 Okay, thanks very much afternoon everyone. The Premier is currently out in the South Brisbane area inspecting flood damage in that vicinity and also earlier today visited the evacuation centre at QET Stadium. I just want to acknowledge also the presence here of Michelle Baker from Deaf Services Queensland and thank Deaf Services Queensland for the great work that they're doing in spreading the message to the hearing impaired community. To start off firstly, the River Hyde in Brisbane is expected to reach around 4.2 metres at 4pm today, so the very clear message to communities in and around Brisbane, particularly those close to waterways, is that this flood event is not over. Despite the bright sunny days and sun that's out there, there are still very high risks in and around the Brisbane suburb and area and we really do need people to pay clear attention to radio bulletins and the advice that's been provided by emergency services agencies. I can confirm in terms of the death toll following the Toowoomba and Locky Valley tragedy that is now increased to 15, that includes a male person that was found at Durack this morning and police have now discovered the body of a male person in Mile Creek to the north-east of Dolby, bringing the total to 15 deaths since that terrible event and the total number of missing people is 61 and we still have grave fears for another 12 people. There are some significant developments taking place at Gunder Windy, where the peak at the river is expected to come overnight. Gunder Windy is protected by a levee system. The advice we have to date, despite the fact that there will be a record peak in the river at Gunder Windy, is that the levee will hold, but of course Gunder Windy is quite a significant hotspot at the moment and we are closely watching developments and in close consultation with the local disaster group and district disaster group and also the hydrology advice through the Bureau of Meteorology. I can also announce today that the Queensland Police Service is forming a task force Operation Safeguard. Operation Safeguard will be a task force of 200 police who will focus attention on enhancing security and safety in the Brisbane and Ipswich flood affected regions. That task force will comprise of 100 police from Queensland and 100 police from a contingent coming from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia and their sole purpose will be to focus on those flood affected communities, particularly or most specifically in areas where people have had to evacuate their homes. And I might ask the Commissioner to say a few more words about that and then we're happy to answer questions. Thank you Minister. We're very conscious of the fact that once the waters recede and we think that'll be hopefully around Monday that people will not be able to re-enter their homes in some of the worst flood affected areas and it could be in fact weeks before they're able to do that. So we're forming this task force of 200 officers which will maintain initially for at least three weeks. As the Minister indicated that'll be made up of 100 Queensland police officers and a hundred from interstate jurisdictions initially from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. There'll be perhaps a small advanced party over the weekend but nearly all of those police will arrive in Brisbane on Monday. They'll be briefed on Monday afternoon and they'll start work with our officers on Tuesday. We'll work them in patrol cars, two in each car, one from Queensland, one from interstate and each vehicle. That will give us a good spread and a sufficient spread of police and patrol vehicles we believe to maintain a 24-7 patrol presence in every one of the flood affected localities in Brisbane and Ipswich for several weeks. If need be we'll maintain and continue that but one would be hopeful that after a few weeks most people will be able to re-enter their homes. There's been very few instances of leading reported and certainly we hope that continues. I think it's important to stress that of the four and a quarter million people in Queensland, the number of people who engage in leading type activities is very very very small but nonetheless for security, for the safety and for the confidence of the public we believe this is an important thing to do. So happy to take any questions you may have. So is there any latest on that investigation whether or not it's been ruled out that we've flooded? No that that particular matter requires further investigation and as soon as we're in a position to advise you of the circumstances as to whether that is a flood related death or not we'll do so but at this stage it's not clear as to whether it is or not. No we have sufficient powers at the moment and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Queensland. There have been very few cases where we've actually had to use the powers that we have. Most people whilst understandably at times are reluctant perhaps to leave their homes have been able to be persuaded to do that and in the main people have been very helpful and cooperative and supportive. I don't personally believe there's a need for a curfew. I think that with the patrols that we'll put into place I think that'll be enough. Could I take this opportunity though perhaps to again thank the media for your wonderful support and encourage anyone who has any concerns about looting to ring crime stoppers on 1800 triple three triple zero and we'll follow that up straight away. Now there were three men charged and arrested with looting yesterday. Have any others been arrested today? Not to my knowledge but as you'll appreciate this is a very dynamic environment that we're operating in so if that changes we'll let you know straight away. And you said you found another dead body out in Myle Creek. Where are you focusing your search and rescue efforts today? Can you give us a little bit more detail about that? We're hearing that there could be a mass of bodies under the Granton Bridge? Well I hope there's not but the the main search area is the Lockyer Valley and that's an extensive search. That search will extend from the bottom of the range at Withcott and Murphy's Creek right through to the end of the Lockyer Valley towards Ipswich and it will cover all open country, all rivers, creeks and trickertrees and there are over 200 people involved in that search. How difficult is it in searching in those areas? It's in some instances it's extremely difficult. The area around Murphy's Creek is quite hilly if not describably mountainous. The search difficulty is compounded by the fact that that sadly in Grantham there are homes that have been demolished and so it's not just a question of going into a house and looking in the rooms that the