: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese is on his way to Eugowra this morning to talk with locals about flood recovery efforts there. The Commonwealth is working with the State Government to fund recovery measures, but with so, much to do, how far will that funding go? The Prime Minister is with us this morning. Prime Minister, thank you very much for joining us on the program today.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Alex. I’m very much looking forward to being back in the Central West today.
JAMES. So, what’s prompted your return visit to Eugowra today?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the Mayor, Kevin Beatty, I’ve been speaking with pretty regularly. I had another chat with him this morning. And Andrew Gee, the local federal member, has raised these issues consistently and we have been working – myself and Murray Watt, the Emergency Management Minister – have been working with the NSW Government of Chris Minns on the recovery. Not just in Eugowra, of course, but other areas right around – not just the state of NSW, unfortunately, but Queensland, Victoria, Western Australia, have all suffered from these events in recent times. I visited Eugowra in 2022 when it was just devastated by flooding. And I’ll never forget houses that literally had been moved hundreds of metres and some that they just effectively had been destroyed. There was a steel type bridge that was no longer over the waterway. It was a devastating impact. We had the Australian Defence Force in there assisting at the time and, it was just remarkable resilience shown by that community – like others, and Andrew Gee asked me a question earlier this year in the Parliament and invited me to come back. I committed to coming in the first quarter. This is reasonably short notice – when a gap appears in the diary in between sitting weeks, but I am able to get back there this morning. I’m going to meet a couple of people, Kay and Max, who lost their home and most of their possessions in those floods and weren’t insured. They used some grant money to take out a small mortgage on their house to repair and rebuild and they moved into that home just before Christmas last year, which is an amazing story, really. I’m looking forward to having a chat with them. And there’s also a big car event there in Eugowra today as well, so that’s a bit of a bonus.
JAMES: Yeah, it’s well timed, you have to say, Prime Minister, with that on the agenda as well. Speaking of that funding, I know that there’s several different grants and funding options that have been thrown toward the shires and local council areas out in the Central West. But in particular, when we’re talking about the $40 million housing program that the Federal Government jointly funded, there is a feeling amongst these communities that $40 million between multiple central west councils won’t be enough to completely rebuild. Will the Government commit more money if it’s required?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we’ll always examine proposals that come forward. We’ve provided $20 million from each level of Government for the Resilient Homes type program there for the Central West local government areas that were impacted. In addition to that, just last week we announced that the four local governments that were severely impacted could apply for a share of the community assets program – that’s $25 million, and what that’s for is to repair parks and community buildings, tourism and recreational facilities as well. That comes on top of the funding that we have provided. We’ve provided jointly some $600 million for flood affected communities since late 2022. So, there has been substantial Commonwealth dollars, as well as NSW Government funding has flowed through, as well as funding of course, some of that includes the funding to individuals like Kay and Max, who’ve been assisted by that. We know that these are difficult times, but I’ve got to say that I am looking forward to seeing a much different Eugowra from what was there in 2022. In the worst of times, we always see the best of the Australian character. We know recovery will take time. We want to be there with the community. And I know the mayor, Kevin Beatty, raised with me this morning the issue of potential additional funding – he’s going to pop into Canberra sometime in coming weeks to meet with myself and with Murray Watt, the Minister, as well. And we’re always open, my Government, to engaging with communities.
JAMES. So, you said that the local councillors there raise potential additional funding and the Government will examine it. But will the Government commit more money if it’s required?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we examine these issues. We have proper processes. What we don’t do with taxpayers’ money is just to make announcements without submissions, without proper assessment from our Finance Department about where the money is going, the requirements which are there. But we have been with communities every step of the way and I think our record shows that that’s the case. Every time there’s been a natural disaster, we’ve been on the ground. And in that case we had government services officials on the ground there when I was there, when people were still very much dealing with the flooding that had occurred, we made sure that people were being provided with that assistance as immediately as possible.
JAMES
