Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience) | Hansard source

The Emergency Response Fund—a future fund—was designed to grow over the next decade to $6.6 billion. It's there for when all other avenues of funding have been exhausted, and its primary purpose is to ensure that we're prepared for future events for future generations. The legislation underpinning that fund is incredibly prescriptive about how it is used. The magnitude of the floods in this event and the extent of the damage that they've caused is exactly the type of scenario that the ERF was designed to deal with, and that is why we will draw down on the fund and use the $150 million allowed for this financial year to fund the emergency response and recovery, with $75 million each going to the Queensland state government and the New South Wales state government. We will use the $150 million for the 2022-23 recovery specifically for Lismore after the catastrophic flood event there for them to use it for flood mitigation, following a study that the government will also fund.