Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this Treasury Laws Amendment (2022 Measures No. 1) Bill 2022 in my capacity as the shadow emergency management minister. I note that the shadow finance minister has already put the opposition's perspective on the record, but I rise to talk to this bill because of exactly the case studies that Senator O'Neill was raising, the benefit of the passage of this bill to those communities and businesses that were devastatingly impacted by Cyclone Seroja in April 2021. This was the worst cyclone to hit Western Australia in 22 years.

As Senator O'Neill said, schedule 1 of this bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to ensure that the people who were provided grant assistance as a result of Cyclone Seroja don't get penalised through our tax laws. The amendment will confirm that payments provided to these small businesses and primary producers as recovery grants, under category C of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, will not be treated as tax in the sense of an assessable income. This makes sense because, for anyone in receipt of any of these grants, more often than not they've lost everything. They are given a grant to help them get back on their feet—and then the tax man comes in, with his hand out, to take it back. This is why we particularly support schedule 1.

I also want to take the opportunity to talk about the other side of these grants programs that the Commonwealth participates in. There's no point in having a tax exemption if the money, through the grant program, is not forthcoming or is frustratingly slow at being dispensed. I know that we've heard a lot about our major emergency events over the last few years. We've had floods, we've had cyclone events in Queensland and we've had the bushfires, but Cyclone Seroja was certainly a doozy and it lived up to its category 3 classification. It also hit areas that had never been hit by cyclones, that were just not prepared for cyclones. Therefore, so much of the damage was not just from winds but also from the debris that the winds whipped up and flew around wildly.

Cyclone Seroja started on 7 April as a relatively weak cyclone. But as it started to move towards the south-east it intensified, and within four days it had increased to category 3, a severe tropical cyclone. The impact area was estimated to be 133,000 square kilometres, with maximum wind gusts of around 170 kilometres an hour. There was significant damage to critical infrastructure, including roads, telecommunications and emergency services buildings. Several towns were severely damaged. In Kalbarri and Northampton, it was estimated that around 70 per cent of homes were seriously affected. A later report found that debris, not just winds, was the main cause of damage, and because the buildings in this region were not built to cyclone standards, it increased the extent and breadth of the damage.

In July last year, the coalition government, in conjunction with the WA state government, announced more than $104 million would be made available under the Commonwealth-state Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements. This was the largest amount of funding made available in Western Australia's history. The DRFA is a joint funding program that we initiated in 2018 under which the Australian government may contribute up to 75 per cent of the assistance costs spread across the four categories. It is then delivered by working with the states.

Category A provides assistance to individuals immediately impacted. Category B provides assistance to state and local government areas for restoration of essential public assets and counter disaster operations, and covers assistance to small businesses, primary producers, not-for-profits and many individuals through concessional loans, subsidies or grants. Category C provides assistance to severely affected communities, regions or sectors, and includes clean-up and recovery grants for small businesses and primary producers. Finally, category D provides exceptional circumstances assistance. Importantly, while the Commonwealth can fund up to 75 per cent, it is a joint program. The states assess the type and level of assistance available. The states go out and assess whether there should be category A or category D funding. The states are also responsible for administering these assistance measures and getting the money out the door.

After Cyclone Seroja, 16 local government areas were deemed eligible for funding. I'm not certain how many have applied, but I know that, through contact with my office, there is general disappointment and disillusionment at the efficiency of getting the funding out the door. In fact, I have been contacted by many councils complaining about the slowness of delivery. They're asking, 'Why, when the $104 million has been announced, are there still people waiting for funding to go out the door?'

Over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of emergency crises arise. The now Minister for Emergency Management would be very quick to constantly deride and criticise efforts of the federal coalition in getting grants assessed and delivered, yet it was our government that actually implemented schemes through Services Australia to enable money to go immediately to individuals after times of crises.

Our government also established the disaster recovery allowance to let small businesses, tradies and employees impacted by emergencies have an ongoing allowance for up to 13 weeks so that they can keep food on the table. But there was no acknowledgement by those on the other side of where the states have to play their part. Now in government, I have not yet heard any comments from the emergency management minister about the slowness of getting the grants out the door. I'm not sure that he's applied the same level of scrutiny and derision to his colleagues in the Western Australian Labor government as he did to our Commonwealth government in previous emergencies. I suspect they've not been hounded at all. I suspect that now the minister, Senator Watt, has got the portfolio he was so expert on in opposition, he's decided that it's either too hard or too uninteresting—or, in his words, not his job, because it's the state government's job. Or has he passed it on to his new envoy, Senator Tony Sheldon? Is it now Senator Sheldon's job to make sure that the states are delivering the funding that we are providing to the states, to get it out the door?

This portfolio is not without its challenges, and it is certainly not the piece of cake to manage that Senator Watt used to make out it was on a regular basis in estimates or in snipes at question time or in his heckling across the chamber, which I do also note he doesn't really appreciate getting when he's rising to answer questions now that he's minister. So, whoever's in charge, whether it is Senator Watt or Senator Sheldon, I ask them to get on the phone to their state Labor ministerial colleagues in Western Australia and ask what the hold-up is. Ask them what they're doing to ensure that the $104 million put on the table by the coalition government, which has been carried forward by the new government—and I applaud them for that. But what is Western Australia doing to make sure that these grants are assessed and processed, and that the money is getting to where it is needed? Otherwise it doesn't make a difference if it's treated as taxable income or not. If it is not in the hands of the people who need it, it doesn't matter whether we treat it as tax or not.

In closing, I want to echo the comments of my colleagues on this side of the chamber about what we are doing here today. There is no reason that this bill needed to be put up for debate. It was a non-controversial bill. It's a mechanical tidy-up that shouldn't have taken time on the Senate program. While I'm pleased to have had the opportunity to highlight the taxation changes for those who may receive disaster recovery grants and while I appreciate the opportunity to highlight the issues of the state and Commonwealth jurisdictions when it comes to administering such grants, I fear that having this debate today highlights the dearth of economic plans from the government and of the economic plan the Prime Minister talked so much about during the election campaign, which we're still to see, and of the business that should be being put before us to help Australians address cost-of-living issues. In saying that, we support the bill, and I commend the bill to the chamber.