Disaster recovery funding for Kimberley communities hit by ‘once-in-a-century event’
Flood-affected communities in Western Australia’s Kimberley region will be aided in their recovery by the state and federal governments’ jointly funded Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.
Residents in the shires of Derby West Kimberley, Broome, Wyndham East Kimberley and Halls Creek will be eligible for assistance measures. The funds will be able to go towards emergency assistance, temporary living expenses, replacement of essential household goods, housing repairs, personal and financial counselling assistance.
The federal minister for emergency management, Murray Watt, has seen a lot of flooding this year but even he admitted the volumes seen in the Kimberley have been extraordinary.
The sheer amount of water that is flowing through the region is just staggering and the impact this is having on these communities is immense.
We have responded quickly by making assistance available to help with the cost of repairs to damaged infrastructure that is vital to supply chains and access for local communities.
We have also deployed two C-27J Spartan and one C-130J Hercules transport aircraft to evacuate residents and transport supplies to cut-off communities following requests for support from the Western Australian government.
Anthony Albanese said the commonwealth would provide any support requested by the Western Australian government and will continue to provide support “long after the water recedes”.
The state’s premier, Mark McGowan, said the flooding was unprecedented for the Kimberley region:
This is a once-in-a-century event so the State and Federal Governments will work for as long as it takes to ensure communities recover and rebuild.
This funding arrangement is the same that’s also been announced this morning for the Northern Territory affected by the damage from ex-tropical cyclone Ellie, which my colleague, Josh Butler, brought you the news about a little while ago.
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Carbon credit review to be released in a half hour
We’re expecting the Chubb report to be released at 11am AEST. That’s the report that the climate change minister, Chris Bowen, announced six months ago to review of Australia’s carbon credit scheme after a respected whistleblower described it as a fraud and waste of taxpayer money.
The former Australian chief scientist and senior academic, Prof Ian Chubb, was appointed to head the review. Bowen will be making the announcement at Taronga Zoo, so we’ll be brining you what he has to say and lots of pictures of the animals in attendance.
‘We can batten down the hatches, build buffers against some of this uncertainty’: Chalmers’ economic plans for 2023
Wondering what the treasurer Jim Chalmers’ economic resolutions are for this new year? He’s given us a bit of an idea this morning in a piece he’s penned for The Australian titled “Our policy platform for challenging future”.
In it, he says “inflation remains our dominant concern even on the other side of its peak” but he remains optimistic the government can “grow our economy out of another global downturn”.
In the midst of all this, in a global economy defined by uncertainty and vulnerability, we are focused on security and resilience as we take steps to grow our economy out of another global downturn. We are in a stronger position than most countries but still more vulnerable than we’d like to be to international shocks.
Chalmers outlined his government’s economic achievements in the last eight months and says in “the next budget I will build on these foundations”.
The Expenditure Review Committee has been working with cabinet colleagues over summer on its shape and strategy. There will be cost-of-living relief in the form of help with electricity bills, higher wages for aged-care workers, and cheaper childcare from July.
If there are additional measures we can afford to put in place, of course we’ll consider them. We will focus on the inflation challenge and growing the economy the right way out of the downturn, bringing together our efforts on energy, skills and training, co-investment, industry policy, supply chains, data, digital and technology, workforce participation, migration and more.
We will continue to put the budget on a more sustainable footing, recognising the pressures from higher borrowing costs, health and ageing, the NDIS, defence spending and the costs of responding to natural disasters. We will maintain an emphasis on health and Medicare and ageing and aged care; on women and wellbeing; and with a particular focus on tackling disadvantage.
Our optimism is built on a degree of confidence that we can batten down the hatches, build buffers against some of this uncertainty and build a stronger economy and a better future in 2023 and beyond, all at the same time.
The global economic environment is complex and uncertain, but Australians and their government are up for the challenge.
Search for missing swimmer continues
The search for a swimmer who went missing in waters off Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula has entered a fourth day.
The 20-year-old North Melbourne man and his 16-year-old brother got into trouble in rough surf off Gunnamatta beach on Friday night.
Their father jumped in to save the pair.
Rescuers managed to pull him and the teenager from the water but the older son couldn’t be found.
The man, aged in his forties, left hospital on Sunday, one day after his younger son was discharged.
Specialists from Victoria police, the State Emergency Service and Life Saving Victoria spent the weekend searching for the missing man.
He was wearing navy blue shorts and black, grey and green goggles when he disappeared.
– from AAP
Josh Butler
Government commits up to 13 weeks of income support for WA flood victims
In addition to the just-announced funding for individuals and councils to clean up after flooding in WA and the NT, the federal government is also extending up to 13 weeks of income support to people in those areas who aren’t able to work due to the natural disaster.
