So how much is the initial disaster recovery funding outlay going to be in the New South Wales?

 

Since 22 February 2022 the NSW Perrottet Government has declared 45 Local Government Areas to be disaster areas and these are eligible for support through Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

Between 3-5 March 2022 NSW Office of Local Government has made $1 million direct transfers to each of the following 45 local councils affected by February-March 2022 flooding:

Armidale, Ballina, Bellingen, Byron, Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Glen Innes Severn, Hornsby, Kempsey, Kyogle, Lismore, Nambucca, Port Macquarie/Hastings, Richmond Valley, Tenterfield, The Hills, Tweed, Bayside, Bega Valley, Blacktown, Blue Mountains, Camden, Campbelltown, Canterbury Bankstown, Central Coast, Eurobodalla, Fairfield, Georges River, Hawkesbury, Inner West, Kiama, Ku-Ring-Gai, Liverpool City, Mid Coast, Newcastle, Northern Beaches, Parramatta, Penrith, Ryde, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven, Sutherland, Wingecarribee, Wollondilly and Wollongong.

Premier of New South Wales Dominic Perrottet said the grants are part of a $434.7 million funding recovery package, co-founded by the Commonwealth and NSW governments, with more still to come.

On 9 March 2022 Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced:

• An additional two weekly disaster payments for the catastrophe zones in the Lismore, Richmond Valley and Clarence Valley LGAs, automatically paid for those who have already claimed and received the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment, at the current rate of $1,000 per adult and $400 per child. These payments will be made from 15 and 22 March. The NRRA will also undertake assessment of possible additional LGAs that also meet the catastrophic impact assessment

• Support for Norco in northern NSW on a bespoke business support package, in partnership with the NSW Government, to help restore operations of this key business and employer

• $10 million to support the mental health of school-aged children in the Northern Rivers region affected by the recent flood event under the ‘Resilient Kids’ program

• $800,000 to extend the Regional Small Business Support Program to include small businesses impacted by the recent flood event in NSW and QLD for two RFCS regions, with a six month extension until 31 December 2022, as well as free and independent case managed financial counselling through the Rural Financial Counselling Service

• $5.4 million to boost existing legal assistance services operating within affected communities

• $25 million for emergency relief, food relief and financial counselling services

• Approximately $6.9 million in support payments of $10,000 to assist early childhood education and care (ECEC) services affected by the floods where they have been closed for more than seven days. More severely impacted services will also be able to apply for Community Child Care Fund Special Circumstances grants

• $7 million to expand the Commonwealth’s business recovery and resilience service, Strengthening Business, into at least 30 of the most flood affected regions of northern New South Wales (NSW) and south-eastern Queensland

• $31.2 million to deliver immediate and longer term local mental health support services for individuals, families, and communities impacted by the disaster and to support communities to recover and build resilience across the flood affected communities

• $4.7 million to ensure the immediate continuity of primary health care services for flood-impacted Australians

Additional new funding was announced on 10 March providing $551.7 million to support flood affected communities across New South Wales as part of the next round of Commonwealth and New South Wales Government funding. This additional funding will provide support to small businesses, primary producers, councils, households, and families hard hit by the devastating floods. 

Included in this funding round is $285.2 million for the new Temporary Housing Support package, which will support those on the Northern Rivers who cannot live in their homes while they’re being repaired or have lost their home entirely. 

It’s estimated that this could assist up to 25,000 households, and includes; 

• Immediate hotel accommodation, to provide accommodation for four nights, with flexibility to increase while people make interim arrangements

• Grants towards initial rental costs, from $6,000 for an individual up to $18,000 for a six person household 

• Utilising Mobile Motor Homes and Recreation Camps for medium term accommodation Extending the Temporary Dwelling Program, which allows people to stay on their land in a caravan or demountable, for example.

Jointly funded NSW & Federal grants of up to $75,000 for primary producers and up to $50,000 for small businesses and not for profit organisations devastated by flooding will also be extended to the additional 28 disaster declared LGAs, delivered by the Rural Assistance Authority and Service NSW.

There was no indication given as to where all these funds would be sourced and little information as to which federal government departments or agencies would be tasked with distribution.

Given that flood recovery funding from 2021 was still taking until early 2022 to be delivered, a firm timeline for delivery would go some way to reassuring communities in regional & rural New South Wales.

