As Rain And Flooding Continue, Morrison Flip-Flops, Will Now Provide "Resilence" Funding
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, says the commonwealth will co-fund a $741m natural disaster resilience package for flood-prone Queensland communities – just a day after rejecting the request and claiming it was not his government’s responsibility.
Morrison made the about-face during an interview with Brisbane radio station 4BC on Thursday morning. It followed fierce criticism of the Morrison government on Wednesday, including from the Insurance Council of Australia, which said the federal government could not “wash its hands” of responsibility. The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, wrote to Morrison on 19 March asking to go halves in the package, designed to pay for retrofitting, house raising or the voluntary buyback of flood-damaged homes.
Morrison wrote to Palaszczuk on Tuesday night rejecting the request. He said in his letter that the measures were “outside the scope” of federal disaster recovery programs and the responsibility of state and local governments. When asked about the situation on Thursday morning, Morrison said the federal government had already committed more money to flood recovery than the Queensland government and that the requests made “go well beyond” others for “floods of this nature”.
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At a press conference in the flood-hit suburb of Goodna, Queensland’s treasurer and acting premier, Cameron Dick, said it was “regrettable that it took so long for the prime minister to act”. “It took him three weeks to consider our proposal. In 36 hours, after the prime minister said no, he’s now said yes,” Dick said. “This should not be the matter of whether there’s an election or not, this should be a matter of government business.” Dick labelled as “nonsense” a claim from the prime minister that more transparency was needed to ensure payments were being made.
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/07/scott-morrison-caves-in-to-co-funding-queensland-flood-resilience-package-after-fierce-criticism