Senate debates

Tuesday, 22 November 2022

Bills

Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022; In Committee

8:49 pm

Photo of Bridget McKenzieBridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Minister. That's of great relief. I just last week had a hook-up with my Wangaratta, Towong, Wodonga and Indigo mayors, who just at a rough guesstimate—and these were councils not as severely impacted as further upstream and downstream of the Murray and into western New South Wales, Mayor Jamie Chaffey's shire et cetera—did talk about at a minimum $5 million to $7 million a pop for bridges which were out that were going to impede not just social connectivity but obviously significant economic activity. There was a real concern that the money that the state government had put on the table, when you shared it around, wasn't actually going to cut the mustard, so that will be of great relief. You mentioned building back better under the DRFA, and I know when we were in government we started a review of the DRF Arrangements to have those sorts of much more forward-looking and futureproofing arrangements with state governments. Have the regulatory guidelines and frameworks within the DRFA itself been changed so that state governments will be applying to build back better on assessments, or is that still work that is under discussion with states?

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