Flood devastates dairy

Like many other primary producers who help keep Mundubbera economically sustainable, the Wards have been left with next to nothing after the Burnett River raged two and a half metres higher than the 2011 floods.

The Wards operate Loakglen Dairy on the Burnett River, and prior to the floods were milking 400 cows.

Mr Ward said they had another 100 cows and heifers in a river paddock, and estimates 70 to be missing from that paddock alone.

"We might have lost about 100 cows all up, but we've managed to get about 350 back," Mr Ward said.

"People had two turn up here, and three there. Mark Postle has been picking them up from everywhere."

The Wards were forced to leave their home about 4pm on Sunday, January 27. The river peaked just after midnight on Sunday, and they returned on Tuesday to find mass devastation.

Six houses on the place were inundated, and the water mark in the main house was only one foot below the ceiling.

The dairy and its equipment were destroyed, and the vat had been left on its side.

Every bore and motor went under, as well as electrical cabinets and machinery.

Mr Ward said his family have lost everything.

"There is no income left on this place," he said.

"We came back to find everything covered in mud.

"We milked by hand that afternoon, and stripped them on the ground. It takes us six hours a day to milk by hand. Now we can milk into portable tankers, but we have no power or refrigeration, and with the mastitis, the milk is no good to anyone.

"We're supposed to get power to one house this week, and they're talking about a temporary line to the dairy, but it could be up to two months before we get full power.

"We've been told we'd need at least $100,000 to get the dairy going again.

"At the start of this mess, Councillor Faye Whelan had organised a generator to be flown in for us, but higher authorities overruled that. They said helicopters could only be used for food drops and rescues.

"We didn't get generators till last Thursday, and that was only because the neighbour got a family member to drive some in here.

"And up until the start of this week, we hadn't been able to get any drugs to treat cows for mastitis."

He and his wife strongly believed it was time the government took serious action.

"First of all, the government needs to regulate the industry so we can get a decent price," Mr Ward said.

"We should be guaranteed a base price of 70c/L, and then people would stay in the industry. We're getting less then 50c/L, without Coles and Woolworths ripping us off.

"Some people were getting 13c/L for two-tier milk, and when they shut up shop, the price was put back up to 30c/L. It's just not acceptable.

"Secondly, if the price of power and fuel was reduced then we could make a living.

"The Federal government gives millions of our tax payers money to overseas countries, and we don't get anything; they're not helping anyone anymore.

"If they dropped the price of fuel and power, and gave us a decent price for our milk, then we wouldn't need government assistance because we'd be making a bloody dollar ourselves to get back on track with.

"The government should also stop importing what we already have.

"We work 15 hours days, and before the floods we couldn't make ends meet. We've still got to make payments to the bank, but with no income. And the thing is we don't even know if we'll get any decent government help.

"For us we'll need close to a million dollars to get this place going again, because everything has been underwater. We can't get insurance either, so we've really lost absolutely everything."

Mr Ward said they got hit hard, but so had a lot of others.

"We've done most of the clean up now so the ministers won't see everything, but I hope they know we've been through hell and back."