An editorial in The Australian pays homage to the nation’s can-do spirit:
There is a long list of Australian communities that have endured tragedy in our era. The Newcastle earthquake, fires in the Adelaide Hills and the mountains outside Melbourne, Cyclone Tracy in Darwin, the Granville train wreck, the Port Arthur killings all saw lives lost, but others saved, thanks to ordinary men and women who did not flinch in the face of disaster. This week, we add new names to that honour roll. Toowoomba, the mountain-top town that had never seen, nor had any reason to expect, anything like the flash flood that poured through city streets, taking the lives of a mother and son. In Ipswich, a community was submerged as the flood rolled off the mountains. And in Brisbane, the river that has come to define Australia’s third city, reduced its can-do culture to a state of nature.
The challenges ahead to rebuild Queensland are enormous:
The logistical, planning and economic challenge will define politics and community life well into the new decade and the long-term impact of the floods will extend across the nation as it absorbs the impact on mineral exports, the cost of assistance from the federal government and the unavoidable investment in infrastructure, not just to get Queensland back to where it was but to increase capacity, something overdue before this disaster. Already the estimate of the cost of the floods is running at between $10 billion and $20bn, with a potential cut to GDP over the year of 0.3 per cent.