Kevin Hogan requests disaster recovery allowance extension from new emergency management minister
A Nationals member from the flood-ravaged Northern Rivers has made his first demand from the new emergency management minister.
Lismore
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While the new emergency management minister Senator Murray Watt was being sworn in at government house on Wednesday, Page MP Kevin Hogan was outside his former electorate office in Lismore requesting more support.
The Page MP has formally written to the new minister to ask for the disaster recovery allowance (DRA) to be extended for flood-affected residents in the Northern Rivers.
The DRA was a scheme created after the February 28 flood with the goal of subsidising people’s income if they had lost work.
With the payment set to run out next week and thousands of residents either homeless or without work, Hogan says he wants the new minister to extend it “straight away”.
“Senator Watt will be the minister responsible federally for our flood recovery effort for our region,” he said.
“A lot of businesses and parts of our industrial estate aren’t open and fewer than 20 per cent of business in Lismore have resumed operations.”
Mr Hogan is also asking for the increased payments for harder hit areas to remain as part of the extended allowance but he didn’t specify how long the DRA should be extended for.
The Nationals MP, who was one of only a handful of government ministers to record a swing towards them at the election hasn’t ruled out a frontbench role in opposition and remained coy on a potential shadow ministry for emergency management.
“In some ways it could be good it good be bad, that is built up to be partisan, whether I get that or whether I get something else that’s different I don't think that matters,” he said.
“The new leader of the Nationals has discretion of handing out ministerial positions if he is kind enough to give me one I’ll take whatever he gives me.”
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