaleid Valley. Overnight, we had issues with the Kaleid Dam and discharge of flood waters into Kaleid Creek, and that has created a flooding situation for two small communities, Jambon and Gavidjan, and there have been evacuations there, and we will see the waters progressively going down that creek system. But at the moment, as I understand it, the situation is well under control. Moving south now to Bundaberg, we have had around one o'clock today what appears to be a mini tornado. There are reports of significant damage, unroofing of various buildings around that town, power lines down, and potentially an incident where a tree has gone down on a motor vehicle with, I believe, two occupants. The Police Commissioner probably can provide more detail in a moment. We have declared a disaster in that area as well, and the Police Minister has spoken recently, or just in the last few minutes, to malformant the Bundaberg mayor. I express that I do have concerns. The government has concerns about potential flooding along the Burnett River, impacting ultimately on various communities and Bundaberg. I also stress that we have concerns about flooding along the Mary River and flooding downstream, particularly, of course, in Meribara, but at this stage I do not have any figures, but I can assure you that we're working up projections for that. And I will also be having the local government minister talk to respective mayors as soon as we have extra information we can give them, and we, of course, will provide more advice to the communities as soon as we have it. I turn now to South East Queensland. We are seeing projections from the BOM of potentially 300 millimetres in up to 300 millimetres across the Wyvernhose Somerset catchments and diminishing falls as you go towards the Great Dividing Range, but I stress also impacts, obviously, on Lockheed Creek and also the Bremmer catchments. As I said yesterday, we have conducted a discharge, a controlled discharge of both North Pine Dam and Somerset, sorry, the Somerset Wyvernhoe system. So we haven't let water out of Somerset, but water has been let out of Wyvernhoe Dam. The discharge from Wyvernhoe is continuing as we speak at just under 500 cubic metres a second. We have ceased the discharge from North Pine Dam because we've reached the new designated full supply level at what is about 88% of that dam. Right now, we're trying to get a handle on what the potential impact of those rainfall figures across the catchments would be. I want to stress to people that there is a very large flood compartment available for Somerset and Wyvernhoe Dam. And as I said yesterday, this event is different from the previous event in that we are now at a situation where the dams are lower than they were back in 2011. To give people a feel, we have a combined Wyvernhoe Somerset flood storage compartment of around 1.9 million megalitres. That's 1.9 million million litres that is there. And the rainfall figures that I've told you about just then will be able to be accommodated within the flood storage compartment. So if the BOM figures come to pass, we can absorb that flood. They would, of course, however, need to be discharges from the dams, and that is being evaluated at the moment. I need to stress that there is this ongoing issue of localised flooding across South East Queensland. The rain event has only just started. There will be more intense rain over the next two days. I urge people to be mindful that the biggest threat continues to be not from the Brisbane River system, but from local suburban creeks, right across the Gold, Sunshine case and the Greater Brisbane area. If there are areas that you're aware of that have regular flooding problems, those are the places that, once again, you might see at this time. And we need people to be careful about that. I urge people, again, please, do not drive into flooded crossings. Stay away. If it's flooded, forget it. And sadly, we continue to see people do that and risk their lives and the lives of rescuers. Again, I stress to parents, please, stop your kids going into flooded watercourses. Keep them out of stormwater drains. We don't want to see a tragedy. And sadly, in Rockhampton yesterday, a QFRS officer almost lost their lives saving someone else who shouldn't have gone into that watercourse. It's not just about the person who puts their lives at risk, their life at risk. It's the rescuers. I'm going to say today that I am totally supportive of QPS officers who choose to charge people who go into floodwaters recklessly endangering the lives of those who would rescue them. So people who want to drive into floodwaters, people who want to go and swim in flooded creeks and stormwater drains, if the QPS sort of ping you and charge you, well, bad luck, that's what you deserve for putting others at risk. Ladies and gentlemen, there is also a situation with our beaches. From Tannam Sands, in Gladstone area, right to the Coulomb Gatta end of the Queensland coast on the border, the beaches are closed. High winds, very high tides, very dangerous conditions, and we again urge people not to go into the water. It's not the time to go off and do some sort of way out there, adventure sports. It might be attractive, but again, we don't want to go and have to rescue people, and I stress that is the word from Surf Life Saving Association. They are urging people not to actually require their members to have to go and risk their lives. So just to wrap this up, I understand people are anxious, okay? But I assure all residents that the team here in the Queensland government, both political leaders and officials, and also, I might add, hardworking political and bureaucratic leaders in local government are all working together as a team. I have been here all morning. There have been various hookups across the state and meetings, and we are working together as a team to do everything we can to protect our communities. I also want to thank the Prime Minister, who rang me about three hours ago. She has, of course, quite appropriately, and I thank her for offering the support of the Commonwealth at this time. We don't believe we need any other support other than what we're already getting from federal agencies such as the Bureau of Meteorology, but you can be assured, ladies and gentlemen, that should we see the need for resources and assistance, we will be going to the Commonwealth and taking the Prime Minister up on her offer. So I might just pull it up there and ask the BOM, Mr Webb, just to say a few words if I've missed anything there. Over to you. Thanks, Premier. The Premier