The emergency management minister, Murray Watt, and government services minister, Bill Shorten, have just announced that people left out of work due to ex-tropical cyclone Ellie are eligible for the Disaster Recovery Allowance. That payment, a taxable fortnightly payment with up to 13 weeks of assistance, has now been activated for the local government areas of Victoria Daly in the Northern Territory and Broome, Derby West Kimberley, Halls Creek and Wyndham East Kimberley in Western Australia.
Watt and Shorten said in a release:
The easiest way for eligible people to claim is online through myGov, available 24 hours a day. For information on eligibility and how to apply, visit servicesaustralia.gov.au/disasterevents.
Shorten said Services Australia staff are already on the ground in the affected areas, and more are on the way when it’s safe to do so. Remote teams can provide in-language support for remote communities, or link people with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island language services.
There is in-person support available at the Fitzroy Crossing evacuation centre but people with internet access are being told that the easiest way to claim is online. People without internet who can access a phone should call 180 22 66 between 8am and 5pm local time, Monday to Friday.
PM heading to Fitzroy Crossing
The leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, has taken to social media to say his thoughts are with those affected by the floods in WA as the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, heads out to Fitzroy Crossing to begin his tour of the region.
I’m heading to Fitzroy Crossing this morning with @MarkMcGowanMP, @MurrayWatt, and @SenatorDodson to meet with communities impacted by the devastating floods, and announce our joint disaster assistance package for the Kimberley region.
— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) January 8, 2023
Thoughts and prayers for all of those affected by floods in WA at the moment. Thanks to the ADF, emergency service workers and volunteers for always being there.
— Peter Dutton (@PeterDutton_MP) January 8, 2023
Disaster recovery funding for Kimberley communities hit by ‘once-in-a-century event’
Flood-affected communities in Western Australia’s Kimberley region will be aided in their recovery by the state and federal governments’ jointly funded Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.
Residents in the shires of Derby West Kimberley, Broome, Wyndham East Kimberley and Halls Creek will be eligible for assistance measures. The funds will be able to go towards emergency assistance, temporary living expenses, replacement of essential household goods, housing repairs, personal and financial counselling assistance.
The federal minister for emergency management, Murray Watt, has seen a lot of flooding this year but even he admitted the volumes seen in the Kimberley have been extraordinary.
The sheer amount of water that is flowing through the region is just staggering and the impact this is having on these communities is immense.
We have responded quickly by making assistance available to help with the cost of repairs to damaged infrastructure that is vital to supply chains and access for local communities.
We have also deployed two C-27J Spartan and one C-130J Hercules transport aircraft to evacuate residents and transport supplies to cut-off communities following requests for support from the Western Australian government.
Anthony Albanese said the commonwealth would provide any support requested by the Western Australian government and will continue to provide support “long after the water recedes”.
The state’s premier, Mark McGowan, said the flooding was unprecedented for the Kimberley region:
This is a once-in-a-century event so the State and Federal Governments will work for as long as it takes to ensure communities recover and rebuild.
This funding arrangement is the same that’s also been announced this morning for the Northern Territory affected by the damage from ex-tropical cyclone Ellie, which my colleague, Josh Butler, brought you the news about a little while ago.
Voice leaders ‘tired of political games’
A leading Indigenous voice to parliament advocate has lashed the “tired political games” marring discussion around the proposed advisory body, AAP reports.
Responding to the opposition leader Peter Dutton’s renewed call for more detail before a referendum, one of the Uluru statement’s principal authors, Prof Megan Davis, insisted Australians wouldn’t head to the ballot box without knowing what they were voting for.
Davis, a constitutional lawyer, said the process the government was following was standard practice. She said in a statement:
Constitutions are for principle. The machinery is for parliament. The High Court of Australia was recognised in 1901 and set up via legislation several years later … it’s a normal constitutional approach.
Davis spoke to the frustration surrounding the debate, saying the Uluru Dialogue “knew politicians could not lead this discussion”.
The Uluru Statement was issued to the Australian people because as Australians we are tired of political games. This isn’t about politicians and politicking, this is about the Australian people and our future.
Dutton said the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was treating the public “like mugs” for not releasing more detail before a potential constitutional change. He said his major queries were how the advisory body would be composed, how it would function on a regional basis and how it would tackle issues in the most remote areas.
He told reporters on Sunday:
You can’t just say to the Australian public as the prime minister, ‘you vote at an election … on a Saturday and we’ll give you the detail on the Monday’. It’s a very serious decision to change our constitution.
Davis said three different referendum working groups were finalising the appropriate amount of detail required for an informed vote. She said the Uluru dialogue would keep working with Liberal MPs “who want to work constructively as community leaders”.
Dutton’s call came as the Liberal party seeks to determine its position on the voice, after Coalition partners the Nationals formally opposed the referendum.
