Why should we have a tax levy? If about $5 billion is being given in Aid by Government & private sources to overseas aid. I don't see why Australia can't have a moritorium on this, at least the Government part of this Aid, for 5 years. It could be used to rebuild Australias infrastructure & future proof Australia from disasters. Then we could help other countries, but Australia need that money first, & now.

5 years would give Australia at least $19 billion. That would go a long way towards furture proofing Australia, providing, of course, the Lawyers, Administrators & consultants, etc don't milk the bulk of it off.

Recently there have been other disasters like the bushfires. A number of charities didn't distrubute all the Aid they collectered. "Saving for future disasters" They said.

Where is that money now?
Has any of it been added to the pool of Aid raised for the floods?

As for a new Tax or Levy. I don't think so. Australia should adopt a 10% PERSONAL EARNINGS tax, with no deductions of any discription for anything. Business Tax is another matter. I sure Australia would be in surplus in no time at all.

The discussion seems shifter to centering around "blame." I believe thats another discussion.

There are at least three different categories of infrastructure involved.

1/ Infrastructure required to service people living directly in high risk area's.
2/ Common infrastructure required regardless of how close to high risk area's. Bridges, some roads, electrical and telecommunications infrastructure could fall into that category.
3/ Infrastructure in area's not normally considered to be at risk but which may have been impacted by extreme conditions - my impression is that the flood in downtown Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley was unprecedented.

I don't have much interest in subsidising others choices to live in known flood risk area's and many of the area's which were flooded fall into that category. The cost of repairs to infrastructure required to service those choosing to live in high risk area's should be primarily worn by those choosing that risk.

The costs associated with repairs to assets which are required by the
broader community should be carried by the whole community.

I especially object to paying a special bonus to those who were not flood ensured. If insurance policies were misleading (or written in such a way that most customers were likely to think that they were covered for riverine floods) then the insurers should be dealt with by the law.

There are no special government handout's to people who fail to adequately insure themselves in other circumstances regardless of how unfair the insurance company appears to be or how big the personal loss appears to be.

We each make choices about where we choose to live (and locate businesses). Sometimes those choices are driven by a lack of econnomic power but I suspect that for most of those impacted around Brisbane a near river location is not the result of poverty, it may be in some other area's.

R0bert

I live in Wentworth at the junction of the Murray and Darling - all that water is heading towards us, though it is weeks/months away. Wentworth was built entirely on a floodplain, but for good strategic reasons in the time of the riverboat trade (an earlier town on higher ground was abandoned). As with other similar situations (eg farming on the good soil near a volcano) it's a matter of balancing long-term benefits v. the risk of occasional disasters but also planning for the latter.

Wentworth has been seriously flooded - in 1871, 1890, 1931 and, the worst, in 1956 when the Murray and Darling floodpeaks coincided here. Those lessons were learnt. The town is extensively leveed - we had a levee levy (paid by residents inside the levees) to raise the levees long before it became the current joke. You can buy water frontage here, but there's a great big embankment between your house and the water. So I have no problem with people living on a floodplain, but watching the TV coverage I have been surprised at the lack of permanent levees around new floodplain developments. Maybe you need a really big flood to convince you (and the council) that it is worth sacrificing the view for levee protection (houses can be built high to see over the levee).

The dog in the manger responses do not represent the majority of the electorate who would recognise the catastrophic events as unusual.

As well as that, decisions made in the best interests of the public are never perfect, balancing as they must competing priorities and limitation of resources. To take a few examples,

firstly, water was hoarded in Wivenhoe (Brisbane) because there is not enough water for the booming population growth determined by federal governments, allegedly for the benefit of all of Australia but resulting in overpopulation of cities like Brisbane and stretching their ratepayers to the limit. Wivenhoe had to release water late and in response to a huge run-off, thereby causing the flooding of Brisbane it was supposed to prevent;

secondly, for all sorts of reasons there has been no building of dams for water provision and flood mitigation for twenty years. However like the many thousands of people who have developed or built in Queensland over the years I contributed thousands for proposed dams and other water infrastructure for no result and strangely, the millions seem to have disappeared for other purposes somewhere; and

thirdly, demands for cheap land have been met by developing flood plains, draining marshlands and dredging sand rather than reduce the ever increasing government taxes and charges that made land development very expensive. There are many who benefit through lower taxes while residential housing is treated as a milch cow by government and money that could have gone to welfare housing is used for another purpose.

Everyone should kick in according to their capacity to help and that is best done by a tax levy, although my number one preference would be to stall the NBN. My only concern is that I wouldn't like to see Canberra coordinate any of the work (has any of that indigenous housing been done yet?).

Where is our future fund?

Labor raids deplete Future Fund Tom Dusevic, National chief reporter From: The Australian May 14, 2010

>>ALMOST all the federal government's nation-building infrastructure fund has been depleted, less than a year after it received an initial $11 billion endowment to make strategic investments.
According to the Department of Finance, the "uncommitted balance" of the Building Australia Fund was $705 million at the end of March, a 94 per cent plunge compared to the value of its original capital.<<

There it is.