Though I fear that the weakening of Australia's universal welfare system including Medicare, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, disability insurance and age care services over the last nine years, when combined with the losses incurred during the 2019-20 East Coast Bushfire Season, the 2020 to 2022 SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 pandemic, the more frequent extreme adverse weather events and the February-March 2022 East Coast Floods, will mean that there will be many individuals and families who will never regain their former level of financial stability.

 

Northern Rivers Flood February-March 2022: surveying the aftermath from the air in Lismore, Ballina and beyond

From Northern Rivers activist film maker Cloudcatcher Media's March 2022 flood aftermath in Lismore, Ballina and beyond....

 

 

Widespread flooding began in earnest in the Northern Rivers region around 24 February 2022, but entered record level territory in some areas on Saturday 26, Sunday 27 and Monday 28 February.

Cartoons of the Week

Mark David

Cathy Wilcox

Alan Moir

CLIMATE COUNCIL: Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison must acknowledge climate change in 2022 flood disaster

CLIMATE COUNCIL STATEMENT ON THE FLOODS

07.03.22

BY CLIMATE COUNCIL

This is climate change. Now is the time for leadership.

The scale and speed of the flooding disaster still unfolding across Queensland and New South Wales is breathtaking. Some communities remain cut off and in dire need of fresh water and food, emergency housing, telecommunications, and power.

The emergency response is still underway, but we already know of widespread devastation with lives lost, livelihoods swept away and entire towns destroyed.

As extraordinary flooding and extreme rainfall were sweeping the east coast, hundreds of the world’s most eminent scientists were providing information painfully relevant to what Australians are experiencing.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes it crystal clear that climate change is intensifying extreme weather events including rainfall events like this one.

The report warns that our ability to cope with these events as well as escalating heatwaves, bushfires, and other extremes is rapidly diminishing. It spells out how the decisions of governments this decade will determine how much worse things get.

In short: unless we rapidly and drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions this decade, extreme weather will get much, much worse.

Climate change isn’t a footnote to the story of these floods. It is the story.

Some politicians claim this flooding disaster was something no one could have predicted. The implication is that the heartbreak and loss being experienced by so many Australians right now is unavoidable.

The truth is, scientists have been warning us for decades that climate change will worsen all extreme weather in Australia. Deadlier heatwaves. Devastating droughts. Megafires like Black Summer. Rainbombs such as this.

Many of these flood-affected communities have experienced multiple “unprecedented” disasters in the past 10 years. If we don’t start talking about why this is happening then we won’t be able to respond appropriately to this disaster over the coming months and years. Nor can we adequately prepare for those on the way.

Worsening disaster after disaster – with fewer reprieves between are our reality, because the Earth’s atmosphere is warmer, wetter, and more energetic. This is climate change.

Unprecedented is no reason to be unprepared.

We’ve had decades to respond to expert advice and help communities prepare for a massive escalation in extreme weather.

It’s been almost 500 days since the Royal Commission into Natural National Disaster Arrangements handed its report to the Morrison Government. The Commission acknowledged the role that climate change is playing in worsening disasters such as the Black Summer bushfires: “Natural disasters have changed, and it has become clear to us that the nation’s disaster management arrangements must also change.”

Our frontline responders are being stretched past their absolute limits. Battered communities are struggling to cope, often experiencing multiple record-breaking disasters within a few years. In some parts of Australia people can no longer afford insurance and many will be left with little after these waters recede.

Major investment and careful planning are required to prepare communities and first responders.

Where are our leaders?

Too many leaders are silent or absent. Some are wilfully misleading the public about what little has been done to address the climate challenge. Time and again expert advice is offered but ignored.

Now is the time to talk about the Morrison Government’s inadequate response to climate change, because burning coal, oil, and gas is supercharging extreme weather. 

Those who argue otherwise want debate gagged because they are failing to step up on this issue.

Australians are paying a high price for the lack of meaningful national action to tackle climate change and prepare communities for worsening extreme weather.

Elected leaders must be held accountable.

The media has a critical role to play in explaining why extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe. Today, it is remiss to report on any extreme weather event without providing information on how climate change worsens these events, and what should be done in response.

Australians want and deserve better than this.

We call on all federal political parties and candidates to:

1. Tell Australians what concrete steps you will take to prepare and equip emergency services and communities for inevitable climate-fuelled disasters.

