Scott Morrison has faced fresh criticism after he backtracked on a flood funding decision, being slammed for reacting “too late as always”.
After facing savage blowback about refusing to co-fund a flood recovery scheme for South East Queensland, the Prime Minister walked back on his decision.
His agreement to go 50-50 on the $741m scheme to retrofit, raise and buy back vulnerable homes, came after Acting Queensland Premier Cameron Dick accused him of an “election-eve insult” to flood victims.
Mr Dick, who on Wednesday said Mr Morrison “didn’t care about flood victims”, said on Thursday that he “couldn’t believe” the Prime Minister’s change of tune.
“We’re glad he’s now come to the table, even though he’s late, as always,” Mr Dick said.
“Today we got a win thanks to people power. We got a win for the people … who have been affected by a terrible flooding event. I’m very pleased that the Prime Minister has committed to match our funding.
“It is regrettable, I must say, that it took so long for the Prime Minister to act. It took him three weeks to consider our proposal, and 36 hours after (he) said no, he’s now said yes.”
In agreeing to co-fund the scheme, Mr Morrison chastised the Queensland government for playing politics with flood recovery and said the funding came with a condition of greater transparency.
“These requests are still out of the scope of the normal projects that are done under this program. I think it was a very reasonable position for us to expect the state government to fund things that they should be funding,” Mr Morrison said.
“But what is clear from the state government’s response is they were not prepared to do that. And I’m not going to leave people in the lurch as a result of the Queensland government playing politics on the eve of an election, trying to weaponise politically the flood experiences of Queenslanders.
“So we will make ixjmtzywt happen. People don’t want to see fights between (us).
Mr Morrison accused the Queensland government of sitting on $52m that the federal government had provided them over the last three years for various disasters that were supposed to help people.
“They haven’t even spent it. My cautiousness in agreeing to this request on the eve of an election, I think people might be able to understand when they won’t even tell you how much they’ve already spent of the money we’ve already committed to this flood,” Mr Morrison told 2GB.
“There has to be greater transparency about this.”
Mr Morrison said the Commonwealth had already poured $379m directly to Queenslanders hard hit by the floods and more than half a billion dollars towards recovery grants.
Mr Dick, appearing on ABC Radio at the same time, denied claims his government was playing politics.
“It’s not just the Queensland government calling for action from the federal government, there’s a whole range of stakeholders who say coming out of natural disasters we need to build back better,” Mr Dick said.
“This has been an extraordinary national disaster that’s impacted communities. We’ve got to do better, we’ve got to do better as a nation.”
