When governments try to build dams, recently in QLD and NSW not in my back yard/greens groups kill them.
Councils by their very nature are not unlike this NSW government, driven by developers, who often are the council.
Most who buy and build in flood land know no better.
I ask how many here think the tax is meant for private houses.
Governments by far have more to do and more to spend than any, other than insurance company's and that is only a maybe for insurance.
Put ever cent governments get from every source in a barrel.
WE EXPECT much more from that barrel than it holds.
Do we want schools, hospitals, transport health and roads rebuilt.
Would we say no to the spending of millions, many millions, replacing white goods for those who have nothing?
Or the $2000 first payments to those in need?
Why are we talking about things we can not undo, bad planning bad councils evil developers?
We can not take that back but we can see it never happens again.
Like the silly targeted story about Church's up the thread some zip past the nightmare of those who suffer still.
Let us leave politics out of it give then give again pay the tax extra it may be.
Now tell me, Tony Abbott/Howard if in power right now,would either not want to get back in the black.
Would they not too levee us all?
I understand unhappiness with Labor but it is scrapping the very bottom of a very dirty barrel to use others grief and suffering to save a few bob and flog a politics issue in to life.
Have you given yet, it will not hurt it may be you who one day needs some one to say cop this bloke you need it,Aussie day,what a way to say thanks to this country.

I think any one who comes onto this string should declare whether they were personally affected by a flood, before they can make a comment. I live in Uranquinty NSW and was affected by the torrential rain in October - we had 10cm of water through our house.
We are currently living in a rental accomodation until repairs are made to our house - We were not covered for the roof, but we were covered for the water that came into our house from above, and for the water that came through the door - as it contained sewerage. We are fortunate! Of the approximately 200 residences in Uranquinty, 60 were damaged and many utterly destroyed. The catholic church, at our back gate was inundated by over 300ml of water, and it is on stumps.

I take issue with the poster who said that the churches in Ipswich are already repaired. Our parish council has just received the quote fron the insurance companty. No repairs are carried out on properties until they dry out. The poster may mean that services are now being conducted in these flooded churches. That was likewise in Uranquinty. The church is a shell, but not a dangerous place to give thanks and praise to God for our deliverence.

Our place is still wet below the concrete slab, 3 months after the event, but repairs are being made as the rest of the place has finally dried out enough to replace plaster and paint.

Would I pay a Levy - I got nothing from the disaster plan - but then I had insurance which covered most of the damage. Others were not so lucky, with the prospect of relocating for 12 months while repairs are made. We will still be out of pocket more than $20,000 as we think it is sensible to replace a roof that leaks in VERY HEAVY rain, especially when the insurance company is meeting cost of more than $40,000.

A couple of links to summaries of payments available.

http://www.communityservices.qld.gov.au/community/community-recovery/support-assistance/support-assistance.html

http://lhmu.org.au/files/QLD-20floods-20-20SEC.pdf

I can see that in some circumstances there will be real reasons why some people don't have the relevant insurances but those cases where that becomes the communities responsibility should be few and far between. As I pointed out earlier government handout's to reduce hardship due to not being adequately insured don't apply in other situations although the individual hardship may be a great or greater.

R0bert

The Blue Cross has nailed this, in one. Whether you think a levy is appropriate or not, is not the point,
the way to improve the economy for all and protect ourselves from preventable disaster,
is to ensure that all (including the rich or privileged) are paying the appropriate share in our overall taxation system.
I have had made similar points as TBC in the past in other posts, about religion and tax

The Swiss keep recharging their banking scandal whistle blower, hoping that something will stick, even if his motivations are all wrong, his information
is eye-opening, consequently his case for the public interest strengthens.
It also seems that any wealthy entity with a bank account in the Cayman Islands is a tax evader, and that this reality has also existed up till now with absolute impunity.

Our Govt, (and even more so, "our repulsive opposition") seek to have "man on the street taxpayers" pay the subsidy/revenue raised by such levy/tax, too businesses, whilst at the same time, the same taxpayer is left to their own devices (in a legal minefield) at that hands of insurers, crawling through every loophole they can find in the policies of their devastated customers, to avoid paying. Other insurer's, knowing all the time that their policy product would not cover customers in such an event, also with absolute impunity.

If you can't see how mad this is, then you need new glasses.

It's all about government incompetence. The vibe I get from fellow travelers and I tend to agree. If we had a competent government then we wouldn't mind pitching in. But as we have the worst piece of trailer park trash running the joint into the ground, then she can shove it!

Shoot the messenger as I know you're all good at it, but in my neck of the woods, that's how the folks feel. Not to mention that some folks were just asking for it, so why should we bother? I mean if my house burns down tomorrow because of a faulty light switch or something and I don't have insurance, no one is going to help me are they?

Tell the bogan princes to stop wasting money on useless trash and then we wouldn't have this problem!

Thanks thinker2

The hollowness of the wealthy, politicians, business 'leaders', rich personalities, and so on, is there for all to see when it comes to evading and avoiding tax.

But all Abbott and Gillard can come up with is to tax the plonkers, and many plonkers meekly accept that as 'the commonsense' thing to do.

Belly, lets have a look at a few dam sites shall we/

The Toowoomba flood was not caused by the lack of a dam.

Neither was the Murphy's Creek - Grantham surge.

I suspect there is no room/suitable spot for a dam for Ipswich.

Nor Dalby, Warwick, Condamine, Chinchilla and so on.

St George has a dam, or a weir anyway.

Dams are not 'the solution'.

Wivenhoe and its surrounding dams would have to have been just about empty to accept all the water that came on that fateful week, and day.

Of Victoria's plight, I have no idea at all, so make no comment.

Now, whether councils had planned for more than the 1 in 100 year event is another matter.

Ours clearly did not, and I suspect many others did not either.

I'd start looking at this still emerging 'science' to get a few answers rather than plug on about 'Greenies stopping dams'.

I suspect that most local government, councils, are quite inept when it comes to really designing a solid disaster management plan that could have foreseen this event and dealt with it in a reasonable manner.

Now is the time to start questioning this clearly much needed 'reserve' and making sure they all lift their game, and that, of course, includes all of us too, who need to understand that not all land is there to be built on, and 'profit' is not always the best, and never the only, measure to use when designing communities.