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Queensland Floods

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Australia says flood cost to top other disasters

Reuters, CANBERRA
Floods devastating huge areas of Australia’s eastern seaboard, including the nation’s third-largest city, look set to be the costliest natural disaster ever in a country known for climatic extremes, Australian Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan said yesterday.
The floods in the major resource state of Queensland, which have swept through an area the size of South Africa, and overnight in 46 towns in Victoria State, would not delay a promised return to surplus next year and in 2013, Swan said.
However, the huge rebuilding and cleanup cost could force difficult spending cuts.
The estimated cost of rebuilding the worst hit Queensland state alone stood at A$10 billion (US$9.8 billion), the Australian newspaper said yesterday, and the damage bill was rising fast as record flooding moved south to northern and western Victoria.
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Ten billion and still climbing.:eek: This should be a piece of cake for the Gillard government. After all. the Building Educarion Revolution was programmed at $16.2 billion of which it is estimated $5 billion has been wasted.
 
At the moment i am concentrating on trying to locate cheap caravans that I can get to those people that have lost their home. Either on loan, donated of available at a price that can be afforded, any offers?

Rebuilding will take time, a temporary home is what is desperately needed.
 
Rebuilding without change in plans and approach is doing the same thing, expecting different results.
For starters: NO CARPET in flood prone areas.
No expert, but few tens of million saved here.
Next time big water comes you just wash it, sanitise and it is good to use.

NO GYPROCK, NO MDF OR PARTICLE FURNITURE!
Possibly toilets, showers, basins and baths with lockable plugs, so no back-flush, less SEWAGE to worry about.
Want more ideas?
How about DRY ROOM that can be waterproof.
How about house built in some guides that can float on water and rise 2, 3 or even 5 metres and stay within those guides?
All sevices can have flexible connections.

How come we have special Building Code after Darwin Hurricane and no FLOOD building code?
Suppose one day it will come too, after all, smoke detectors were available for ages but not used by everybody now are mandatory.

As I said, donations and help are all good, but we cannot do the same thing and expect different results.
This 200 years event can be back in many people’s lifetime.
 
Bligh wants to use her flood inquiry to put the boot into the Insurance companies. They have taken over from the banks as the designated blood suckers of the community.

Not a day passes when the media does not give cases of insurances' alleged unfair practices, mostly anecdotal, using all sorts of pejorative terms. The whingers make comments like "I have been paying them for years and now they say I am not covered".

Gillard even thinks they should make ex gratia payments. Nobody has yet explained why anyone who doesn't have flood cover in their policy should have an expectation they should be paid out. After all you get what you pay for.

The insurance companies are businesses, not charities, and have a duty to their shareholders. I have shares in IAG and the last thing I want to see is them bowing under to pressures from socialists like Bligh and Gillard.
 
Calliope said:
Bligh wants to use her flood inquiry to put the boot into the Insurance companies. They have taken over from the banks as the designated blood suckers of the community.

Not a day passes when the media does not give cases of insurances' alleged unfair practices, mostly anecdotal, using all sorts of pejorative terms. The whingers make comments like "I have been paying them for years and now they say I am not covered".

Gillard even thinks they should make ex gratia payments. Nobody has yet explained why anyone who doesn't have flood cover in their policy should have an expectation they should be paid out. After all you get what you pay for.

The insurance companies are businesses, not charities, and have a duty to their shareholders. I have shares in IAG and the last thing I want to see is them bowing under to pressures from socialists like Bligh and Gillard.
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Gillard and Bligh are already using the floods as an excuse for their inept handling of the economy stating the floods will prevent them from balancing their budgets to surplus by 2011/12. They will flog these floods to the death up to the next election.
I always believed Governments allowed for these disasters. I suggest they recind the $599 million set aside for the the Cancun Mexico climate change fund for a start.
 
