Away from the bright lights

There's been a whole lot of attention focused on Queensland weather recently. And with the massive floods, followed by a cyclone, all within a month, it's little wonder. And it's not just happening in Queensland. Around the world, the weather seems to have gone just a little bit mad so far this year, much to the delight of certain media outlets who feed on the "thank god it's not happening to me" side of the public. And again, fair enough. I can see why the dramatic footage of record snow falls, landslides, cyclones, and raging torrents of flood water attract an audience.

The recovery process is now drawing all the attention here. The proposed levy to rebuild after the floods has been pretty well condemned by many - in spite of the fact that it averages out to less than a dollar a week for most people. The opposition leader has been condemned for attempting to cash in on the floods, running a party fundraiser on the back of the unpopular levy. We're being warned to prepare for sub-standard and expensive fruit and vegetables in shops, with the suggestion being that it's our duty to buy these goods to support the farmers in their time of need (although how we're supposed to know for sure that the damage was caused by floods I don't know; for all I can tell, it might just be that the grocers have found a way to get rid of damaged goods for a ridiculously inflated price). Volunteers are flooding into Queensland to get everything off the ground again.

Don't get me wrong about what's going to be written next. I feel for the Queenslanders who have gone through this. The loss of property and, worse than that, the loss of life, has been terrible. The state is understandably reeling from the events of this year and must be wondering what is going to hit them next. But at the same time, they are not the only ones who have been hit by this, not by any stretch. In fact, there are communities in Victoria that have been flooded out four times in the past six months - farming communities, who had weathered a seven year drought, only to be inundated when they just get a crop that looks good and is about ready for harvest.

And now it's come again. The two cyclones that have lashed the north of the country, weakened enough to be downgraded below cyclone classification, joined forces and headed south, where they ran into another front that was headed north. They all came together over Victoria for a weather event that seems to have had at least one meteorologist all but salivating. There are parts of my state that have had their annual rainfall come down in a two hour period. The Yarra might not have flooded, but the Lodden and Campaspe, the Mitta Mitta, and the Murray, as well as many others, are all up and about. There has been flooding in the north, the east, the south-east, flash flooding in Melbourne. No, there has been no loss of life, as far as I know only one serious injury when a girl was crushed by a falling tree. But please don't for a moment think that what has happened here is any less worthy of attention, because it's long term effects will be just as widespread. Perhaps the most dramatic photo I've seen was not a gushing torrent of water - although there are a few of them from a wide variety of places. It was a photo taken in Laverton of what looked like a swamp. It was covered in dead birds, who had not been able to withstand the winds that came through with the storms that hit the area overnight. Victoria has never known anything like it, and the forecasters say there is more to come. A quick look at the Sydney Morning Herald website, though, you'd think it was any other day. The weather is wrapped up in the fourth lead, a story which deals largely with the combined impact of cyclone Yasi on Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory before finishing by saying that the heat wave in Sydney is, in fact, unrelated. Surprise, Sydney-siders, it is summer, after all.

When the people who should be informed about events by media outlets like the SMH are complaining about the flood levy to rebuild Queensland, perhaps it might do to remind them of events on a national scale. Have a thought about the billions of dollars that could be spent here in Victoria, where the area responsible for fruit and wheat is doing it tough. When your bread costs more, think of the Wimmera and their six months of flooding that has wiped out the wheat crop. When you can't get grapes, think of Mildura's fields, currently under about a metre of water. Then look at the $1 a week it could cost to get Queensland on the road to recovery; wonder if any of that cash will make it to the areas that have gone unnoticed, because they have been overshadowed by the bright lights and the spectacle in Queensland. God knows half the people in Melbourne are barely aware of what's happening. How on earth would the rest of the country be expected to know?