Tough calls on reconstruction in Qld

A new reconstruction authority will decide if infrastructure, and even entire
suburbs, should be rebuilt in flood-hit parts of Queensland.
Premier Anna Bligh on Wednesday announced the new Queensland Reconstruction
Authority would replace the rebuilding taskforce headed by Major General Mick
Slater.
Its job will be to co-ordinate the rebuilding program in 60 flood-affected
communities, with Major General Slater chairing a board of five. Co-ordinator
General Graham Newton has been appointed chief executive.
Ms Bligh said the new entity would have greater powers than the taskforce and would
be established by an act of parliament next month.
She said it would make tough calls, including whether some places should be rebuilt.
"The reconstruction authority will be charged with working with local governments to
determine, in some cases, whether we should be rebuilding exactly the same thing in
exactly the same place, whether it's a bridge, or whether it's a suburb," Ms Bligh
told reporters at Ipswich.
"We need to make smart decisions as a result of this event.
"... Some of them are going to be very tough decisions, but we owe it to future
generations to bite the bullet and make the right ones."
She said communities would be consulted and the process would be given the
sensitivity it required.
Some changes might see homes rebuilt on stilts, she said.
"But we are going to go and talk to communities, and not just in Brisbane but right
across Queensland, about whether some of the places we've seen homes built are the
right places to rebuild them," she said.
"... The last thing we want to do is rebuild in the same place and see that home
flooded again in two or three years' time."
She said the authority would also prioritise which roads, bridges and railways
should be repaired first.
The authority would have the powers to cut through red tape and would be required to
report publicly on its progress, the premier said.
Major General Slater said the taskforce had been progressing well in regional areas
until the southeast crisis complicated things.
"As the scope of the task has grown enormously the recovery taskforce was looking
more and more incapable of meeting the requirements," he told reporters.
"The new authority will have the capacity and the legal authority to do what needs
to be done... I'm actually looking forward to getting the expertise of the board
around me."
He said there would always be hard decisions "but it's not hard to make the right
decisions".
"This is going to be emotional ... part of my job is to make it as painless as
possible and make things work as smoothly as possible," he said.
The announcement came as Condamine residents were returned to their cut-off
community by helicopter.
Locals were ordered out of the town on December 30 ahead of a record peak in the
Condamine River on New Year's Day and had returned for three days when they were
forced out again last week with a second river peak.
Drinking water is still not connected and a huge clean up remains, with temporary
camps being flown in to house flood refugees and clean-up crews.
Western Downs Mayor Ray Brown said the town had been inundated so severely the
council was considering whether homes should be raised, or simply removed.
Wednesday also marked the first funeral to remember two of the victim's of last
week's wall of water which swept Donna Rice, 43, and her son Jordan Rice, 13, to
their deaths at Toowoomba.
A lifeline between rescuers and the mother and son, who were trapped on a car roof,
snapped after younger son Blake, 10, was brought to safety.
Hundreds of mourners turned out to watch their matching, flower-strewn caskets
lowered into the same grave as their partner and father, John Tyson, took some
comfort in the fact they were lain to rest together.
"The fire of my heart will continue to burn until it's my time to join them," he
told those gathered.