Didn't know about that one, Noco. I googled it and found the info below:

excerpt:
Today I announced further allocations under the $599 million of Australia’s committed fast start financing. These included:

* $15 million to the Adaptation Fund
* $169 million in new regional adaptation allocations to the Pacific, South and South-East Asia and Africa
* $32 million for REDD+ Initiatives in Indonesia under our International Forest Carbon Initiative
* $10 million to the Climate Investment Funds’ Programme on Scaling‑up Renewable Energy in Low Income Countries, and
* $10 million to the Partnership for Market Readiness
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http://www.climatechange.gov.au/minister/greg-combet/2010/major-speeches/December/sp20101210.aspx

What is the "Partnership for Market Readiness" - $10 million...:confused:

And read this exercpt from the same article written in December...lol

We too will be adversely affected by increases in temperature. We will have less water and will experience an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events...
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Less water...hmmm. Problem now we don't have enough dams to collect it for the next cycle of drought.

Still, it seems pretty sad that so much of our tax dollars are being sent overseas and there's possibly nothing much left for our natural disasters. Time will tell how well labor can actually handle this massive disaster.
 
Happy said:
Rebuilding without change in plans and approach is doing the same thing, expecting different results.
For starters: NO CARPET in flood prone areas.
No expert, but few tens of million saved here.
Next time big water comes you just wash it, sanitise and it is good to use.

NO GYPROCK, NO MDF OR PARTICLE FURNITURE!
Possibly toilets, showers, basins and baths with lockable plugs, so no back-flush, less SEWAGE to worry about.
Want more ideas?
How about DRY ROOM that can be waterproof.
How about house built in some guides that can float on water and rise 2, 3 or even 5 metres and stay within those guides?
All sevices can have flexible connections.

How come we have special Building Code after Darwin Hurricane and no FLOOD building code?
Suppose one day it will come too, after all, smoke detectors were available for ages but not used by everybody now are mandatory.

As I said, donations and help are all good, but we cannot do the same thing and expect different results.
This 200 years event can be back in many people’s lifetime.
Click to expand...
Sensible post, Happy. I am having considerable difficulty in sympathising with people who have been flooded multiple times yet insist they will rebuild in the same place.
Why on earth would you want to do this? It's just like the people who lost their homes in the Victorian bushfires vowing nothing would make them leave the area.

OK, I suppose that's their right. But I'm damned if taxpayer dollars or donated relief funds should be offered to them to do this.

Many are uninsured. If they receive enough taxpayer funds to make good their losses, then there is absolutely no incentive for them to insure in the future.

Sometimes it seems to me that we have about half the population who takes responsibility for their own outcomes, and half that don't. The latter half seems to always expect that those who have been more prudent will bail them out.

There just has to be a limit to this.



Calliope said:
Bligh wants to use her flood inquiry to put the boot into the Insurance companies. They have taken over from the banks as the designated blood suckers of the community.

Not a day passes when the media does not give cases of insurances' alleged unfair practices, mostly anecdotal, using all sorts of pejorative terms. The whingers make comments like "I have been paying them for years and now they say I am not covered".

Gillard even thinks they should make ex gratia payments. Nobody has yet explained why anyone who doesn't have flood cover in their policy should have an expectation they should be paid out. After all you get what you pay for.

The insurance companies are businesses, not charities, and have a duty to their shareholders. I have shares in IAG and the last thing I want to see is them bowing under to pressures from socialists like Bligh and Gillard.
Click to expand...
People make the excuse that the fine print on insurance policies is too complicated to understand. Yes, at times it does seem ambiguous. But surely it comes back to the person taking out the policy to be quite clear about what they expect they are buying.
 
I offer condolences to all those affected in this latest natural disaster. I have been to Brisbane. It is a beautiful city.

Flood Emergency Information
Disaster Recovery Hotline: 1800 173 349
State Emergency Service: 132 500

756988-highest-annual-flood-peaks.jpg
 
Julia said:
Sensible post, Happy. I am having considerable difficulty in sympathising with people who have been flooded multiple times yet insist they will rebuild in the same place.
Why on earth would you want to do this? It's just like the people who lost their homes in the Victorian bushfires vowing nothing would make them leave the area.

OK, I suppose that's their right. But I'm damned if taxpayer dollars or donated relief funds should be offered to them to do this.

Many are uninsured. If they receive enough taxpayer funds to make good their losses, then there is absolutely no incentive for them to insure in the future.

Sometimes it seems to me that we have about half the population who takes responsibility for their own outcomes, and half that don't. The latter half seems to always expect that those who have been more prudent will bail them out.

There just has to be a limit to this.

