Senate debates

Tuesday, 22 November 2022

Bills

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

9:05 pm

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

With your indulgence, Minister, I want to bring you back to a couple of issues that you raised when you were responding to Senator McKenzie. The first was about the existing disaster recovery funding arrangements and the investment in the response of the government. As I said before, I credit your government with taking the off-the-shelf arrangements that you inherited and utilising them. Having learned from past experiences, you are rolling it out. I have a question that was put to me today. There was an announcement put out by you and the Premier of South Australia about the funding for a pre-emptive flood response before the flood peak hits South Australia, whereas some local government areas in New South Wales are still waiting to find out whether they are eligible for disaster recovery payments, for example. I'm interested to understand from you how we can pre-emptively declare disaster recovery payments for South Australia while local government areas in New South Wales and, indeed, in Victoria—although a lot of them have been brought on board now—have had to wait for the flood peaks to pass for assessments to be made. That's my first question.

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