Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned natural disasters and extreme weather will hit the federal budget in May, with recovery funding adding billions of dollars in costs to the bottom line.
“This isn’t optional spending – it has to be done,” Dr Chalmers said ahead of a visit with Emergency Management Minister Murray Watt on Friday to areas devastated by flooding in northern NSW.Flooding through NSW and Queensland last year was the world’s fourth most-expensive natural disaster last year,The floods, which killed more than two dozen people and ravaged Lismore in NSW’s Northern Rivers region, cost $US6.6 billion , Munich Re’s report said.
Underlining the looming budget pressures, the Treasurer said that “natural disaster funding was a key focus in the budget in October and will be a key focus in May as well”. Fruit and vegetable prices rose 17.4 per cent in the year ended September 30, compared with a 2.5 per cent annual average in the 10 years preceding COVID-19, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says.
They are also stimulus as well, a massive injection of of spending
Record low unemployment and record high mining royalties. If Chalmers can’t balance the books with that, he is incompetent.
$5billion for a country with a $1500b GDP is not as bad as headlines suggest. A natural disaster fund like the one New Zealand has is nevertheless a good idea.