People make the excuse that the fine print on insurance policies is too complicated to understand. Yes, at times it does seem ambiguous. But surely it comes back to the person taking out the policy to be quite clear about what they expect they are buying.
Click to expand...

In any disaster it is always the improvident who get all the publicity. Never mind about the fine print. What is hard to swallow is that anyone, however naive, and living in a flood prone area could expect to have flood coverage with a similar policy to someone living in a safe area.

The truth is they were prepared to take the risk rather than pay the steep extra cost for flood coverage. However the more they complain, the bigger the handouts.

Much has been made of Suncorp's decision to include flood coverage in their normal policies. Just wait until the claimants try to renew their policies. In the meantime Suncorp wll jack up the cost for all policy holders to cover the increased risk.
 
Julia said:
People make the excuse that the fine print on insurance policies is too complicated to understand. Yes, at times it does seem ambiguous. But surely it comes back to the person taking out the policy to be quite clear about what they expect they are buying.
Click to expand...
It's a double edged sword - yes buyer needs to be aware of the myriad of definitions of "flood" (and there are many), but under the TPA any seller of insurance product has an obligation to ensure that the purchaser is fully aware of the T&Cs of said product. PDS' also need to have a plain English content, and as far as I'm aware all major insurance comapnies take great steps to ensure they comply with this.

Many contracts sold face to face (not just insurance products) now include a tick sheet that protects the seller by proving that all relevant criteria have been discussed. It's a good idea that avoids potential "he said, she said" situations in the future.

I'd be surprised if property owners in certain areas would be able to obtain all types of flood cover anyway.
 
Mofra said:
Many contracts sold face to face (not just insurance products) now include a tick sheet that protects the seller by proving that all relevant criteria have been discussed. It's a good idea that avoids potential "he said, she said" situations in the future.
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That's a good idea. Even then, there will be some people who'll just blithely tick all the boxes without reading the details properly, and then make the same protestations about not having understood as they do now regarding e.g. the flood clauses in their current contracts.
 
Sadly, growing number of Australian residents get more and more stupid by the minute so to speak.

Many people cannot read and write or are below acceptable level to understand not even complex information.

Not to mention that “I didn’t understand” is fantastic excuse, accepted at least by the media.
 
Like vultures attracted to a carcase, a swarm of trauma counselors has descended on the Lockyer Valley. As if the locals don't have enough problems without having to humour these drop-ins, and cope with their fallout.

We we lucky in 1974. The counselor industry was still in its infancy.
 
I'm not in two minds on this.

Did civic planners really think that long term weather patterns would not come back to raise river levels at some stage?

Did people really think that they were taking any sort of risk planting a home in a flood zone?

Do you ever commit your entire life savings to a property without understanding the risks of natural disaster in that particular area?

I dare say the answers to above is NO.

If we claim sympathy for obvious potential of natural disaster we are just another remora....

Let's build a city on a fault line, or with no concrete, or in the path of the last 50 destructive hurricanes, or next to a river that floods, or ....

Take the pain I think.

It's almost like asking for compensation when your horse doesn't run in first.

:banghead:


I do send my condolences to those people who gambled and lost.

And to those people who didn't understand the odds.

Maybe I'm being harsh.

:confused:
 
kennas said:
Did civic planners really think that long term weather patterns would not come back to raise river levels at some stage?
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Did civic planners and our political masters care ?

I dare say the answer to that is no and that to me is the underlying problem.
 
Exactly where in Australia (or even the world) is a place that everyone can live, that is safe from every natural disaster known (or unknown)? We have to live somewhere.

And why in the world would someone who has lost everything, including family, not welcome counselling?

Lastly, I take exception at the comment about people being unable to read and write or understand certain information and the implication that they are stupid.

My father is NOT a stupid man. Yet he has problems with reading and writing. Why? Because he never had the opportunity - one year of schooling by correspondence was the limit of his childhood education. Despite this, he has endeavoured to improve himself and now trains others in his area of expertise.

It is not a perfect world and we can't have a perfect life. Really, I hope people can become just a little more tolerant and understanding.
 
drsmith said:

Judging by the extent of "the brown", it looks like it at least had water over the yard at the peak.

How high was the water in 74 ?

Brisbane itself was about 1m higher in 74 and the 1890's flood was about 4m higher.
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The water in our yard was about 2.5 metres.
 
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