 Folks, we're joined in this briefing by someone who will be doing signing. Clearly, we want to make sure that everybody is getting the best information as quickly and as efficiently as possible, so we thank our signer. Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The circumstances are very grim out there on the streets of Ipswich and Brisbane. We are now in the grip of a very serious natural disaster, and you've all seen the images on your TV screens. We are now seeing thousands of homes inundated with water up to the roof, many, many more expecting to see significant water damage. Up to 1,000 homes in Ipswich are inundated, and 7,500 properties affected by water. Brisbane has had a slight reprieve with the peak tomorrow expected slightly lower, but nevertheless an event that is going to devastate the city with anywhere between 20 and 30,000 people affected. Chinchilla has seen the waters peak this evening. That means that people can now start the heartbreaking business again of waiting for the waters to go down in Chinchilla. I can confirm that we remain at a death toll of 12. However, we have seen the number of people unaccounted for drop further to 43. We have just over 4,000 people who are in evacuation centres, but that number is rising. There are three large objects or vessels in the Brisbane River that have been occupying emergency authorities tonight, and I'll just go through each of them. Firstly, the Moggill Ferry. The Moggill Ferry has broken one of its guide ropes and is therefore we've been looking at how to secure it to prevent it from floating down the river and becoming a dangerous object bumping into bridges and causing damage. A 1.5 tonne anchor will be used to secure the ferry. That will need to be taken in by helicopter and that will be done at first light tomorrow morning. Currently, it is currently secure and the master of the vessel is with the vessel and will remain in it overnight. We believe that this vessel is secure and holds no immediate further fears overnight and the anchor will be taken by helicopter out to secure that vessel early tomorrow morning. The next issue that authorities have been dealing with is the barge or the boat known as the Island. We are still doing a final assessment of whether the best option here is to secure this in some way or to scuttle or sink the vessel. This barge is at high risk of coming off its mooring so we are looking at a number of options to either secure or sink it. At about 10.30 tonight, a team of naval clearance divers will arrive from Sydney and they are being flown in to provide capability to the emergency authorities here to assist in the event that the decision is made to scuttle or sink the vessel. This could occur overnight. The decisions will be made a little later this evening. The third issue is the fate of the floating walkway around the new farm stretch of the river. This floating walkway may look like a light piece of infrastructure. It is in fact a very heavy concrete object and it is at serious risk of becoming dislodged and tearing down the river. The current plan is for the floating walkway to be broken up into sections and for those sections to be disposed of. We expect that people will be working through the night in that effort. So there are a number of areas this evening where we have emergency authorities working on quite difficult logistic exercises and where potentially quite high risk efforts will be made overnight. I think that gives you a taste of some of the things that our emergency authorities are grappling with. They are not only out there door knocking and out in rescue and flood boats getting people to safety. Not only are they setting up emergency evacuation centres but we are grappling with any one of those issues in any other circumstances would require an incredible strategic effort. We've now got three of them at once in the context of a whole range of other logistical dilemmas so this will be a pretty big night for our emergency authorities. We are expecting to see the peak of the Brisbane River at 4am tomorrow morning so we do expect that many people will find water coming into their streets tonight. Anybody, anybody who has slightest concern that you might be anywhere near rising water please leave your homes. Now is the time for you to be doing that and you've been a little complacent earlier today. There's no more room for that, please make the safe decision. I'm not sure, Commissioner, if you had anything you wanted to add. Premier, I think you have comprehensively ambitual the issues. In terms of the 43 people that are missing that number has sort of gone up again with each briefing. Is that the final number or do you know where these people are? No, these people are still unaccounted for. What's happened here is that we've had an extreme event through the Lockyer Valley and people who were unable to find or contact loved ones or neighbours did the right thing and notified them as missing. As we've had police go into those towns we've been able to locate people. Those people have been in their homes and safe but perhaps uncontactable by mobile phone and people have very legitimately been worried about them so we've been able to cross them off the list and we still have, despite those efforts, 43 people who have not been accounted for. We continue to hold very grave concerns about a number of them and continue to be quite despondent that we will find all of them alive. Our emergency teams are out there doing search and rescue. They're in very tough terrain. There's been an extraordinary event there so it may take another 24 or 48 hours before they are able to locate some of the people that we're looking for. Could I expand on that because just to endorse that and perhaps further describe that Murphy's Creek is a very hilly, if not mountainous area. Very difficult to access. The grant, as we know, is that some of the houses have been literally exploded and destroyed by the force of the water and we believe that some of the people aren't in the houses or the wreckage of the houses. They've