Flood assistance extended for 80 Queensland local government areas

The Queensland Government has activated assistance for a further four local government areas in central Queensland, taking the total number of shires where flood support has been triggered this year to 80 shires.

Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts said he had approved the recommendation to activate the joint State and Commonwealth-funded Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) for the local government areas of Gladstone, Banana, Mount Morgan and Fitzroy. NDRRA was activated in Fitzroy Shire late last month due to Fitzroy River flooding.

Last week, NDRRA was activated in the central Queensland shires of Rockhampton, Livingstone, Broadsound, Calliope, Duaringa and Woorabinda as well as in the Mackay and Wide Bay-Burnett regions.

“So far this year, flood assistance has been activated in 80 local government areas, which account for 82% of the State’s land area. Currently, 62% of the State is drought declared,” Mr Roberts said.

“NDRRA has been activated in 25 of these local government areas twice this year.”

Mr Roberts said while an NDRRA activation for a whole local government area did not mean all areas were flooded, let alone received any rainfall, it was important to activate assistance to ensure affected residents, primary producers, small business operators and councils could access assistance.

The assistance, under the joint State-Commonwealth Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA), in these local government areas can provide:

·concessional loans for primary producers and small businesses affected by flooding;

·freight subsidies for producers;

·personal hardship assistance;

·recovery of costs for restoring public assets, such as roads, and for costs of local councils' extraordinary disaster management, and

·assistance for sporting clubs and other non-profit organisations who cannot provide for their own recovery to restore assets to pre-disaster standard.

Personal hardship assistance to individuals and families, and assistance for non-profit organisations is administered by the Department of Communities. The Department of Communities can be contacted on 1800 440 074.

Concessional loans for producers and small businesses should contact QRAA (Queensland Rural Adjustment Authority) on 1800 623 946.

To apply for freight subsidies, producers should contact the Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) on 13 25 23 or their local DPI&F inspector.

Media contact: Kirby Anderson 0418 197 350