2. Actively acknowledge the destructive role that climate change is playing in driving worsening disasters including these megafloods.

3. Explain to the public how in the next term of Federal Parliament you plan to get national emissions plummeting by rapidly scaling up readily available renewable energy and building an economy that is free from fossil fuels.

4. Ensure that towns, cities and communities are rebuilt in a way that takes into account the inevitable future changes in climate and makes them more resilient.

5. It’s time to show leadership and step up to the most critical issue not just of our time, but all time. We have everything to lose, the time for action is now.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE

The Climate Council brings together Australia’s preeminent experts of climate science, impacts and solutions. We provide authoritative, expert and evidence-based advice on climate change to journalists, policymakers, and the wider Australian community. Our full team of experts can be found here

For further information, go to: climatecouncil.org.au

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By Climate Council / 07 March 2022

Many people are living through the NSW floods, many more are seeing the disaster on their TV screens - it's very clear they know the cause

Major flooding also causes fires
Lismore Feburary-March 2022
Image: The Australian

A 93 year old woman recued at Lismore....

The story of what my Nan did to survive the Lismore floods https://t.co/ez7QuABUIM what the story doesn’t say, she woke in water, moved in her room 3 times, walked down a hall to another room to a higher bed, and was treading water holding onto the mattress

— MeasureTwiceCutOnce (@_MeasureTwice) March 2, 2022

In Lismore we have done floods for ever. This is not a flood - this is catastrophic. This is extreme. This is climate change. Lismore needs back up. People are on and in their roof some are screaming for their lives and water is still rising. Friends are rescuing friends. pic.twitter.com/NwikdHTX0V

— Sue Higginson (@SueHigginson_) February 27, 2022

The Sydney Morning Herald, 3 March 2022:

Our state is experiencing unprecedented floods ("Specialist rescue teams sent to Lismore", March 2). It went through catastrophic bushfires in 2019-2020. Rain bombs and firestorms. The effect of these catastrophes on the mental and physical health of communities and the economy is devastating.

What more do climate change deniers and those responsible for enabling change need to accept the truth? Yes, change will be expensive. It is false economy to do the bare minimum. A federal election is looming. It's time for action. Inaction and complacency will be at our peril.

Jane O'Donnell, Turramurra

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report introduces new words - "cascading" and "compounding" to describe successive catastrophic climate events of droughts, bushfires, sea-level rise and now the "unprecedented" floods that are upending lives in communities across Queensland and NSW ("Australia's climate change to cost 'hundreds of billions", March 2). As your correspondents have noted, MPs frequently say "now is not the right time to talk about climate change", but this is exactly the time for everyone who is not directly involved in the clean-up to consider our climate crisis. The reality is our federal parties' performance on climate and energy has been appalling as they remain addicted to the money and influence of the fossil fuel industries.

Rob Firth, Cremorne Point

The current flooding is a one in a 1000-year event, according to the NSW Premier ("Sydney braces for expected savage storm cell," March 2). What if it is a one in 10-year event as a result of climate change? Politicians often reach for statistical salvation.

Ian Clague, Bellbowrie (Qld)

Where did the Premier pull the "one in 1000-year" event from to describe the floods? Extreme weather events are the new normal, Premier. Are you and your government ready?

Kate Lumley, Hurlstone Park

In 1968, the Club of Rome was formed to study issues such as overpopulation and climate change. Their reports were quite alarming. We are now experiencing these weather events forecast all those years ago. The warnings were ignored and climate scientists have been ridiculed by ignorant politicians across the world. In Australia, funds to CSIRO were cut. No doubt politicians will have their theories about these extreme events and will carry on as before. New houses will be built in the areas that have been flooded and it will happen all over again. Will we ever learn?

Gill Graham, Bowral

Perhaps now the eye-watering and ongoing billions of dollars in damage will finally get the people in charge to quit the fossil fuel industry. They must surely see no amount of exported coal and gas can possibly justify the tragedies taking place due to climate change.

Kris Mckeon, Cowra

Given the number of "unprecedented" events in the past decade, we either have an unprecedented number of politicians unable to plan for the future or an unprecedented number of politicians rushing to excuse their inaction to deal with said "unprecedented" events.

Brian Everingham, Engadine