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

The floods that have impacted most of eastern Australia over the past few weeks have exceeded all expectations across New South Wales. What started out as an amazing spring season for so many of our farmers and croppers has been ruined. The financial cost to Australian agriculture and production will be immense. Damage done to towns and to businesses is hard to reconcile, and local councils will be paying to repair roads for years to come. Many homes will never be repaired or rebuilt.

Through it all, we've seen the most amazing community efforts. Hundreds of thousands of sandbags have been filled. Kilometres of levee banks have been built—within days in some instances. Volunteers have come to help move stock, and organisations like the Salvation Army and the Red Cross are doing what they do best: being in the right place at the right time. Certainly, these are not the worst floods we've ever faced, and they won't be the last. The horror experienced by Lismore and the Northern Rivers in March this year put us on high alert.

Both the royal commission into bushfires and the New South Wales July 2022 flood report have talked of the need to streamline processes. Indeed, the Labor Party crucified our government for not acting unilaterally as a federal government over and above states and their wishes. Yet now they're in control, they are learning it is not so easy. Crucially, they're learning that not all states talk the same language when it comes to emergency preparedness or response. For example, New South Wales and Victoria are both giving different river levels and different expected river flood peak times for the same river—not just the same river system; the same river. It has the same towns; they are just on different sides of the border.

There is a range of assistance measures available through a combination of federal and state programs, but there's no clarity on how assessments are made or when they're triggered or where to go to get assistance. Some adjacent local government areas have different approvals for funding, even though they're affected by the same weather event. Each state has enacted different levels of the Commonwealth-state Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements, despite the funding available to each and how they initiate it being exactly the same for both. Small businesses in flood affected New South Wales can apply for concessional loans, while no local government area in Victoria yet has that available, but they do have it available for primary producers.

The federal government also need to come clean on why decisions that are wholly within their remit are not consistent. For example, people in the Moira shire on the Victorian Murray River are not eligible for the Commonwealth-funded disaster recovery payment of $1,000 per adult, yet just next door, those in the Campaspe shire are. Yet both shires have a level of disaster recovery funding arrangements in place. And when I last checked, not a single person in New South Wales is yet eligible for that $1,000 per adult, despite many shires having consistent disaster recovery funding arrangements. In all of those shires in New South Wales, people can apply for disaster recovery allowance for 13 weeks if they can't work. There is no consistency here. Communities are confused, and so am I.

We know each disaster is different, but each must be used as a learning exercise, and all governments must work together to provide consistency and clarity. I call on the federal government in particular to stop tweeting that more local government areas are eligible for funding and to start telling people how to access the information about that funding. Not one of the emergency management minister's tweets provides a link for people to get the information. My office is inundated with calls: 'Where do I go to get information?' The government must provide clarity. The government must work with the states. People need consistency.