Mike O’Connor: Time to drop a rain bomb on this political insanity

Like they have done in disasters past, our politicians used us as a shield during the recent floods to hide their own failures, writes Mike O’Connor.

It was Albert Einstein who supposedly defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Our politicians’ strategies in dealing with our weather fit nicely within this definition, these being tiresome repetitions of failed responses which leave its waterlogged residents with a feeling best described as deja-vu all over again.

There are certain rules to be followed by our elected leaders when it rains a lot in the Sunshine State, and particularly in South East Queensland, and among these is one which dictates that the weather be attributed near supernatural powers.

Congratulations to whoever coined the term “rain bomb” last week, a phrase embraced by all, including Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner, to evoke cataclysmic images of flattened buildings and mass casualties.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk during a press conference to discuss the ‘rain bomb’. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Tertius Pickard

Nature had declared war on the city. It was dropping bombs. We could scurry for protection in underground carparks but they were full of water. One intrepid reporter declared it to be a “once in a thousand year” event. Just who was keeping rain records in Terra Australis in the year 1022 was not made clear.

There were no bombs. It was rain and lots of it as happens in subtropical climes and it will happen again.

The important thing is to establish in the minds of the punters that this is the hand of God at work and that there is absolutely nothing that mere mortals like premiers and lord mayors can do about it.

There is, of course, but no one dare speak the name of the terrible and inconvenient truth called incompetence, or if you wish to be particularly harsh, a dazzling combination of chronic political and intellectual laziness and stupidity.

We could build bigger and better dams which would require the expenditure of considerable political and fiscal capital and the resolve and strength of purpose to stare down the Greens who would howl like wolves at the mere mention of these playthings of the Devil.

We could employ the best and brightest engineers across multiple disciplines to redesign Brisbane’s stormwater drainage system which manifestly fails to cope with significant rainfall. The lack of forethought is staggering. Why design hugely expensive CityCat terminals with no angled shields to deflect flotsam, thus guaranteeing that they will be battered by debris moving downstream at 30km/h?

Why keep a fleet of CityCats moored in the river during a flood, thus allowing them to break free from their moorings, destroying marinas and ultimately sinking rather than move them into Moreton Bay?

Nor was it uncommon last week to see water pumping out of, rather than flowing into, the stormwater system.

Brisbane City Council has been happy to grant building approvals, and pocket the fees and charges they generate, to buildings absolutely guaranteed to suffer catastrophic flooding in the event of heavy rain.

Developers are allowed to build apartment towers with underground carparks that flood. Many are equipped with basement pumps but if the power fails, the pumps stop because backup generators cost money and if they are not compelled to install them, why would they?

We build the markets which supply our city with fruit and vegetables in one of its most flood-prone areas which guarantees that when it rains a lot they are inundated – time and time and time again.

The attitude to this general malaise is to tell us that we’re Queenslanders and that we will rise above it, a cry beloved by politicians because it tends to obscure the obvious which is that we shouldn’t have to rise above it again and again and again.

Another standard ploy is to hail the efforts of the Mud Army, a conga- line of politicians singing its praises in the hope that no one will stop and wonder that if they were doing their jobs, the Mud Army need not exist while hoping that people will continue to believe the lie that nothing can be done.

Solutions cost money but when it comes to unashamed vanity projects like the Olympic Games there is no shortage of funds. Yes, I know – the Games will pay for themselves in the same way that pigs may one day fly, and what will happen, I wonder, if nature drops a “rain bomb” in 2032?

Politicians will continue to hide behind the heroics of the population in dealing with this disaster, using it as a shield to hide their own failures as they do the same things over and over again.

Insanity? You don’t have to be Einstein to answer that one.