 We face a very anxious wait for the town of Gundawindi today as the waters continue to rise and make their way to the levee bank that surrounds the town of Gundawindi. We now can confirm that Gundawindi is headed for a record ever flood. It is, according to the Bureau, likely to be at least 10.85 metres and the levee bank is 11 metres. The Bureau believes there is a possibility that it could go beyond the 10.85 metres. So as a precaution, we as I said last night have airlifted patients from the hospital and the nursing home, 62 altogether into hospitals around the region. Low-lying homes have evacuated to evacuation centres last night, about a hundred people now in an evacuation centre in Gundawindi. We've also pre-positioning an emergency management Queensland helicopter in Gundawindi from 9am this morning as a precaution. The time of the peak in Gundawindi will be mid to late afternoon today so we will know how those levee banks stand up to the task in front of them. Can I say though that I share some of the confidence of the Mayor of Gundawindi that this levee is a very strong levee. This town is very well prepared for this event. To the great credit of the Council, they've maintained their levee very well. They've also done a great job of advising their whole town of what's of the situation. They've issued two SMS alerts and they've been putting out regular media releases. In the bush you have to overcome things and apparently last night as they went to put out one media release, a bat flew into electricity supply and cut it temporarily but they got it back on and despite the bat the people of Gundawindi have been well informed of the circumstances that they face. So we'll be thinking about the people of Gundawindi today. We've seen the terrible havoc that these waters have caused in little towns and major cities right across our state so I'm sure that there'll be a number of people in Gundawindi today very worried. Can I say we are watching and with which as much precision as possible working to keep you and your town safe. In the town of Condamine we can now confirm that they will see the waters peak over the weekend. It will be slightly less than the one that they got a week ago but it will be the second largest flood on record in Condamine and it's a very good thing that those people have evacuated. Here in Brisbane we are now starting to see the water drop out of our river systems and start to leave the suburbs around Brisbane and Ipswich. That means of course that the cleanup is beginning and many people today tomorrow and over the next few days will be starting to go back into their homes and their suburbs for the first time. Anybody who's seen some of the images this morning of what they'll be coming into in some of those places will know that there is a lot of heartache and grief as people start to see for the first time what has happened to their homes and their streets. In this incident we don't have just one or two homes in a street affected. In some cases we have street after street after street where every home has been inundated to the roof level affecting thousands not hundreds but thousands of people across the Brisbane and Ipswich area. So obviously the more help that we can get out there and give them with the cleanup the better and I encourage people please make an effort to help your neighbours, help your friends, help your family and there are many if it's now being made to coordinate volunteers and I encourage you to get on to the various hotlines or websites if you can. The Wyvernhoe Dam will continue to see managed and controlled releases out of that dam. We're currently releasing water out of Wyvernhoe at the rate of three and a half thousand cubic metres per second and we'll continue to do so over the next five or six days depending on if we have any other big rainfall events but in the absence of that we'll continue releasing at that level. It's a relatively high level but we're doing that because next Friday Brisbane will see a King tide. So we will see the height of the river rise next Friday as a result of the King tide and we're wanting to release that water out of Wyvernhoe so that when the King tide comes we can hold back on the water that's coming that we would be releasing. So there's a lot of planning going into the next six or seven days in managing the Wyvernhoe system and making sure that we're ready to bring the throttle back if you like as the King tide has its effect on the river volumes but all throughout that release it is being carefully calculated so that the release are the maximum height of the water during that release will stay within the banks of the river system so it will continue in some parts of the river system to be very close to the top of the bank but will not breach the bank. There are a number of parts of Brisbane that have been isolated now for a number of days both in terms of electricity supply and cut off from roads particularly out in the Moggill area, the Mount Crosby, Korana Downs, Bellbury area overnight the Australian Defence went in with heavy-duty vehicles into a cross-fluttered creeks with eight pallets of food and supplies and they will make further trips today with 17, further 17 pallets of food and supplies and will continue to do so until those roads are open. Into those regions where prioritising we know the importance of getting those roads open there will be some issues but that's a high priority area. I'll come back to some of the broader issues around electricity and water in a moment but just in a couple of other places just so everyone gets a sense that while things are happening here in the capital city there's a whole lot of issues happening right across the state. In Durham Bandy the flood waters that came through the south-west system for most of the last two weeks have now hit Durham Bandy. Durham Bandy has not been flooded but it is now completely isolated and all roads to Durham Bandy have been cut. Those flood waters will now sit and keep Durham Bandy cut possibly well into February. So the supply focus is now also on Durham Bandy and we are working to ensure that they have the supplies they need throughout that event. Into the Lockyer Valley the search will continue today across an area of more than 200 kilometres for those people who continue to be missing. Today I'll be visiting Grantham myself and the Prime Minister will be visiting the town of Grantham. I look forward to having the chance to meet with some of the people in this area which without doubt Grantham has been the town out of