ALP vows to boost disaster funding

Labor will meet demands by the insurance industry for $1bn in extra federal funding to boost natural disaster resilience if it wins the upcoming election.

The Insurance Council of Australia released an election platform outlining the need for increased spending by government to combat severe weather events. Picture: Evan Collis

Labor will meet demands by the insurance industry for $1bn in extra federal funding to boost natural disaster resilience if it wins the upcoming election, a recognition of the issue’s potency in regional Australia.

The Insurance Council of Australia on Tuesday released an election platform outlining the need for the increased spend alongside a raft of policy initiatives to combat severe weather events driven by climate change.

In a joint statement, Labor’s north Australia spokesman Murray Watt and Matt Thistlethwaite, the financial services spokesman, said a proposed disaster ready fund would invest the annual $200m sought by the ICA over five years.

Where possible, the federal funds would be matched by extra spending by the states, territories and local government, they said.

This would lift spending on resilience programs such as levees and flood mitigation works, cyclone-proofing homes and bushfire fuel reduction to $400m a year nationally.

Hitting out at the government’s efforts, the Labor frontbenchers said: “The govern­ment’s own Productivity Com­mission, insurers, local govern­ments and disaster relief bodies have been advocating for this level of investment since 2015, but the Morrison-Joyce government has not listened.

“In fact, despite nearly a decade in office, the LNP has comprehensively failed to tackle spiralling insurance premiums, or to prepare Australia for future natural disasters.

“It continues to sit on a $4.8bn Emergency Response Fund that has not spent a cent on disaster recovery and has not completed a single disaster prevention project since it was established three years ago.

“The only thing it has done is earn the government over $800m in investment returns.

“Even its much-trumpeted reinsurance pool has questions over it, with the government refusing to release the modelling it says shows big insurance savings in north Queensland, or say how much an average north Queensland homeowner will save.”

Josh Frydenberg would not be drawn on the ICA’s wishlist, which the industry body will promote in a national advertising campaign leading into the budget on March 29 and the election expected in May. A spokesman for the Treasurer said: “The government doesn’t comment on budget speculation.”