North Burnett Councillor Robert Radel asks CEO to reject buyback

A Queensland councillor wants his patch left out of the State Government’s costly flood buyback scheme in an area where he says he hasn’t seen any homes “which couldn’t be saved”.

As the North Burnett Regional Council’s financial position continues to deteriorate, Councillor Robert Radel has urged its CEO to ask that it be excluded from participating in the Queensland Governments land buy back scheme.

2000 applications from across the state have already been submitted in the hopes approved applicants will have their homes purchased by the State Government before being returned to local governments.

Once the homes have been bought back, regional councils will be left with the responsibility for demolishing, clearing, rezoning and maintaining land which can never be resold as residential land again.

As the council already struggles to finance the management of regularly used stock routes, the added pressure and expense of maintaining unusable land would only add further pressures.

Councillor Radel argued in the NBRC meeting “we are not aware which houses or properties applied (for the buyback scheme) so it makes it very difficult to make an informed decision into whether a property is eligible for any other kind of funding.”

Minor flash flooding on local Mundubbera roads. Photo Kate Benedict / Central & North Burnett Times

The buyback program is just one of five streams of funding which also includes a house raising program for those whose homes which would benefit from being raised above previous flood water levels.

“I haven’t personally seen any properties that were affected to the extent that they couldn’t be saved by the home raising program,” said Cn Radel.

As the NBRC attempts to offload assets such as unused land back to the state government, Cn Radel said this scheme would only deepen an already deep financial hole.

“These would simply be more properties we have no use for,” he said.

Committee members also expressed concerns over the potential costs left to the council if asbestos is found, and possible environmental damage that comes from extensive demolition.

The movement to contact appropriate state government members was voted in by the NBRC with a second motion agreed stating the council will also reject any approaches to purchase buyback should the State reject their application to be removed from the scheme.