George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I do agree with Mr Keenan and, Senator Chisholm, I'm about to explain to you and give you some examples of why certain claims made by the Queensland government were either to its knowledge outside the scope of the NDRRA guidelines or unsupported by evidence that the government was required to provide. Let me give you another example of a claim by the Queensland government which was not based on any evidence. In the case of the Whitsunday Coast airport there was a claim for $40 million. No evidence of any damage was provided by the Queensland government in its application. In fact, in June of this year the Queensland government announced $40 million in infrastructure funding for this project—not for disaster recovery but for new infrastructure. So I think we can see what's going on there, Senator Chisholm.