all of the 70 that have been affected in one way or another by this event. Grantham is at the absolute epicentre of the damage that this has caused. So I look forward to visiting the people of Grantham today with the Prime Minister and also having the chance to thank those emergency workers who are in there in the most difficult clean-up job and emotional circumstances I think of any that we are facing. We know that there are similar places in the valley at Murphy's Creek in and around a number of those smaller areas having similar high levels of damage and all of them are working hard to get their towns functional as quickly as possible. On that note across the Lockyer Valley more than half of those who have been without electricity supply have now been supplied and we expect to see another 2000 taking it to almost full supply other than those places that are very damaged into the Lockyer Valley today. In Ipswich we also see the waters now washing out of the Ipswich city. We still have more than 900 people in evacuation centres. We're working very hard to see the Ipswich motorway open at least to traffic travelling east from this afternoon and then traffic travelling west over the weekend. There are engineering assessments happening right now on the Ipswich motorway while it is being cleaned with a view to having it operational and open this afternoon. It's a very important arterial road and for those people who have been cut off in Ipswich we are doing our best to have that road open for you today. Across both Ipswich and Brisbane we are very carefully monitoring the water balance. We do have some damage to the water treatment plant at Mount Prosby and that means that we while we've got full supply at the moment we do expect to see a peak or a spike when we see the flood clean up begin so we're watching that very very carefully and there's some modelling being done this morning to ensure that if we need to supplement that supply in some way that we're prepared to do it. In terms of transport can I say a couple of things? Firstly we're also working to have the busway systems open today so hopefully that will help people get around. The central Queensland coal rail network is also the focus of a great deal of work now by rail authorities. This is critical to get that supply chain fully functional so in addition to all of the roads and networks are here in the south-east the coal supply chain is being a lot of focus over the next few days. Can I say in relation to travel around the south-east the advice that we're now getting from police is that people have over the last couple of days heated the warnings and stayed home if they didn't need to travel. As we start to see the water recede this morning we've seen a lot of traffic on our roads. We still have a significant number of traffic signals disconnected and out so our police are out there at significant points in the road network directing traffic but that does take a lot of police resources and I would really ask those people who do not need to be travelling. I know how interested people are to get out and about and have a look. Can I really employ you? It's actually quite dangerous on our roads out there at the moment. We are looking to get that traffic management system as fully operational as quickly as we can but as you'll appreciate there are other issues that we're also putting first that's getting people's homes reconnected so they can get back home as quickly as they can. On another related transport issue the Maritime Safety Queensland has made a request to the Australian Defence Force for a mine sweeper to go into Morton Bay and start the process of surveying Morton Bay for all of the debris that we've watched coming down the river the pontoons the freezes the broken boats all of that material that we've watched in or as it floated down the river most of that is ending up in Morton Bay and the mine sweeper will help us to identify where it is and then help to determine what kind of salvage operations might be undertaken when necessary. I think with all of that you start to get a sense of the scale of the operation that we're still conducting right across Queensland and the very many issues that we have to grapple with here in both Ipswich and Brisbane and into the Lockyer Valley. So ladies and gentlemen our emergency workers and our police are still out there on the front line managing an emergency response we are still in the process of getting our cities of Ipswich and Brisbane operational and trying to get them up and running. The CBD is largely operational but there are still 10 buildings without power and they will be one of the priorities today. We also have the inner city bypass as I speak there are two fire trucks down at the inner city bypass pumping water out of that tunnel so that we can open that bypass as quickly as possible. Electrical connections continue at the pace that Energex has been setting as a target for themselves so we hope to see most suburbs tonight reconnected and that effectively the target they've said is that those suburbs that are not totally inundated will be reconnected by the end of today so you're going to see a lot of Energex crews out there on the roads as well. I might invite Deputy Commissioner Ian Stewart to make some comments there's been a couple of issues overnight that might be of interest. They have been. Thank you Premier. Look unfortunately overnight we had an offence committed down around the mouth of the Brisbane River by three people in our boat. Police intercepted these people while they were doing proactive looting patrols and located two males and a female with property in the boat which is suspected obviously of being stolen. As a result of their inquiries the two males and the female have all been charged. The two males have been charged with stealing by looting and obviously will go through the court process. This is very very disturbing but can I add that these people were located by the proactive patrols being undertaken by our water police. Can I say that as the water recedes in all suburbs we will have extra patrols out to ensure the safety of people's property and the safety of personnel throughout the Greater Brisbane and Ipswich area as we have done systematically in every other area of the state. Can I also make a plea and temper the enthusiasm for people to want to go out and volunteer to clean up. Please don't go unless you have a plan and you are registered and you have some idea of what you are going to do. One of the great difficulties we're going to have