Madonna King: Do you agree with Premier David Crisafulli’s response to ex-TC Alfred?

This week’s aftermath from ex-TC Alfred will hit us all in different ways. From urgent repairs to the long slow slog of rebuilding or rethinking dreams, writes Madonna King.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli at the Kedron Emergency Services Complex ahead of a cyclone briefing. Picture: David Clark

Natural disasters, like big world events, act as bookmarks in our lives.

Where were you when Elvis Presley died? Or the Berlin Wall came down?

What were you doing on September 11, 2001? Or how did Covid-19 wage war on your family?

Alfred, like those cyclones that have delivered heartache to north Queensland, will be seared into the memories of thousands and thousands of Queenslanders in the state’s south.

Broken dreams and flooded homes. Days of torment and empty grocery shelves, moving elderly parents and island residents to safer ground, and battening down our own hatches before Alfred spewed his anger randomly across hundreds and hundreds of kilometres.

This week’s aftermath will hit us all in different ways. From urgent repairs to the long slow slog of rebuilding or rethinking dreams. From relief that Alfred didn’t target our homes to the desperation of others, who have lost more than we can imagine, again.

But it is a silent sadness that should tear at our heart too; the anguish that we rarely see on display but changes lives each time a natural disaster rains down.

Covid-19 is the bookmark in our dog-eared lives. And what is relevant this week is how we use the lessons learnt in that heartbreak, which saw families torn apart, loved ones barred from their own parent’s funeral and small business reach breaking point, over and over again.

Our public policy response has to be better; it was unforgivable, and that is still writ large in the lives of our children.

Toddlers who only saw adults in masks for a year are now trying to visit psychologists, whose books are closed. Primary schoolchildren who graduated from a pandemic without the ability to converse with a peer are struggling in friendships and relationships. And older teens who escaped learning the judgement skills that we, their parents, did are turning up at university and workplaces more like 15-year-olds than 18-year-olds.

A mental health epidemic has now enveloped a generation of youngsters who are anxious and depressed and frozen in decision-making.

Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

It is a bookmark on a page Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton should revisit - before promising a long-lasting evidence-based bid to address it, at this election.

We kid ourselves if we think Alfred’s tail doesn’t risk being similarly heartbreaking for many.

In 2011, my children were warm and safe. But a silly decision by me, to take a six and seven-year-old volunteering - just delivering sandwiches for those without food - left an indelible mark. The six-year-old refused to drink water, for days and days, believing it was the demon that had destroyed other children’s lives.

It’s just a tiny, personal insight into a mistake I made. But what about those children who lost their bedrooms, or the stuffed toy gifted by a grandparent?

Life is made up of tiny moments that act as bookmarks. How we, as adults and policy makers respond, charts the course of what comes next.

Scott Morrison was Australia’s 30th prime minister. But his legacy, for many, was a decision to visit Hawaii as the Black Summer bushfires burnt homes and hopes.

Will Peter Dutton’s reported decision this week to jet off for a Sydney fundraising soiree prove similarly costly?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Queensland Premier David Crisafulli. Picture: Adam Head

How Prime Minister Anthony Albanese works with Premier David Crisafulli and treats Queensland in this election also brings a high-risk question mark. (And kudos here to Crisafulli, whose calm and deliberative information briefs have been stellar. Let’s hope they become a feature, outside of natural disasters).

The Covid pandemic delivered solid lessons, and its silver lining saw a new vaccine, more flexible working conditions, and families eating around the dinner table more often.

When the rain stops, it should be the sense of community we saw this week that we bookmark.

Facebook pages, normally filled with the midnight shenanigans of teen criminals, were flooded with offers of help.

Brisbane’s flood army gets stuck in at West End. Picture: Henry Poloai.

Tradies who took a day off to secure the fixtures of those homeowners who couldn’t themselves. Offers of groceries and sandbags and a safe room for a night or two. Rubbish runs and gutter cleans. Home-baked goods and check-ins. Board games delivered to some. Emergency contacts plastered on the fridge of others.

Now, in the aftermath, quiet people will pop up as genuine community leaders. Tuck-shop mums, who in the 2011 floods were sought out to provide logistics, find stock and novel ways of distribution, will be among them. So will teen boys and young men, maligned in a gender war, who want to restore the faith of neighbours down the road, or families across the river.

We’ll also understand a touch better the torment of waiting and the fear wrought by a natural disaster in other parts of the state; in the north, where cyclones are more frequent visitors, and the west where droughts can mean children don’t see rain, for years.

Sometimes, like now, we’ve got to find the story we want to retell. And bookmark that.

What acts of kindness have you witnessed during this event?

Let us know in the comments.