State Budget 2018–19 Analysis
Shadowboxing and the Queensland Disaster Resilience Fund
by Lex Drennan
In the 2018-19 Queensland Budget the Government has introduced a Disaster Resilience Fund to the value of $38m over 4 years. The focus of this fund “is improving existing infrastructure to improve the resilience of the State’s communities”. As a headline item, this Fund falls into the category of ‘nice but not particularly newsworthy’. It only seems reasonable that a State with such disaster exposure would invest in building the resilience of its communities. Furthermore, it appears to be a logical continuation of the Government’s $6m/pa contribution to the dollar-for-dollar matched Commonwealth National Disaster Resilience Program which ran from 2015/16 to 2017/18. However, a close reading of the Commonwealth’s 2018/19 budget suggests that there is a much bigger policy agenda at play here.
The Commonwealth has been shadow boxing with the nation-wide disaster insurance and recovery funding structures since 2010. In that time, it has launched the Natural Disaster Insurance Review (2010), the National Commission of Audit (2013) took aim at the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) and this was subsequently followed by the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry into Natural Disaster Funding Arrangements (2014). Yet on all occasions, having run at the structures which have supported the States through numerous significant disasters in the past 15 years, the Commonwealth has backed off in the face of widespread protest.
In 2016, the Commonwealth responded to the Productivity Commission’s findings of the need for comprehensive restructuring of the arrangements by:
- committing to continue consultation regarding upfront recovery payment arrangements
- declining to change disaster recovery triggers or cost-sharing arrangements
- acknowledging the need for more mitigation focused investment but not providing additional funding
Since then, two more severe tropical cyclones have hit Queensland, costing in excess of $2bn in recovery expenditure. Now, in the Commonwealth’s 2018/19 Budget, there are clear signs the Government is taking another, perhaps more determined run, at the nationwide disaster funding arrangements. Specific changes to infrastructure reconstruction funding are flagged, along with changes to community recovery provisions.
What is perhaps most concerning for the States, lies in the bland statement “The Government will introduce reforms to increase the flexibility and responsiveness of the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) that provide assistance in response to natural disasters. These changes will be implemented after 1 July 2018”. As with all policy, the devil is in the detail — and there is notably little detail here.
This absence of detail in the Federal Budget combines with another telling piece of disaster financing activity by the Commonwealth. The National Partnership Agreement on Natural Disaster Resilience, which has been the flagship agreement driving infrastructure and community mitigation funding across all jurisdictions for nearly a decade, will lapse from the end of June 2018. No successor or extension has been negotiated.
So where does this leave the States? And the Queensland budget?
The Queensland Government has clearly read the writing on the wall. The introduction of the Disaster Resilience Fund provides $38 million over the forward 4 year estimates, with $9.5m allocated this financial year. This represents an increase of $3.5m on the money previously allocated by Queensland to its annual National Disaster Resilience Program funding which, up until the NPA lapsed, was matched dollar for dollar by the Commonwealth.
The additional $3.5m per annum commitment is a worthwhile investment by the State in increased infrastructure and community resilience. That it is, alone, woefully insufficient to address the disaster exposure of the State is almost beside the point. The additional $3.5million, in light of the Commonwealth’s strategy to run silent on forthcoming major structural changes, represents a challenge to the Commonwealth and a strategic move to provide the State leverage to resist major changes to the NDRRA.
With the NPA lapsing and the Commonwealth’s budget papers pointing to major structural changes the Disaster Resilience Fund increasingly seems to be an opening move in a forthcoming fight. And with impeccable timing, we should anticipate being in the middle this major funding dispute just in time for the cyclone season to start.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LEX DRENNAN
Lex Drennan is an industry leader in crisis management and business continuity. She has held senior roles in the public and private sector, leading the development and implementation of crisis and business continuity management frameworks. Her broad experience across crisis management fields spans mining oil and gas, natural hazards management, critical infrastructure protection and resilience and business continuity management in infrastructure and financial services. Lex is a Senior Research Associate in the Policy Innovation Hub at Griffith University, Australia.
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