TRANSCRIPT – ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING WITH PATRICIA KARVELAS

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas

7 March 2025

Subjects: Tropical Cyclone Alfred

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Patricia Karvelas:

Liberal MP, Angie Bell, is the Member for Moncrieff on the Gold Coast and she’s currently bunkered down in her home, sandbagged and all, under order not to leave. She joins us now. Angie Bell, welcome.

Angie Bell:

Thanks for having me Patricia.

Patricia Karvelas:

Not the best circumstances. Describe your situation right now.

Angie Bell:

Well, I’m in my kitchen. My furniture is all around me off the floor in case we get a storm surge over the rock wall. I’m not that far from the beach here in Miami, with my community. I’d like to just send my thoughts and also the thoughts of my colleagues here on the Gold Coast, who I’ve been in regular contact with, to Gold Coasters. We’re all in this together and we’ll all come out on the other side and help each other as we do with a fantastic community here on the Gold Coast. The spirit’s alive and well.

Patricia Karvelas:

No, it certainly is. 46,000 properties are without power, and we’ve learned that the bulk of them are on the Gold Coast. You. Do you still have power? Have you lost power? Can you just give me a sense of that?

Angie Bell:

Sure, I do have power, otherwise, I wouldn’t be talking to you!

Patricia Karvelas:

Well you could still be on battery!

Angie Bell:

I’ve got the lights and I’ve obviously got the Wi-Fi still to my amazement, but my neighbours across the road don’t have their power on and I know Nobby Beach is out of power at the moment, so it’s a difficult situation for those Gold Coasters. There’s about 33,000 was the last number I heard Premier Crisafulli talk about this afternoon in terms of those customers here on the Gold Coast, Energex customers who are out of power. But I’ve turned the solar system off. I’ve turned the gas off and I’ve made sure that I’ve got everything I need here for the next few days because Alfred is hovering off the coast and he’s taking his time and he’s taking our beaches.

Patricia Karvelas:

Yeah, he is taking your beaches, the Alfred is kind of being very menacing in some ways. Remains a category 2, we’ve just found out, but it’s unpredictable. It’s erratic. It’s been slow. I know you’ve been talking to lots of your constituents and also reflecting your own feelings, Angie Bell, that long period you’ve had to wait and you’re still waiting, what’s that been like to kind of manage such a long period waiting for this cyclone to hit?

Angie Bell:

Well I think a big part of it, PK has been the preparations made by the City of Gold Coast, which have been fantastic for residents. We’ve had a bit of extra time. We’ve also heard clearly and regularly from the State Premier on what those preparations have been. Our community’s got stuck in. I’ve been out with my Moncrieff community cabinet and making sure that charities are ready to help and coordinated after this event so that we can help with water, with food, with transport as soon as possible. We’ve been sandbagging our neighbours. My neighbours have been sandbagging my house while I’ve been off helping others. And so we have a terrific Gold Coast community here who always rally together, but no more so than now, when we need it the most.

Patricia Karvelas:

Of course, this is a really big danger zone, the next 24 hours. But no doubt there is a bit of apprehension in the community about the broader implications. This will have a huge economic cost. This will affect people, I imagine, quite deeply. Have you been talking to people about the sort of, shorter term and then longer term impact of this?

Angie Bell:

Well, we’ve seen terrible beach scarping all the way from Main Beach, where beach towers have gone into the sand, all the way through to Surfer’s Paradise, where parts of the Esplanade have gone into the ocean. We have a rock wall all the way along Hedges Avenue and those, my neighbours there have been sending me text messages of pictures of what their front yards look like. I’m a bit further away, but not that far away. And so we’ve seen damage all the way along the coastline beyond the border into NSW and so there will be a big clean up. It will take a long time, but we stick together here on the Gold Coast. We will be helping our neighbours, we will be mucking in. I’ll be here, of course after all of this is passed, but we just wait and see what’s going to happen. We’ve prepared for the worst, but of course we hope for the very best for Gold Coasters and SE Queenslanders more broadly, can I send my thoughts up to Brisbane as well.

Patricia Karvelas:

Yeah. And obviously the next period is the really kind of difficult period, although it’s all been difficult all week, but you know, waiting for this cyclone to hit. Are you happy with the sort of, level of governments’ management of the situation so far? Has there been enough notice of all of the things that you need to know before such an event?

Angie Bell:

Well, look, I’ve had regular messages from City of Gold Coast. I’ve had regular messages from the Bureau of Meteorology, as an MP also, around what’s coming and where we’re up to. I still have Internet, so I can read through the warnings, but also follow that advice. I haven’t had any warnings from the Federal Government, which was promised of course, in 2024. I don’t want to make this political, but it is important that we do have the messages that come through, those emergency messages and that particular one was promised by the government on safety and it hasn’t come to fruition, which is a bit disappointing. So I’m glad that I’ve signed up to the Council warnings and I’m very happy that I’ve been getting so many messages from the Premier and the City of Gold Coast.

Patricia Karvelas:

Just finally, we’ve just confirmed here at the ABC, and broadcast, that the Prime Minister will not call an election over the weekend and that means there will be a budget delivered. So Angie Bell, I’m telling you that you’re going to be on your way to Canberra for Budget week. Is that the right decision?

Angie Bell:

Well there’ll be a bit for me to do between now and then, and certainly for my constituency and for the Gold Coast, we’ll have to start work on cleaning up depending on how we fare as the cyclone bears down on us. But certainly I think the Prime Minister should be focused on governing, not on campaigning at this time. This is affecting 4 million Queenslanders and so I think we should be going back to Canberra. We should be delivering- Government should be delivering a Budget, certainly that has nothing to hide. He should be doing that, the Prime Minister. And he should be helping Australians with bulk billing, getting that Medicare legislation across the line to help with that, those promises should be done. We should be saving jobs in Tasmania with the salmon farming down there as well, and get on with the Budget. And I think Australians want to see that. And then they want their opportunity to say who they want to be in government after the next election because they’re sick and tired of this cost of living crisis and now on top of that, Gold Coasters have a natural disaster as well, and those up in North Queensland have also suffered over the last few months. Can I also mention those in northern NSW and Lismore who are now facing flooding as well, again. So I think Australians need help at this time and the Prime Minister should really be focused solely on that.

Patricia Karvelas:

Well, it looks like that’s going to be the case. Angie Bell, thanks for joining us and of course, take care.

ENDS.