covered things fairly nicely with the very heavy rainfall that has been falling across the central parts of the Queensland coast over the last three or four days. Nearly a metre of rain has fallen in some spots. To put that in perspective, the average annual rainfall for Brisbane is around 1.2 metres. So nearly 1,000 millimetres of rain has fallen in the Gladstone area over the last few days. Very significant rainfall amounts. The low-pressure system, X-Tropical Cyclone Oswald that caused these particular heavy rains did stall last night and is sitting in that area. It will become mobile again later today or this evening and begin to track southwards seeing the rain increase over the southeast of the state. As the Premier mentioned, rainfall figures of around two to 300 millimetres over a broad area and the way rainfall falls but local areas will get more than that. We will see areas particularly near the coast of upwards of 400 or 500 millimetres from this particular system. So we do expect the rivers as we move south to develop floodwaters and I urge people to keep it up-to-date with the very latest warnings and forecasts from the Bureau of Meteorology. Thanks, Rob. Okay, well, ladies and gentlemen, more than happy to take questions here. Are you closely involved in 2011? Does this feel in any way similar? I'm determined that it won't be similar because we're doing everything we can to look as a government at exactly what is going on in the catchments and this is a tight rope because I want to make sure that people have all the information but I don't want to allow them unnecessarily. But I say to them that we are monitoring this very, very closely. You have a leadership team, both political and bureaucratic, who are right on the case at the moment and the moment we make a call on things and have important information to convey, we will and we will give clear direct advice to people about the risk. So that's where we are at the moment. Talking about the releases from Wyvernhoe, they're ongoing, right? They're ongoing, yes. Do you ever stop that? What would stop you letting that water out? Well, at the moment we're seeing less than 500 cubic metres a second which are relatively low flows just in context, you know, for a brief period in 2011, 7,000 cubic metres a second was let out of the dams. At this stage, what we're saying is we're asking them constantly to evaluate their strategies in relation to any projections from the BRM. I don't see it stopping. I don't see potentially higher discharge rates just again because we're all about trying to make sure that we have the very best position when the rain really does start to come down. I'm stressing that. But right now, again, we have at least 1.9 million mega litres of storage and the projections at 300 millimetres of rain say that we can absorb all of that. Can you tell us any more about the garae? I might ask the commissioner to comment on that one. He's got a bit more detail. Thank you, Premier. Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that just around about one o'clock today a mini-tornado has gone through that Bundaberg garae area. It's cut a swathe of damage. Housing, shopping centres, a bowling club have all been damaged. We know at least one car was crushed by a tree and there have been injuries and we're waiting an update on the injuries to the people. We know that there was a male and female in that car but that's the latest we have. Don't have that information right now but that's something that has come out of the meetings we've had in the last hour and a half. That is one of the things that I've asked for further information. So the BOM and the staff here at emergency services and also I expect relevant councils will be working together so that we can give people the information they need. Again, I stress there is a difficulty here because we are dealing with a projection of rainfall. So we're talking about rain, for example, and the Wyvernhoe catchment hasn't happened yet. But my credo, the way I focus on these things is let us plan for, you know, a bad or worse case scenario and then we're not going to be unpleasantly surprised. Now in planning for that, I need to make sure that I tell people the real issue and the things they have to do at the right time. So at the moment it's all about projections. I stress that. It's all about projections. But I want people to know that we are working to make sure that if we get that rain that we are going to be able to manage the dams and deal with that. And the same goes for whatever we say about Maryborough and Bundaberg. You know, I think people need to psychologically in those catchments, Maryborough and Bundaberg, prepare for flooding. People in South East Queensland need to prepare for local creek flooding inundation of low-lying areas because of the high tides as well. Those usual suspects I've said. So that's what I'm asking people to do right now and we will get the information out as soon as we have it. With Gladstone evacuations, where are you taking those people? There is an evacuation centre, as I understand, it's been set up at Boine Island, down at Boine Island, Tannum Sands, part of the southern part of Gladstone. We'll get you that information about the location. There's sort of about 2,000 people, we believe impacted on that. Typically we see about 10% of a total evacuation number need that support. Usually people go to friends and family and that's the advice I've got. Now I should stress that for people who do need assistance from the Department of Communities, there is a number. The number is 1-800-173-349. I hesitate to give you that because I'm not going to give out inaccurate information. My understanding is that the whole area has been door-knocked. At this stage in that area we're asking people to leave. What is concerning me, I want to stress this, is this other flow path, this other creek which has this saddle dam on it. That's something the QPS are working on right now and it's their call at the end of the day. They have the statutory responsibilities here. If it's going the way it is looking at the moment it will be a mandatory evacuation. I can't stress enough. If people downstream of this saddle dam as opposed to the main dam get a knock on the door and they're told to get out, please. It's been done for very good reasons. There have been no evacuations I'm aware of. We are simply highlighting at the moment that as the system moves south we'll see hundreds of millimetres of rain, potentially. That's the projection. I stress again that's the projection in that Burnett River