Read more including Davis’s comments in my colleague Josh Butler’s story from yesterday:
Broome surrounded by ‘phenomenal amount of water’: Watt
We’ve brought you a lot of images of flooded landscapes in the last twelve months but these saturated aerial views never cease to amaze me. Here are a few the emergency management minister Murray Watt shared from his flight into the Kimberley late last night. Watt will be with the PM touring the region later today.
Just landed in Broome, which is surrounded by a phenomenal amount of water. Great Northern Hwy cut off – the road that connects Nth Aus. On the ground tomorrow to hear what more we can do to help these communities recover. #kimberleyfloods pic.twitter.com/2bekOqf0d5
— Senator Murray Watt (@MurrayWatt) January 8, 2023
Government promises emergency assistance for damage from ex-tropical cyclone Ellie
Josh Butler
The federal and Northern Territory governments have announced emergency assistance for people affected by the damage from ex-tropical cyclone Ellie in the Victoria Daly region of the NT.
The assistance, announced by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, this morning, includes help for people whose homes or belongings have been damaged, personal hardship and distress payments, and support for local councils and residents to help with the costs of cleaning up and restoring damaged essential public assets.
Albanese, as Natasha reported earlier, is in Western Australia today surveying damage in flood-affected communities in the Kimberley. We’re expecting him to make some public appearances across WA through the day – we’ll bring you more later on.
The assistance for the NT comes in response to what Albanese described as a “one-in-50-year flood in Timber Creek”.
Federal emergency management minister Murray Watt said:
The federal and Northern Territory governments have made this financial assistance available to support impacted residents with their immediate needs to help them get back on their feet and into their homes.
This funding will also assist councils to cover the costs of clean-up, repairing flood-damaged infrastructure back to a usable condition, and undertaking counter disaster operations.
Information on disaster assistance can be found on the Australian government’s Disaster Assist website, and the Northern Territory government’s emergency information and response Secure NT website.
Labor to expand NSW stamp duty waivers
More first home buyers in NSW will have their stamp duty costs waived under a Labor proposal.
The scheme is an expansion of an existing government program that offers full or partial rebates on new or existing properties for first home buyers.
The opposition leader, Chris Minns, said he wanted more singles, couples and families realising their dream of home ownership.
I understand the stress of trying to purchase your first home.
The existing government program waives stamp duty on new homes valued up to $800,000 and existing homes of up to $650,000.
Labor wants to raise the value cap so any property bought – new or existing – worth up to $800,000 will have stamp duty waived.
Stamp duty will be partly waived on homes worth up to $1m – up from the current limit of $800,000.
Parliamentary Budget Office modelling estimates more than 46,000 people – or 95% of all first home buyers – would be able to access full or partial waivers under the expanded scheme.
The policy would cost $733m over the first four years.
An estimated 30,000 to 46,000 people get relief under the existing program.
Home ownership has become an election issue ahead of NSW heading to the polls in March.
The premier, Dominic Perrottet, has been chasing ambitious reform to make first homes more affordable. In 2020, as treasurer, he proposed to completely phase out stamp duty and replace it with an annual land tax.
Under laws passed in November, first home buyers purchasing a property for up to $1.5m can choose to pay stamp duty or an annual land tax to help save immediate costs on purchases. The tax due on land worth $500,000 would be $3,000 a year.
Labor calls it a “land tax on the family home” and has pledged to repeal it if it is elected in March.
– from AAP
No tsunami threat from Vanuatu earthquake
The Bureau of Meteorology says there is no tsunami threat from the earthquake near Vanuatu.
Inability to operate nuclear submarines without US navy supervision ‘completely overlooked’, Turnbull says
In international affairs, the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has weighed in on the nuclear submarine drama which flared up over the weekend. As my colleague Paul Karp reported Friday:
Two top US senators urged president Joe Biden not to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, warning it would diminish US national security given the vessels are ‘scarce’.
The intervention confirms the US is under pressure not to sell its submarines before Australia is able to build its own as part of the Aukus alliance – meaning it could be decades before Australia gains nuclear submarines.
The government has played down the leak, with a spokesperson for the Australian defence minister, Richard Marles, saying “the optimal pathway for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is taking shape, and an announcement remains on track to be made in the first part of this year”.
This morning, Turnbull has taken to Twitter to give his own two cents that any nuclear powered submarines acquired from the US will not be able to be operated or maintained without the supervision of the US Navy. He says it’s a fact that’s been “almost completely overlooked”.
This story continues, rightly, to resonate in Australia. Almost completely overlooked in Australia is the fact that nuclear powered submarines to be acquired from the US will not be able to be operated or maintained without the supervision of the US Navy. https://t.co/SeydObmwxJ
— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) January 8, 2023
He goes on:
It is surely remarkable that this abdication of Australian sovereignty was effected by the Morrison government and now, apparently, endorsed and adopted by the Albanese government.
