NQ needs flood cash

A $741m cash injection to improve flooding resilience should not just go towards the southeast corner, Burdekin MP Dale Last has warned.

The shadow minister for rural and regional affairs said the Queensland government had turned its back on natural disaster victims in the North.

However, the state government says it could only spend the cash in the south, with it legislated through the federal government for the Brisbane floods earlier this year.

Mr Last said Idalia was almost completely under water in the 2019 flooding event, and there were still houses being worked on.

The area was flooded when Townsville City Council was forced to open the gates of the Ross River Dam when it was at risk of failing during the unprecedented rain event.

He said the cash allocated by the federal government should be spent for flood mitigation across Queensland, not just in one spot.

“We’re not taking away from the fact that those property owners in Brisbane deserve some assistance,” Mr Last said.

“But certainly, the question needs to be asked why isn’t that funding being rolled out to communities like Townsville.”

The Burdekin MP said the money could have been spent on studies, particularly around the Ross River, to look at flooding levels. “It could well be that some of that money is diverted to levee banks,” he said.

Mr Last, a former councillor, said there were parts of Townsville that should never have been built on.

“When you’ve got suburbs in Townsville which are inundated on a king tide, it certainly begs the question as to why they allowed development in those particular areas,” he said.

Townsville MP and Resources Minister Scott Stewart said after the 2019 floods both the Commonwealth and state governments worked together under the disaster relief funding.

“That funding is determined by the federal government and that funding is specifically for and directed to people impacted by that flooding,” Mr Stewart said.

“So Townsville received around that $90m mark, and what we have seen is over $700m contributed under the exact same criteria, managed by the federal government, to ensure people impacted by flooding events in the southeast corner have access to that funding.”