right across the southeast over this coming weekend is the road system and we need access urgent access for emergency personnel for the community people themselves the people who live in those areas and I would ask that if people are going to volunteer and I hope that they do that they certainly make sure that they are registered with the appropriate groups and that they know exactly where they're going to and the tasks that they'll be carrying out. People must remember that in many of these areas particularly the Lockyer Valley services are just virtually non-existent in terms of things simple things like the being able to obtain water, toilet facilities all those sorts of issues have been destroyed in the last few days so people need to understand that unless they've got a plan unless they really know what they are going to do they should avoid those areas. Thank you Premier. Thank you sorry can I just make one other comment and that is to thank the Australian Defence Force who are now number 600 across Queensland helping us in this event and I understand that there will be further Defence Force personnel coming into Brisbane and Ipswich today to be part of the recovery effort. Those 600 are currently working in a number of fronts they're doing resupply efforts we have resupplied by the army of food and essentials into Bundaberg and Charleville in the last 24 hours they are on standby to assist if necessary in any event that might arise in Gundawindi they will also be out as I said in Ipswich and Brisbane over the next 24 hours so the efforts of all of our emergency personnel and all the volunteers out there and all the staff and resources of our local councils will be supplemented by ADF personnel and I'm very pleased to see that occurring. Premier you mentioned Mongol before some residents there are upset today saying they were forgotten for four days did they slip through the nativeage? Well I think we need to remember that there are some people in our city such as those in Mogul but in other suburbs as well who have been isolated either because the electricity has been cut off so while some of us have been glued or some people have been glued to their TVs and watching what is happening and understanding it others have not had power connected and have been relying where possible on radio or talking to their neighbours so that I think has made people feel very isolated and I understand that. In the case of people in the Mogul area when these sorts of events happen they also get cut off by road I want to assure the people in the Mogul area in no way have they been forgotten but because they are so cut off it's not easy to communicate with them. In fact they were the subject yesterday of significant planning by the ADF throughout the day to get supplies into them and that's how they supplied eight pallets of food with the heavy duty vehicles overnight. So we have a supply team working on getting all of this out across some very difficult terrain in the southeast and into major cities across the rest of Queensland and Mogul is certainly on that radar but I do understand what it's like to be in a home with no electricity for three or four days cut off by road. It must have been I think quite frightening experience for many people in those suburbs like Mount Crosby and Korana Downs. Can I also say that as I said earlier we're trying to prioritize we're prioritizing the road and electrical supply into those suburbs but I think many people in that area they're living on acreage they understand if they've lived there for a long time that those creeks do cut them off and it won't be an instant fix but we're working in our priority. You mentioned about volunteer years with helping the cleanup effort. The Brisbane Mayor is proactively seeking people to come and help telling them to turn up with their wellies. Do you want that to be a bit more regimented? No no we're very happy for to see people working with the Brisbane City Council through the Lord Mayor's efforts. That's precisely what the Deputy Commissioner is saying. If you want to volunteer get onto one of these programs you know register with the Lord Mayor's program and do what what you can. What we're a little concerned about as we've heard reports of some groups getting together and saying they're going to head to the Lockyer Valley this weekend to go and help and I think they're very well motivated and I applaud them for their sentiments but they are going into an area that is still a serious search and rescue. An area as the Deputy Commissioner said with almost no services and people just turning up you know with three or four truckloads of people could actually be a hindrance not a help. So it's better if you want to go into the Lockyer Valley that you make sure maybe wait a couple of days maybe it's next weekend that you can do that rather than this weekend and there will be certainly I know the local council there is looking at how they can coordinate that. So here in Brisbane and Ipswich people are encouraged to get out on your wellies, get out the buckets, get out the mobs and brooms, go and help your next door neighbours no problem with that and I know that both in Ipswich and Brisbane the City Councils are coordinating that and they're doing a great job and we don't want to discourage that but before you go heading off into places like the Lockyer Valley please just think a little bit about what you're going into and I really discourage people unless they're part of a organised group that is working with the local council not to be in there. How concerned are you about the King Tides? In the absence of any further rain and any further heavy inflows to the Wyvernhose system the King Tide is not a problem. Our river system has King Tides you know it has always had King Tides and most people would sleep through the night and not know about them I'm just I know that people are aware that we have this King Tide coming and I want to reassure them that the release strategy out of the Wyvernhose dam is taking account of that tide next Friday and that's one of the reasons why we'll continue to have some heavy releases in the next five to six days so that we're prepared for that King Tide and as I said most people aren't even going to notice it because of that management strategy. What about the other heads you had any more further advice about this cyclone that's hovering up north? Yes the Bureau advises that the tropical low very low level cyclone that's heading that has been in the Coral Sea now appears to be heading north which is a