Multiple Wagga councillors have raised concerns that the city will be left out-of-pocket under a new regime for disaster relief funding.
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The issues were raised during Monday night’s council meeting debate on whether Wagga should “opt in” to the federal government’s new ‘Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements’.
General manager Peter Thompson told the meeting there had been tension over which level of government should pay for immediate disaster response and disaster recovery.
“There has had long been a tension between local government authorities and the state government in relation to the inability of local governments to recover the costs labour and equipment they throw at a natural disaster events,” he said.
Mr Thompson said the end result of the new deal would be Wagga council paying a higher up-front cost for natural disasters but recovering more of its costs and ending up in a “significantly better financial position”.
Cr Rod Kendall said his long-term aim for councils recovering from a disaster to have an ability to improve infrastructure using disaster recovery funds.
“For example, if you have a bridge that may have insufficient span, may be poorly located in a creek system and every time it floods it gets washed away and we have to pay a substantial amount of money to replace it,” Cr Kendall said.
Mr Thompson said preventative improvements to infrastructure would not be included.
Cr Kendall asked for an amendment to continue to lobby the federal government to include “betterment provisions”.
Councillor Paul Funnell raised the possibility that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority could create flooding conditions around Wagga but the state government would not provide compensation.
“The Crown is not liable to provide any compensation since June this year,” Cr Funnell said.
Cr Vanessa Keenan, as chair of the Floodplain Risk Management Advisory Committee, said the specific issue had not been brought up.
Mayor Greg Conkey said he would follow it up.
The motion was passed despite opposition from Crs Funnell and Yvonne Braid.
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