actually been swept away so as the Premier indicated this is going to take days and days to complete this search properly and thoroughly. And just in terms of evacuations in and around Brisbane, is there any suggestion that you might have to force people out of their houses? Legally, it can be compulsory to evacuate. I think it shows the character of the Queensland community that we have not had on any occasion, despite this being Queensland-wide, to forcibly, physically, forcibly evacuate anyone. We did have one in hit switch last night. Oh, I'm sorry? Sorry to contradict you, Commissioner, but I've already given that information. No, that's right, you were the fire arm, I believe, and it was quite difficult. So, up until that incident last night, everyone has been able to negotiate with our people and whilst they're not happy some of them, they've left. That's the way we'd like it to continue so I think that speaks volumes. That's one case where... Have you ever heard reports of looting? Very, yeah, very. Very concerned about reports. Very concerned about people's fear about that and very concerned about that actually happening. And we will do all we can to prevent that in terms of, obviously, encouraging people to report any concerns they have to crime stoppers, 1-800-333-000, any concerns at all. And when it's appropriate and when we can, because we can't do it now, put patrols into place to deter people from doing that. Commissioner, Brisbane will go to sleep tonight and probably wake up tomorrow morning seeing something they've never seen before. What should they brace themselves for? Brisbane will go to sleep tonight and wake up to scenes that they have, many of them never seen anything like in their lives. I've spent time in a helicopter this afternoon surveying particularly the Ipswich area. People need to brace themselves for the fact that they will see images on their television of neighbourhoods that are very well known to them, potentially places they love, the local school, their local park, parts of their neighbourhoods, their communities, their friends affected and flooded completely out. There are some parts of Brisbane and Ipswich which already are completely unrecognisable. There are parts particularly around Goodner and Gales which just look like a large inland lake. In fact, parts seem to have disappeared visually. So we will wait tomorrow to an image of Brisbane to pictures around our city, our neighbourhoods, our schools that will shock many of us and I do say to everybody we need to be ready for that. But I think we will also wake to find people out there helping each other. We will find very quickly that people will be in each other's homes giving a hand and lending support wherever they can. I think we're going to see some extraordinary solidarity overnight in our evacuation centres and I think that we are going to wake up to a shocking and remarkable challenge but I sense out there with the people and the reports I'm getting that this is a challenge we are up to, a challenge that we will meet. In the meantime, we all have an anxious night ahead of us. Our emergency people are out there on the front line. They'll be there all night. We've had an additional 200 personnel join us from other states and from New Zealand in the last just over 24 hours. We've had additional resources. We have additional facilities, equipment such as helicopters. We are doing everything that is humanly possible to protect our city. Just a practical question. If you do scuttle the issues that you put there, the infrastructure you're talking about, will that create waves and create further problems for homes near first flood waters? You might like to comment on that. I don't think so and look it's only one of several options that exist. And as the Premier indicated we're taking expert advice on this as we speak. The naval officers are involved as well as the marine architect. So it remains as an option and obviously we need to consider all the options. Commissioner, have there been any confirmed cases of water? We had some reports today at Warwick and forgive me for this. I can follow up in relation to this. There have been some reports at Warwick. I'm not aware of any actual confirmed cases in the last day or so where we've, you know, arrested someone in that sense. Everyone would be aware of the matter at Rockhampton where I think the person was sentenced to a term of imprisonment that was some time ago now. I would have to say in my view quite clearly given the size and scale of this across the state that the amount of leading has been really, really quite minor. And again, that's a testament to the character I think of everyone involved. Can I add to that? Sorry. We're in the middle of an imprisonment at the moment, of course. But can I add to the Commissioner's comments that it's a hard decision to leave your home and I understand that people are very worried about what they leave behind. It's a hard decision for people, or it's very hard for people to worry about their businesses. Just as you saw in the Rockhampton flood where and in other parts such as Emerald, we had police boats out and about throughout the night, you will see that in Brisbane. We will have emergency boats and flood boats out and around all of these areas overnight. So while they're out there to look for people who might be stranded, etc., they'll certainly be keeping an eye on everything. We are right in the middle of this disaster. These rivers are still rising. Anybody who is out there with that kind of intention will find their own life at risk. There is absolutely no doubt that there will be a substantial economic impact to not only Queensland but to the Australian economy. Right across this state we are a large part of the Australian economy and we're seeing some of our major industries catastrophically affected. The coal industry will take several weeks and some cases months to get back to full production. The agricultural industry, we've seen a number of sectors lose entire crops and in the case of parts of the cotton industry, they've