I have no confidence in levees as they can breach. I can't help thinking that canals are the only answer to flood prone area. The material from the canals could be used to build up residential area. Sorry developers but you'll need to curb your greed. A canal is better than a row of homes flooded. We seem to have an insurmountable amount of rubbish so why can't that be utilised in landfills in low lying area ? Why not strip-build suburbs with a row of trees, a row of houses, a canal, another row of trees, another row of houses. Stuff this soul destroying high density housing & get peoples' mentality back to ground level. Non-military national service personnel could benefit greatly from being involved in hands-on clearing of condemned housing & transporting material to build-up sites. There's no better character building than manual work in a time of common need.
There are many alternatives & all that is needed is a reduction in profit for developers, they'd still make plenty. Any new higher ground subdivision can be achieved without developers. Local council can oversee that. They need some practical experience also.

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And sadly donations are far below what is needed.
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Maybe coz we're all cashed out paying for bludgers whinging they can't afford to take their kids to macsludgers. Can't afford to take their two pets to the vet. Can't afford to get a video out at video easy. All while sponging off the workers who took responsibility for their lives.

Maybe coz we're all cashed out paying for the thousands of imports that join the cue behind the ones described above?

Maybe coz we're all cashed out paying for a tax on a trace gas essential to life so the parasites can sit back and issue more orders to the doers, all on a lie!

Maybe coz we're all cashed out paying for parasitical despots who are never held to account for their criminal behavior and then sit back drinking their campaign while the rest of us are left to pick up the tab?

Hasbeen, "Yes onthebeach, Suncorp cover flood on all their policies. I presume that is why I had to drop their house insurance a couple of years back. They had rises of 35% then 45% & then wanted another 40%"

I have no interest in a particular insurer. However Suncorp was one that did live up to its promises.

Insurance premiums paid to an insurer that doesn't intend to pay and will contest forever is wasted money. There are many insurers like that. If you don't take their tawdry decisions on flood where covered as indicative of what their senior management may very well do for other claims you are unwise in the extreme I would say. A leopard doesn't change its spots so easily.

It is interesting that insurers dragged kicking to the Ombudsman for delaying and frustrating apparently legitimate flood claims were also to the front in raising their premiums. Would you continue to insure with one of them?

I come from the country and am aware of the unique problems.

Onthebeach old mate, I am not interested in having flood insurance on my house & contents. Sure my dam pump went under, which wouldn't be covered anyway, but my house was still 30 meters above this flood level. If it goes under no one will be paying insurance claims.

I paid more for my property because it is riverfront, & because some of it is high enough to be safe from flood. I am not interested in subsidising the insurance of someone less careful, or who decided to take the chance on flooding.

When I went sailing around the Pacific I chose not to pay the 7% of my yachts value annually required to insure it for foreign waters. I backed myself & in 15 years saved the value of the yacht. If I had lost it in the first months, I would not have expected any one else to pay for it. Insurance is the owners choice, as it is for a renter with contents insurance.

Individual I can't agree with your canals theory. When a flood can be a couple of meters deep, & over a few kilometers wide, you would have to have huge empty ditches, all over the place, in many areas through productive farm land.

I did see a bloke who built an 8Ft high quarter acre mound for his house & shed in the Baffle creek area. He was a real winner, when the huge hole dug for the mound material turned into a spring, filled with crystal clear water over a few days. I never did hear how well the mound worked, in a flood.

Belly it was always going to be the case whereby the donations would dry up, once people are FORCED to contribute.

Then, once the proceeds are subjected to means testing, it kind of creates an every man for himself, as asking people to be generous is one thing, but forcing it upon them is a whole different ball game.

And of cause there would be some resistance from some, who think why should I donate again, to contribute to a problem that occurred a couple of years ago and, may well happen again in the not too distant future, esspecially when so many of their tax dollars, dollars that could have helped, have been wasted.

But, like anything, for every action there is a reaction.

The choice of Red Cross was a mistake.

A large number of people, obviously me included, will never never give 10 cents to the Red Cross again.

Many will remember they chose to divert a number of million from the last flood appeal to some other preferred use of their own. The money only went back where it was intended after they were caught playing tootsies with our money.

I wouldn't trust them to lie straight in bed. They won't get another chance with anything from me.