Impact Of Flood Reconstruction

MELBOURNE – January 27, 2011: “As Greg Evans, Director of Economics and Industry Policy with ACCI put it so well last week, a speculative debate about the Federal and affected States’ Budgets for 2012-13, should not distract these Governments and the private sector from flood reconstruction work and supporting communities and businesses shattered by the recent floods, said VACC Executive Director, David Purchase.

“In Victoria, a number of members of VACC have been directly affected by the floods and I can tell you they are not too concerned about whether next years’ Budgets will be in surplus, added Mr Purchase.

“It is still too early and inappropriate to suggest that Governments (Federal and affected States) are confronted by a choice between rebuilding flood damaged communities and achieving surplus Budgets.

“Governments must do what they need to do to get those affected back on their feet.

“For once, it would be nice to see a bit of bi-partisan politics played out here, rather than the usual political point scoring that the Australian public is so sick and tired of.

“The Federal and State Governments involved are rightly identifying the extent of the damage and putting proposals into place to assist those directly affected and to repair and reconstruct damaged infrastructure. While we expect these Governments to do the job properly and avoid the mismanagement and rip-offs we saw with the insulation bats fiasco, on the other hand, their efforts should not be restrained by fear of not achieving surplus Budgets.

“As Greg Evans also said, there is no doubt the requirement to fund the reconstruction work will place pressure on the next Budgets and shifting spending priorities is preferable to increasing spending or raising taxes, said Mr Purchase.

“But, above all, we expect our Governments to do what they can reasonably do to help our fellow citizens recover from a particularly nasty disaster, without being mesmerized about achieving surplus Budgets,” concluded Mr Purchase.