Xenophon challenged on figures

QUEENSLAND has hit back at balance-of-power senator Nick Xenophon for forcing its hand on disaster insurance.

QUEENSLAND has hit back at balance-of-power senator Nick Xenophon for forcing its hand on disaster insurance, challenging the South Australian independent to justify his claim that the premium would have cost a fraction of the state's flood and cyclone losses over summer.

State Finance Minister Rachel Nolan said an extensive search of the archives had failed to turn up anything to support Senator Xenophon's assertion that Queensland had turned down an offer of comprehensive disaster insurance for the cost of $50m a decade ago.

Ms Nolan demanded that he produce the evidence, as the state government released details of the effort it had made to obtain disaster reinsurance, in a submission to a Senate inquiry into the federal flood levy.

"The whole Senate inquiry was predicated on that claim -- but nothing has been found to support it," Ms Nolan complained.

"I would suggest the (Senate) committee may now want to ask the good senator what evidence he had to support it."

Senator Xenophon made his vote for the $1.8bn levy conditional on action by Canberra to force Queensland, the only state without reinsurance for natural disasters, to reconsider taking out cover or to establish an equivalent capital fund.

Senator Xenophon stood his ground last night, saying Queensland had not released details of all the reinsurance offers it had received.

On the figures it had released yesterday, it should have been possible for the state to have covered about $3.5bn worth of infrastructure for an annual outlay of about $40m, Senator Xenophon told The Australian.