catchment. We don't know how far inland it will extend and that it has a big bearing on what actually happens downstream at Bundaberg. But we're just warning people as we get this information, as we get these projections about where these things could go. And again, I say, if people just continue to listen to the radio, for example, if they watch the TV, tune into the websites and things like that, as things happen we'll let them know. And really it's about the rain, where the rain depression goes. Well, the big lesson for me is to, I suppose, try and, A, look at the situation at the dams and make sure that those people running the dams know that the government has got certain priorities and right now, for example, water supply is not an issue for us. And I say today, keeping downstream road crossings is certainly not something they have to worry about. They obviously have to release water and not cause damage to people's assets, people's property, but we've made it very clear to them. So that's one of the learnings for me from 2011, watching from the sidelines. The other thing is the importance of trying to really get the right scenarios being modelled and then be in a position to advise people as soon as possible if that's where it starts to go. So, you know, if we are getting, if we do start to look like we're getting that 300 millimetres of rain, we will be in a position to actually say to people, with the projections and modelling that's been done right now what that means and try and let people know far more clearly and with more lead time than 2011 what they have to do. So those are the big ones for me right now. By sort of 4pm today it should be at least 41,000 megalitres. That's correct, isn't it, Mark? It should be at least 41,000 megalitres and that's a bit dependent on sort of how they've gone operationally. But we'll get you a figure. If you go to the BRM website and go to River Conditions or the river data section you can actually see pretty much real time within half an hour now you can actually see the impact that we've created over the last 24 hours which is to pull the dam down. It is now down to about the level of 66 metres which is one metre below the normal water supply, full supply level of 67. Well, I believe that there is a likelihood of more water being released and that is the guidance that I was alluding to before that we have given SCQ water. We have said to the management team in the middle of the day today after hearing their briefing on what's been going on and hearing the BRM forecast we've provided these guidance which is that the government is not concerned about water supply issues at the moment. We think that's clearly not the case. We are not concerned about keeping downstream crossings, road crossings open and so we're saying that we would like them to evaluate the level of water that they can let out up to the point that it would cause flooding for people's properties. That's the way, does that make sense? Yeah, how much are you weighing? Well, there are different figures around. That's a bit of a moving feast. This is only my recollection but we're talking about 3500 cubic metres a second as I recall according to the Brisbane City Council is where you start to see impacts downstream from the lowest line properties. We're well and truly away from that territory at this time so call it 3500 to 4000 cubic metres a second from the dam is about the threshold where you do have what people would see as a flood downstream but I stress it's nothing like what we saw in January 2011. We went well beyond that, well beyond that. I think there could be. I've talked about this and I'm not aware of specific locations on the Golden Sunshine Coast but I'm sure they're there and I would ask both Mayor Jamison and Mayor Tom Tate and their teams to be out there talking about this right now because there will be a very high tide tomorrow morning well above highest astronomical tide but if you talk about the bit Brisbane local government area which I'm obviously somewhat familiar with I mean places like Sandgate down and Brighton they could see those issues and people down there know about that and I know that they would be prepared for that. You said you wanted to keep us informed as you have something to say do you have an idea of an hour at which time you might like to see this again? Look at this stage we will just be having another briefing probably tomorrow but should there be a need to put more information out of them as self or the police emergency services minister will hold a presser? I don't have that figure I think there's been, there were six there were six... Five people actually overnight 21 yesterday Okay, so 5.09, 21... 21 in total Okay Well, the QPS are working on that right now that is something that the police commissioner and his team have been working on since the meetings I was referring to earlier on so I don't have the information about when that will happen but I can assure you that we're working on that right now in relation to this whole thing again just to clarify you have a dam you have a main rock fill dam with a spillway which by the way it doesn't have spillway gates it doesn't have the ability to be controlled like Wyvernhoe hence there's no potential to draw a longer dam down prior to this it just is what it is so downstream of the dam directly there are four to five hundred homes 2,000 people impacted that I mentioned before there is this other flow path which is blocked by a saddle dam and downstream of that we believe there are about 500 properties that's my main concern right now that's our main concern because, you know, that is lower than the overall dam so there's a lower level and that dam is quite high and when we last heard a figure 1.9 metres there's about 1.9 metres of free board left if I recall correctly at the saddle dam so the problem is that if the water does go up 2 metres we're going to have water going off it and it will start to erode it and we could have large quantities of water going down that other pathway and that's why there is a greater hazard for people below the saddle dam it is indeed, I hope people have had a good Australia day notwithstanding the cancellation of many great community events certainly it was great to see a number of new citizens out of my own electorate at the Gap State High School this morning it's always a very positive and, you know, I think quite rewarding experience for those concerned but I think also the audience and I really enjoyed it this morning anything else, ladies and gentlemen? Thank you very much indeed