lost the second crop in a row to floods in the last 12 months. Similarly, we're seeing small businesses that make up a large part of our economy flooded, cut off from their markets and that will all take its toll. Probably one of the biggest issues for us or one of the areas we're focusing on in their recovery and rebuilding effort is the cut to supply lines and the infrastructure that has been damaged, that is keeping product from market. So the rail lines and the major arterial highways, some of those are still covered by water but we are already in there with engineers assessing them so that when the water's gone we can have teams in there to repair as quickly as possible. Having said all of that, we believe that we can recover very quickly and that is our intention. We accept that for many there's a long slow road but getting our economy back and ticking quickly is one of the first priorities of the task force that is already working on recovery. While we're here in the grip of the emergency in Brisbane, the emergency has passed in a number of these places, water is receding and we are already down the path of recovery and we will continue that as this flood works its way out of the towns and cities of our state. We have now 115,000 properties cut with power cut off so we will certainly be putting that power back on systematically as soon as we start to see the waters go down. People who are stranded, that's why we want people to get out of their home. Vacuation centres have full kitchens and are providing meals to people. People who are in any risk of being stranded by these flood waters should make their way out of their homes now and into evacuation centres. Making sure that people who unfortunately do get stranded are supplied, it will be one of the tasks of our emergency authorities tomorrow and the next day. While we do expect these waters to hang around for some time, we are only talking about a matter of days, not months, so we are confident that we will have the resources to ensure that people are safe. There's been a lot of aircraft up around the Lockheed Valley today looking for more survivors. From what we've heard, they haven't found any. How demoralising is that for them to bring so much effort in and they're not coming up with it? I think we have out there, in our search and rescue teams, some very professional people who are very well trained. They indicated, or I was briefed this morning, that this effort might be a two or three-day effort before they find either survivors or bodies. So I think they know what to expect. They are professional people. Nevertheless, they are people who want to save lives. So yes, it will be very disappointing to them and I'm sure that they will be doing everything at first light tomorrow to redouble their efforts. We know that they face a pretty emotional time but they are very professional people. The commissioner might like to add some comments in that regard but I just thank everybody out there on our front line, whether they're in the search and rescue, whether they're out there in flood boats tonight, whether they're securing these vessels in the Brisbane River, whether they're staffing evacuation centres, whether they're staffing the emergency call lines. We have people on the call centre 24 hours a day. Every one of these people are just helping to protect both Brisbane and Ipswich. Commissioner. Can you tell us a little bit about the tale of survival you spoke about earlier today? Do you have any more details about that miracle that you spoke about? No, I've asked our media unit, our police media unit to try and find the details of those two matters. For those who may not have been here, but as you know, within the numbers of people missing, we have a number within that number of people who we have very grave fears for their safety and at the current stage that number stands at nine. At one stage it was 18 and now it's down to nine but two people have been found who are in that group and those two people were swept away by raging flood waters and our belief was that they had probably been lost and it turned out they survived and now unfortunately I can't tell you still the detail of how they survived. We certainly know in other cases people who have been swept into a tree and managed to hold on to the tree. That's one example of what might have happened here but they were two remarkable and miraculous stories and as soon as we have the details of those stories we'll pass them on to you. Yes, we may see some of our water treatment plants out of action as a result of this flood. So I'm pleased to say that we are gearing up the Gold Coast Desalination Plant so that it can operate at full supply should any water treatment plants in Brisbane suffer as a result of the flood. So we are very confident that we will have adequate drinking supplies although the system will be tested because as I said we do think that some of the water treatment plants may be affected by the flood. They will be able to be repaired as quickly as possible when the waters go down but in the interim we will be gearing up the Gold Coast Desalination Plant to supply Brisbane if that is needed. I understand that at one stage today and forgive me if sometimes we just haven't got the precise detail because so much is happening across the state but I understand at one stage today the Goodwill Pedestrian Bridge was closed because of debris that was around the ponds whether it's been reopened or not I'll have to get back to you on that. But as the Premier said the safety of the public is the number one priority so wherever there is a concern that a bridge might be at risk every step will be taken to ensure that it is not and that will involve if need be the closure of that bridge and the checking of that bridge by engineers to ensure its safety but so far and you're absolutely right that the side of the debris sweeping down the Brisbane River is quite an astounding sight but so far I think we've been fortunate that our main bridges have remained open. Okay people, thank you very much.