Flood affected residents being denied flood payments
21-April-2011
The flood assistance recently granted to the north western area of NSW and the Mid-Western Regional Council, has been marred with unreasonable criteria making it difficult for the majority of flood affected residents to access the payment, Federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton stated today.
The Attorney-General Robert McClelland announced last week that 13 flood affected local government areas in the Parkes Electorate would now be eligible for the Australian Government Disaster Recover Payment AGDRP. However, eligible constituents who have since applied for the overdue flood assistance have been rejected due to a number of unreasonable criteria.
Mr Coulton has been contacted by residents in Goodooga and Weilmoringle whose applications have been denied on the basis that the residents were not truly isolated even though the entire community was cut off from major towns and required food drops. Dubbo residents have also been rejected with criteria stating that the flood water must have come from Queensland.
“The Government has no idea what these people have been through and the reason they are being denied this assistance is farcical.”
“We had entire communities getting food drops from these floods and now they have the Government stating that what they experienced was not worthy of the AGDRP,” Mr Coulton stated. “Furthermore the flooding experienced in Dubbo has not been granted the payment as the flood water did not come from Queensland. Why did the Government announce that the Dubbo and Mid-Western areas were eligible when they had no intention of making this payment accessible to them?”
Mr Coulton has written to the Attorney General to seek that these measures be revised.
“This is creating further delays for people who truly deserve these payments. We have been fighting to get these payments declared for nearly 3 months and this is just a further blow to these people who have experienced flooding since November 2010.”
“I am calling on the Attorney General to revise this criteria and make access to these payments fair and equitable for all residents in the Parkes Electorate who have experienced flooding.”