The federal government is looking at a bill for about $5bn for the reconstruction of the damage. The question really is where should it fund this from? Compared to the $16.8bn BER splurge and the $bns subsidising green cars etc, this is not that large a sum.

If one considers that the BER is has still not spent about 25% of the total yet, and the construction industry whose jobs are being "saved" are mostly the same businesses that will do the reconstruction, it makes obvious sense to divert this money. Not to do so will rob both projects of skilled resources.

An additional tax can only be justified, if rational alternatives have not been pursued.

Public comment can be a strange thing, read this thread, consider for a second my role in it.
I a nonbeliever have been forced to come to the rescue of both a Church and the Idea of God, fairness would not let me ignore both.
Now? I MUST no other way for me, defend and rebut the thought those who suffered bought it on themselves and are both rich, may be stole our water front land, and may even be responsible for Global warming, rain,I can not go on.
We are told Labor has got us here in debt, that we should have money in the bank for this.
Yet an attempt to both get back in the black,and spread the costs, looks like it will be 5 bucks a week, is, well bad ugly a whole lot but is it?
The state of debate in Australian politics has never been lower.
An intention to hurt/harm your opponents not find answers exists.
We do, you know if you understand this country, have a system in place that has always under all party's been in part Socialism.
Some screaming here about tax and costs would NEVER EXCEPT cuts to those socialist things they use.
Health education travel water power much more subsidized .
I am all right mate may strangle the mate ship that made yesterday a proud day.
Give, give again, then pay the tax but be proud we live in a country that can,that cares enough to want to rebuild.

One way of getting some money back into the coffers is to take a long hard look at the salaries & benefits of high ranking Public Servants & foreign aid as well as public funding to the arts.
We could call a cut-back/subsequent savings on these a flood levy.

A few point's based on comments so far.
- There can never guarantee that a government will have sufficient reserves to cover a series of disasters. There will be times where reserves are not enough.
- A need to do something does not mean every measure is justified. Just as the GFC required action but that action was not necessarily the big screen TV bonus which the government choose the current crisis needs action but may not require taxpayers to subsidise those who have not protected themselves (nor various other non-esential rebuild's/upgrades which have a habit of becoming part of any large scale rebuilding efforts).
- Just as there are a variety of reasons why low income earners are low income earners there are a variety of reasons why middle and high income earners do so. The assumption that the reasons or needs of low income earners are more valid than those of others based only on income level is not valid. For some it's about ability and external circumstance, for many others that's not the case. The person who accepts lower income levels in exchange for other lifestyle benefits does not have a social responsibility than those who pay the price to obtain a higher level to meet higher financial responsibilities.

R0bert

Already,” the writing is on the wall”. If losses from flood damage to individuals and business are not personally devastating enough, interparty debate in Government echoes Sybil Fawlty’s line; I know... I know... I know... Oh, I know! and descends to the “Pythonesque”. Through it all, Australians seem willing to allow the same vagabonds of opportunity and stealth, to grab them by a “twisted ear” and lead them, unceremoniously, down the tortured and culminating trail of half truth and obfuscation, rewarded by additional taxes.

Anesthetized by obsessively repetitive and banal media bombardment, we paddle unaffectedly at the edges of some-others catastrophe; a catastrophe, hidden deeply and silently under a permanent high tide of despair.

We, as Australians, urgently need to focus on just who are the “victims”. It is “not” the Government, beleagueredly portraying themselves as such, who deserve sympathy; with extended and open hand, opportunely bleating to a confused populace, begging forgiveness for another highway robbery of the tax payer; proceeds of which to be thrown at the grubby feet of Treasurer Wayne Swan, parading like a grinning and fictional Cheshire cat and displaying the intelligence of a cow at milking time; bemoaning the stress of flood devastation to the bottom line, in monotones resemblant of a migrating whale.

Let us not lose sight of the true victims of the flood disaster, typically over-represented by the young family, familiar to all our neighbourhoods, struggling tenaciously against the too often swift flowing tide of financial hardship; they are the ”victims”; everyday people who, but for little more reason than fate, became, through no personal fault of entirety, the “common” victim: Not simply to the muddy waters of flood, but victims to the vile and morally stagnant perpetrators of “design factors” that commodified them for sacrifice to Gods of greed and the devil of conformity.

continued...

Continued...

The same commodifiers now gleefully rubbing together guilty and unrepentant hands, huddled in tight murmuring expectant circles, inside the panelled and expensive board rooms of Banks and Insurance companies across the nation; awaiting, with the arrogance of supreme confidence in their proven powers of manipulation for uncontested rewards of vast profits to come from the reconstruction of the same victims: A project of resurrection watered with the crocodile tears, and fertilised with the excrement of the hot air promises of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott. The “common” victims now metamorphosed to creatures of perpetual anxiety, trapped in the land of “Limbo”, imprisoned in houses ones called homes, looking across the flood planes towards the next inescapable disaster and subjected to continuous rort. A commodity of profit!