In spite of what the village idiot claims, these floods are not unprecedented and there have been more severe floods before.

The state government and councils have all been well aware of where the flood plains are and have been happy to have people building on them as long as it brings in rates and taxes. When these areas flood and people lose their livelihoods, the states and councils simply wash their hands of the problem and blame climate change.

Levies and dams should be built to control flooding, but that is exactly what the greens hate.

So it seems there are people here that have no qualms at all in resorting to authoritarianism to "protect" people. It seems to me that they think that they know best how to protect people and that the general population shouldn't be able to decide for themselves what's good for them or not. Only the elites are allowed to decide where people can live.

Well their desired world is *not* a world that I want to live in. In the world that I want to live in, people are allowed to decided for themselves what risks they want to take. In my preferred world, a person can do *whatever* they want, as long as it doesn't prevent others from doing their own thing and additionally when things go bad for them then they sort it out themselves. In this world, people can build *wherever* they please, but the catch is that when their house floods or burns or slides down a hill or the sea sweeps it off the shoreline or etc., it's their own personal loss.

It's perfectly reasonable for some people to build on flood plains, because for some people the reward they get from living on the flood plain is greater than the loss they occasionally suffer. It's up to people individually to decide this. To give an example of this, in Brisbane their are mansions along the river. These people enjoy the benefits of the river, eg: a nice view, a private jetty, an exclusive/wealthy suburb, etc. But every now and then the river floods and causes damage, but for them it doesn't matter because they are rich enough to cover the losses.

Who should pay for these levees?

If I buy, build or rent a house in a non-flood prone area
- Then why should my rates / taxes be used to pay for the infrastructure needs of the people who did choose to buy, build or rent in flood prone areas?

In this context, it feels like a wealth transfer.
Or put another way, theft.

It is apparent that the vastness and flatness of much of Australia is not appreciated/understood.
For the good of our society thousands of people live in flood prone areas but for some people these fellow citizens should not be helped.
Is one to assume then that because they live distant from the cities and chose freely to do so that they should build their own roads and railways, pay for a local police force, postal service, electricity supply etc?

Indyvidual,
Apparently you have never used explosives nor seen a levee.
A couple of sticks of gelignite are often required to remove a decent tree stump, their effect on a permanent levee large enough to protect a town would hardly be noticeable.

Is Mise: "Is one to assume then that because they live distant from the cities and chose freely to do so that they should build their own roads and railways, pay for a local police force, postal service, electricity supply etc?"

In my opinion, it's best to have infrastructure and services paid by those who use them. This commonly happens to some degree anyway. Eg:

Roads: locally they're built by developers and councils, and upkeep mainly funded for by rates (so in the main locals pay for their own local roads). User paid state rego, fuel taxes and tolls contribute a lot to the state road infrastructure but don't cover it completely.
For me, toll payments should be way more common on major roads- this is how many roads use to be paid for in centuries past. These days with electronic billing it is easy to implement tolls on existing and new roads.

Railways: ticket sales and cartage fees contribute to the upkeep, but normally don't cover cost completely. New ones are usually paid for by State Governments with additional Federal Government funding. To improve this, it would be better if we fully privatised all railways and make them fully self-funded.

Postal service: is self funded through postage, courier fees and other goods and services sold.

Electricity supply: In the main, users pay for the electricity they use.

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Police: The glaring omission here is the police force. They're mainly State funded but they do raise money by fines and payments for services provided. Although moeny raised by fines and services doesn't flow exclusively to the local police that generated the income.
Personally I don't mind that they are State funded and not privatised and self-funded. If they were privatised and self-funded then there would be too much temptation for the owners to abuse their powers. But one suggestion I have to improve delivery of services is to require the State to provide a basic guaranteed minimum service to every region (eg: such as a minimum on-the-beat-officers to population ratio), but local councils could top-up the budget of their local police as the council see fit to address concerns that local residents have about lack of policing (ie: local councils could sponsor extra state provided police officers). Payment for services provided by the police (eg: policing for major events) should be received by the police district that provided them. However, I feel that funds raised by fines should never be directed to the policing region that issue them- there would be to much temptation by local pollies to pressure the police to go on revenue raising fining campaigns in their own districts to pay for more officers.