Morrison declines Queensland’s request for flood resilience funding

Morrison government’s refusal to fund Queensland’s flood resilience measures has met with criticism from both the Queensland government and the Insurance Council of Australia.

Reacting to the Morrison government’s outright rejection, the Queensland treasurer and acting premier, Cameron Dick issued a statement saying Morrison’s response implied he is effectively stating that “it’s not his problem”.

A report published in the news website, The Guardian quoted Cameron Dick as saying, “Every Queenslander needs to know that this letter shows that Scott Morrison does not care about flood victims who need help from all levels of government.”

In a scathing remark Dick said that Morrison does not want to take part in creating an ongoing solution to the flood problem.

As reported by The Guardian, Dick underscored the point that all expert reports, including his own royal commission into natural disasters, have said that the federal government ought to be funding disaster resilience. He rued the factthat the currentPrime Minister is shirking his responsibility which is currently to fund Queensland’s flood resilience endeavours.

Prime Minister Morrison has termed the demand for resilience package as outside the scope of federal responsibility.

Meanwhile the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has also come in support of the Queensland government’s flood resilience funding request saying the federal government cannot “wash its hands of responsibility” in this matter. This was in response to Scott Morrison’srefusal to acceptthe Queensland government’s request to fund a $741m flood resilience measure.

Earlier, as reported by The Guardian, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had written to Morrison on March 19 requesting him to consider going halves in the package aimed at paying for such endeavours as retrofitting, house raising or the voluntary buyback of flood-damaged homes.

Responding to the request Prime Minister Morrison has categorically stated that the disaster recovery programs will not be supported by the commonwealth, emphasizing that such funding measures are “outside the scope” of federal disaster recovery programs and rest solely with state and local governments.

On April 6, the ICA Australia released a statement that criticized the federal government’s decision not to help fund the resilience package.

As reported by the Guardian,the ICA had released a report in Februaryhighlighting the need for $726m to be invested jointly by the Queensland and federal governments over five years. It had supported the resilience funding initiativeafterits announcement was made by the Queensland government.