very good thing it's heading further away from us now again we'll keep watching it but it maybe our luck's about to change. What portion of the CBD is operational today? Look trying to calculate quickly there are 10 buildings that remain without power or are not connected there are some buildings that have power where the building owners being very cautious and saying don't come in today wait till Monday so I think frankly we will we are unlikely to see the CBD fully operational looking like it's an active inner city area until early next week I do think there'll be some people some businesses and some large companies whose workers and staff are affected by the floods and who won't be coming to work so they may be might be still a quieter city for a while because many people who would otherwise be at work simply can't be so those issues I think we'll notice a bit over the coming week but we are working very hard the reason we're working so hard to get the CBD operational is our ability to manage this event right across Queensland is critical that the major business of government such as the health department fully located back where they have all of their resources so that's the only reason that the CBD is such an issue the head officers of big employers and companies that have been devastated across Queensland the head officers of government departments that are critical to the recovery are located there and that means we have to put some priority on it but that does not in any way detract from the massive effort that we are making across regional Queensland in every one of the towns that have been affected we are developing rebuilding and recovery plans and we haven't taken one step back from that effort while we've been focusing on this response after any natural disaster public health becomes a very significant issue there are large-scale health concerns such as the quality of drinking water that is a first priority that's why we're trucking fresh water into the Lockyer Valley it's why we are doing some very fine calculations as we speak about the water supply and the water balance in Brisbane and Nipswich given the treatment plant issues at Mount Crosby but there's also a whole lot of smaller concerns and as everybody gets out into the cleanup one thing that Queensland Health tells me and apparently was quite a big issue in 1974 people tend to put on their thongs and stubbies and go out and under these waters you might only be an ankle deep water in a house but there's broken glass there's metal objects and people start to get cuts and of course that water is toxic so if you get cuts in that kind of toxic contaminated water very serious infections particularly in children or older people so please if I take Campbell Newman's point have your gum boots on you really do need to make this these sounds like small issues but these sorts of infections can become particularly in some in older people can become life-threatening so those are the sorts of issues that we all have to be very mindful of and I would also encourage you take your mosquito repellent with you there are mosquitoes just when you fly over this it's mosquito central out there so make sure that you have your repellent. In terms of there has been no difference in the number of deceased at this time and I believe that we're around the 55 mark it's come down again from yesterday and I would encourage people if they have reported people missing and they have found them themselves and confirmed that please get back to the authorities so that we don't waste precious time of our investigators and we have a large number of investigators working on this so we don't waste their precious time. Just in regards to looting what are water police doing to stop people stealing boats and that kind of thing as well? Certainly we have those proactive both land and water-borne patrols in the Brisbane area and in the Bay Bay Island areas during this time one of the challenges that we have is the huge amount of debris that is in the water at the moment and the safe operation of our vessels so we're taking that very much into consideration. The case last night was it household goods or what sort of? No my understanding is it will be alleged that the goods are from other moored vessels. Oh no in some cases these are houses as I said that have been inundated right up to their rooftops that could be it could be weeks these may have maybe houses that in some cases some of these houses will have to be demolished so they won't be getting supply back on until there's a new house there so anything from several days the process and we'll be putting information out to people but the process is clean up then the whole house has to be certified by an electrician as safe before we can supply back to a house that's had serious inundation that just puts a few more days into the process but these are circumstances where people are not going to be wanting to move back in until they've seen as I said not only everything cleaned up but until they've got a fridge till they've got you know those sorts of appliances back in there so the electrical supply I think will match when people are actually able to move in. You were warning people going to the Lockyer Valley people with good hearts wanting to do some good but people may also go just to sightsee are you directly telling people to stay away? In terms of sightseers yes we've discouraged that over the over the last few days in particular we would ask people not to simply go out there looking at the the damage because there is a lot of very very upset and fragile people in those communities. We don't want any issues erupting because people simply want to go and have a look. Have you heard that the last one is just broken off and it's now floating down the river? Have you heard that the last bit of the war play is just broken off and it's floating down the river? I haven't but if it's just happened I've been here so we'll certainly update you on that. It's in clarification on the flood appeal the bulk of that money was raised before the Brisbane. Will Brisbane people be eligible for that money or will that be more free? No this this appeal is for everybody who's been flood affected and obviously the challenge for that appeal now is much greater than it was last Sunday night when we had a very successful telethon. We are still advertising and calling on Australians. We know that you've dug deep given what's happened here in the last week to so many thousands of people. I think it's time to dig a little deeper. Thank you.