houses have been demolished and additionally we had reports which are probably true that people are actually swept out of homes and if that's the case they could be in creeks, they could be in rivers, they could be in paddocks or field covered by debris so yes thank you for the question and an extraordinarily difficult set of circumstances and that's one of the reasons why such a large number of people and assets are involved. Well over 100 from the Australian Defence Force soldiers, a number of police and a number of SES personnel as well so over 200 people in total and we're very grateful for the ADF for their assets both their aerial assets it's just helicopters and also their ground assets such as their vehicles that can cover any sort of terrain but that's the main area of search and that search will go on for at least several days that can't be done quickly. How big an area is that? Like Kelowda was, how big an area is that? Well it's quite significant I'd have to come back to you with the precise area but if you could visualize an area broadly of the Lockyer Valley starting from the bottom of the Tormba Range towards it. I'm sorry. Just for other people watching around the country? Yes sure and why don't we get a map of the area and provide it to the media I wouldn't like to guess and so if we could come back to you on the search area and both in terms of a map and the dimensions. Do we know the age of the latest victim in the Dolby? It's at a place as the minister said Cornwall Creek which is north east of Dolby and at this stage all I can say is that it's an adult male person his body's been found unfortunately identification and age haven't been confirmed as yet. Minister are there any potential by them like water or food and what can fair trading do to prevent that sweep ahead? Well I haven't had any direct reports of that at this stage but obviously where people feel that there may be profiteering occurring they do need to report that directly through to fair trading but at this stage thankfully we haven't had any reports of that to my knowledge. Apparently the Red Cross are saying that a lot of people are turning up at evacuation centres with clothes and blankets but they're saying that they don't want them to come to those evacuation centres. What can people do to help should they not to do that? We understand that people do want to help as much as possible and in all communities across Queensland where we've had these significant flood events we've had people turn up with lots of goods clothing foodstuffs etc and that's appreciated however we do ask that if people do have such goods that they contact their local disaster group or their council before they bring them. It can be quite overwhelming trying to manage the large stocks of the materials that are brought. The best thing people can do if they do have spare cash is to donate to the Premier's appeal. I understand that some people are doing it tough but if that would be the best form of assistance that people can provide at the moment. If there is a need for additional things such as clothing blankets we'll put that call out at the moment. We've got sufficient supplies of those items through the existing channels. How many people are... Well it's moving all the time we have there's figures of over 4,000 but that's changing by the minute for example in places like Ipswich where there were significant numbers the night before last that's now dropping off significantly because the river has dropped so we'll have those figures updated by the end of the day but it is changing significantly according to the events which are occurring in particular locations. Not to my knowledge. Well that's a significant problem I mean a lot of debris as you would have seen through television coverage today is ending up in Moreton Bay. That will continue it's simply impossible to prevent that from occurring while this extremely large volume of water is flowing down the Brisbane River so that will be a significant problem which port authorities Maritime Safety Queensland will need to address particularly once the waters stop flowing but definitely the river is very unsafe there's a lot of large objects moving down the river and again we can only stress the unsafe nature of being close to that or being in that environment but certainly a lot of debris and a lot of problems to rectify once the flood waters cease. Some of my people have been working on this since two days before Christmas and have put in a sustained an outstanding effort many have worked double shifts for a long time might I say that that's not confined to the police that's the emergency services workers across the board and in many cases that's backed up by volunteers the SES have been outstanding the volunteers have been outstanding the Australian Defence Forces have been outstanding there's been a wonderful effort here from across the board and the Queensland community have been tremendous as well so there's many many people have gone without sleep but it is a really good point because we have to be very conscious of two things obviously fatigue management we can't have people collapsing and the other thing is is just the the welfare of the emergency services workers themselves some of the emergency services workers obviously have encountered quite difficult circumstances involving the deaths of children and we're the minister I know is very mindful of that and we obviously will do all we can in terms of supporting our own people well it's as it will be in Brisbane and Ipswich as it has been and is in a number of other communities throughout Queensland this is just an absolutely massive catastrophic event the cleanup the impact on individuals the impact on business is just simply going to take months and months and times sometimes years to to fully address the commissioner mentioned the human toll both on emergency services workers but most particularly those people in the community that have been displaced by their homes displaced out of their homes this is just an enormous task and as well as the hard infrastructure that we need to repair a lot of focus and attention will also be put on helping those individuals cope with what is going to be an extremely difficult set of circumstances in the months ahead you did you want to speak to that minister? the advice that has been provided in terms of the island is that it is secure and is under under power so it is at this stage considered to be safe in its current environment but obviously that's an issue which has been monitored by the minute additionally the mogul ferry additional storage additional anchors were placed there this morning and the advice again is that the mogul ferry is safe and secure at this stage thank you