David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and her leadership of her community as the local mayor.

The ERF is a $200 million dividend that will be paid each year, when required. There are two tranches of that. There's $150 million for extraordinary recovery payments. That will not be used, because we have put in over $2 billion in terms of recovery. The advice that I got from the director-general of Emergency Management Australia was that, with the programs that we put in in response to the fires—that $2 billion plus—there is no need to spend that $150 million.

There's $50 million set aside for preparedness. Emergency Management Australia will be going out to the community in the coming weeks and talking to the community around preparedness—making sure that we build back better. Your community and those communities that are affected right around the country will have the opportunity to invest and take advantage of that $50 million. We will continue to use every means possible in working with those communities and state governments, to be able to partner with us. That's why it's been an approach not Canberra led but locally led, and we are working with state governments to make sure that $200 million will again be available next financial year if it is required. It will continue to be used, and we will continue to make sure that the $2 billion—of which we have got $1.7 billion out, and we thought we'd only get $500 million out by 30 June—is well ahead of budget. There are results that are being seen on the ground today.

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