Nick Xenophon has initiated a parliamentary inquiry with very wide terms which should reveal any relationships between the Queensland Government and Queensland insurance terms for people affected by floods in that State. Since the Queensland Government has been responsible for the planning that has led to building on known floodplains, I would hope that the inquiry will receive and make public any documents revealing how the Government and insurers dealt with these risks in advance. The Inquiry asks for documentation going back to 2000.
Unlike all other states in Australia, the Queensland Government failed to insure its assets on the global market, probably because of the very risky planning in Queensland. This failure dramatises the unfairness of not warning Queenslanders that their homes were practically uninsurable due to being built on floodplains.[1]
Inquiry into State government insurance and flood levy
Terms of Reference
Senator Xenophon, pursuant to notice of motion not objected to as a formal motion,
moved business of the Senate notice of motion no. 4—That—
(1) The following matters be referred to the Economics References Committee for
inquiry and report by 2 May 2011:
(a) the provisions of the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Flood and Cyclone Reconstruction Levy) Bill 2011 and the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Temporary Flood and Cyclone Reconstruction Levy) Bill 2011;
(b) current insurance and reinsurance arrangements of the states and territories of their assets and infrastructure;
(c) the appropriateness of fiscal arrangements for natural disaster reconstruction efforts; and
(d) any related matters.
(2) Given that the proposed Flood and Cyclone Reconstruction Levy is intended to be allocated to the State of Queensland:
(a) the Senate calls on the Queensland Government to provide to the committee any correspondence, and any related documents, between the Queensland Government and any insurance advisers, insurance brokers, reinsurance brokers, insurers and reinsurers in relation to providing services or insurance products, or offers or proposals of insurance or reinsurance of Queensland Government assets, from 1 January 2000;
and
(b) in conducting its inquiry, the committee seeks from any relevant individual, corporation or other private entity, any correspondence, and any related documents, between the Queensland Government and any insurance advisers, insurance brokers, reinsurance brokers, insurers and reinsurers in relation to providing services or insurance products, or offers or proposals of insurance or reinsurance of Queensland Government assets, from 1 January 2000.
(3) In undertaking the inquiry, the committee hold at least 3 days of public hearings in Queensland.
For further information, contact:
Department of the Senate
PO Box 6100,
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Australia
Email:[email protected]
[1] Lauren Wilson, "State's insurance omission binds PM, " The Australian, On February 4, 2011. Note that Anna Bligh would be the person responsible for this omission and that it is more than likely that anyone involved in planning policy at a high level in Brisbane also knew of this.
Comments
Sheila Newman
Wed, 2011-05-18 20:59
Permalink
QLD Floods Inquiry Interim report - no reply from QLD gov yet
quark
Sat, 2012-03-10 23:41
Permalink
Nearly a year later
Tigerquoll
Sun, 2012-03-11 11:14
Permalink
Australian floods are not new - read Dorothea McKellar
Australian floods are not new.
The flood records are there with government, yet governments continue to allow homes to be built on flood prone land.
Australian Government flood risk strategy is two fold:
A. Hope it wont happen again
B. Pay the damage cost afterwards, rather than the preventative cost (e.g. levies) in advance.
The result in a known La Niña cycle is to be expected.
That is what we have now.
My Country
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
~ Dorothea Mackellar, 1908
Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria
Australia
quark
Mon, 2012-03-12 12:44
Permalink
Poet had the measure of our continent
Add comment