Aukus is a worthwhile and natural enhancement of already intimate security and intelligence relationships but the submarine element of the agreement delays vital capabilities and diminishes Australian sovereignty.
It’s an issue Turnbull has written about in his response last year to Hugh White’s Quarterly Essay titled Sleepwalk to War. For more detail on the weekend’s immediate news on subs, read Karp’s full article here:
First time the whole of the West Kimberley has been isolated, authorities say
Haerewa says the Kimberley town of Derby at the centre of the West Kimberley region has become isolated. It comes after the Australian newspaper this morning reported the town risked being cut off from the rest of the country with the only bridge connecting it to the outside world battered.
ABC Radio asked Haerewa what was functioning when it comes to roads and bridges:
There’s nothing functioning at the moment.
We’ve got roads that are cut off between Broome and Derby, which makes Derby – the centre of the West Kimberley – isolated as well.
And we’ve also got the roads between Derby and Fitzroy … trying to get equipment, trying to get medical supplies and food – it just makes it a huge challenge.
Haerewa confirmed trucks are being sent via South Australia and the Northern Territory, with about 18 trailer loads going across as well as the barges coming in to Derby and Broome this week.
This is the first time, I suppose, that the whole of the West Kimberley has been isolated.
The Fitzroy Crossing in particular has been split in half, with several communities on the east side of the river that have to be serviced from the east, and then we can’t even get in with trucks from the west.
So it is a logistical challenge. But with resilience and the innovation that our people have got, we’re going to do the best we can to get as much gear to these people as possible.
Overcrowding in Kimberley evacuation centres
Geoff Haerewa is the president of the Derby and West Kimberley Shire, which has been hit by the worst flooding on record in WA. He’s been speaking to ABC Radio this morning about the situation the community is facing, including overcrowding in evacuation centres:
These evacuation centres are just recreational halls. They don’t have the facilities in there to handle anything up to 200 or 300 people.
It is overcrowding. It is hot, there’s no air conditioning. We don’t have the toilet facilities and the kitchen facilities to deal with a crisis of this size and magnitude.
Haewara says the residents of the region are resilient, dealing with cyclones and flooding every year. However, he says “this one just seems to be a lot worse than normal”.
WA flood victims wait to return home
Ahead of his visit to the flood-affected regions of the Kimberley today, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the WA premier, Mark McGowan, are expected to announce a joint arrangement for disaster recovery funding for flood-hit communities.
More on the situation in the Kimberley from AAP:
Recovery efforts have begun in the desert town of Fitzroy Crossing which has borne the brunt of flood waters now heading west.
Hundreds of residents who fled the region are still waiting to return home.
Food and supplies are being flown in to the cut-off town by the plane load as damage assessment teams look to quickly give people the green light to come home.
The prime minister’s office announced late on Sunday that he was in WA to visit the flood-affected communities alongside the premier, Mark McGowan, the agriculture minister, Murray Watt and WA senator Pat Dodson.
Several other Kimberley communities are expecting flood peaks by the end of today from conditions that have caused the Fitzroy River, which cuts across the region, to swell as wide as 50 kilometres in some parts.
Emergency services have evacuated or relocated 233 people from the area and responded to 54 calls for help.
Good morning!
And a belated happy new year. Natasha May reporting for my first day back on the blog for 2023. If it’s also your first day back at work after a break, I hope it’s a smooth transition back.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, will be visiting the communities in the Kimberley devastated by Western Australia’s worst flooding on record. Food and supplies are being flown into cut-off towns as major roads and bridges in the region remain cut off.
Albanese arrived in WA overnight and today will see the damage for himself alongside the premier, Mark McGowan, the federal agriculture minister, Murray Watt, and WA senator Pat Dodson.
In NSW, Labor has promised to abolish stamp duty for some first home buyers. It’s their plan to tackle the housing crisis three months out from the state election, and comes in response to the government’s stamp-duty reform that was introduced and passed through parliament last year.
If you missed it over the weekend, the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, penned an open letter, calling on the federal government to provide more concrete information on the Indigenous voice to parliament so voters can make an informed decision.
The search will resume for missing swimmers in Queensland and Victoria both of whom went missing Friday. A 20-year-old still hasn’t been found since he got into trouble swimming at Gunnamatta beach in the Mornington Peninsula. In far-north Queensland the search is ongoing for a 54-year-old tourist who went missing in Mossman Gorge north of Cairns.
Following the warmup tennis tournaments ahead of the Australian Open next week, Novak Djokovic has saved a match point before going on to winning the Adelaide Open.
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