Thursday, 7 April 2022
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has welcomed the Federal Government’s decision today to agree to fund half of the Queensland Government’s $741 million extreme weather resilience package.
Improving the resilience of homes and communities at risk of impacts from floods, cyclones and bushfires is the responsibility of all levels of Australian governments.
That is why the Insurance Council supports comments made by the Prime Minister this morning that state and territory governments need to strengthen land use planning arrangements, improve building standards, and remove taxes on insurance which only decrease adequate insurance cover.
The Insurance Council has already called for the Federal Government to commit to matched funding of similar programs in other states and territories as outlined in the ICA’s recent Building a More Resilient Australia report and as recommended by the Productivity Commission.
The $2 billion, five-year investment pipeline set out in the report, half funded by the Federal Government and half by the states and territories, is estimated to save governments and households at least $19 billion to 2050.
Shared funding is required on the following basis:
Jurisdiction | Investment $m | Return $m | ROI |
Queensland | 726 | 6,290 | 9 |
Northern Territory | 16 | 313 | 20 |
ACT | 4 | 17 | 4 |
New South Wales | 232 | 5,651 | 24 |
Tasmania | 46 | 938 | 21 |
Western Australia | 192 | 979 | 5 |
Victoria | 223 | 3,185 | 14 |
South Australia | 30 | 1,361 | 46 |
Not allocated | 532 | 522 | 1 |
2,000 | 19,256 | 10 |
Quote attributable to ICA CEO Andrew Hall:
Today’s decision by the Federal Government is very welcome, and we hope it’s the first of a series of announcements to split funding with states and territories on measures to better protect communities and homes from the impacts of extreme weather.
Resilience and mitigation funding is an investment into future protection, and we support comments by the Prime Minister for other states and territories to do more to improve community resilience in their own jurisdictions.
Unless we can reduce the risk with stronger homes located in the right places, extreme events will continue to cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and the mental health and trauma of communities will continue to be experienced.
