Operation Flood Assist daily briefing

DAVID THOMAE: Good morning. I'd like to give an operations update on behalf of the ADF, as Commander, Joint Task Force 629. I'd like to start by extending my thoughts to all those who have been affected by the severe rain and flooding events grappling northern New South Wales, southeast Queensland, and most recently the Sydney City basin, and also acknowledge the work being done by the SES and volunteer organisations who are working tirelessly to support their communities in very difficult conditions.

Please know that the ADF, in support of State Governments, SES and emergency services are doing what we can do to get out to those in need as quickly and as safely as we can. While we have more than 2,000 ADF soldiers, sailors and aviators spread out across southeast Queensland and northern New South Wales, our priority is reaching the isolated communities of northern New South Wales as well as major communities such as Lismore.

Defence is ramping up sharply its support to Operation Flight Assist 2022 with 5,000 personnel on task or available for tasking over the coming days, particularly as water levels recede and access improves for us to get our people and equipment into those locations. Moving this many people into small townships is a big task, one which comes with logistical challenge that we're prepared to overcome. Over the next 24 to 72 hours we will continue to work through these challenges with New South Wales and Queensland State governments to get our people where they're needed, coordinated and prioritised with the State Emergency Operations Centres.

Yesterday afternoon, we saw Australian and Singaporean Ch 47 Chinooks deploy in an air mobile operation into northern New South Wales and that included Coraki, Woodburn and Broadwater, and they have commenced disaster relief clean up tasks in those locations. We welcome the offer from Singapore to support our flood response, which will be used to ferry personnel into those communities of need. Army Aviation has been supporting Queensland and New South Wales with eight helicopters, four MRH 90s, two Singaporean Chinooks, and two AW 139s, all based out of Oakey. And we also have two Navy MRH 60 Seahawks operating out of HMAS Albatross at Nowra.

Our aviation assets continue to provide search and rescue, aerial reconnaissance, food and stores distribution, patient transfer and logistics support across both AOs. In total, they have conducted 78 missions and rescued 113 people. In New South Wales, we continued community assistance and support tasks across 14 townships, including some outlying Indigenous communities in Grafton. In Grafton, we are helping to restore telecommunications services. We have dropped food, water and supplies in Tumbulgum, [indistinct], Wardell, Lismore, Lawrence, McLean and Woodburn and had our people conducting welfare checks and debris clearance in Mullumbimby, as well, ADF personnel have also been checking in on residence in Wilson's Creek and Repentance Creek.

Travelling down from Queensland, engineers from the 6th Engineer Support Regiment arrived with heavy plant and dump trucks in Lismore to assist the cleanup efforts, working alongside SES, local police and local government. We currently have 36 plant assets helping with recovery.

In Queensland we saw the continuation of cleanup efforts in Gympie, Gatton, St. Lucia, Fairfield, Graceville, Rocklea, Esk, Bundamba, Gatton, Grantham, Goodna, Chelmer, Ashgrove, Redcliffe, Burpengary and Amberley. Helping coordinate these tasks are our defence personnel who are embedded in the State Disaster Co-ordination Centre and the district disaster coordination cells at Gympie, Gold Coast and Ipswich as well as the Brisbane local disaster coordination cell.

Today we will conduct community assistance tasks in Broadwater and Cabbage Tree Island, an Indigenous community in New South Wales Northern River region where rising floodwaters forced residents to leave their homes. Relief tasks, plant tasks and recon for future engineering tasks are to be conducted in Coraki.

In Queensland we will continue our efforts in Gympie, Gatton and those other locations that I just outlined. Continuation of aviation support to northern New South Wales with aerial route reconnaissance and welfare checks to Wilson's Creek, Main Arm and Repentance Creek.

Today we also welcome the arrival of Royal Australian Navy clearance divers and hydrographic survey vessels; HMAS Shepparton and HMAS Morton into Brisbane to help identify obstructions in the Brisbane River caused by the flooding. A total of 121 people will form Task Unit Orca to conduct that hydrographic survey and clearance of subsurface obstructions to help facilitate resumption of commercial shipping into Brisbane. 79 of those who will begin work tomorrow and today will include HMAS Shepparton clearance divers, geographic survey personnel and a headquarters. The 42 personnel on HMAS Yarra will join clearance efforts on the 10 March. Task Group Orca will operate under the direction of Joint Task Group 629.3, the Queensland Task Group under commander Brigadier Mark Armstrong.

Tomorrow we are moving a battle group based on 89 Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment of 500 and they will roll into northern New South Wales to commence support operations for the community tomorrow morning. We will preposition them tonight.

And that's all I have prepared for today. Thank you.

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