Our community faced devestating flooding in February and March, and ongoing severe weather continues to threaten homes, lives and property.

For many in our community, the clean up and recovery will continue for months to come. So I’ve pulled together a bunch of useful information to help locals in their recovery. As always, if you need any more information or support please do not hesitate to contact my office.

Financial support and grants 

There’s a whole list of different grants from the state and federal that you should check through if you’ve been impacted by the floods. It’s worth noting that the caveat is, that the amounts for each aren’t nearly enough and the eligibility criteria is way too tight.

Resilient Homes Fund Overview

The State Government today announced that flood-affected households can register their interest for major grants for rebuilding, home-raising on buy-backs.

Criteria are still being finalized, but by registering, you’ll get information on when grants formally open. To register, you’ll need to set up an account, and answer questions about your home, insurance if you have it, the level of flooding you experienced, and what programs you’re interested in. If you’d like any assistance with registering, please reach out to my office. 

Grants include:

• Resilient household rebuild program: Funding to homeowners to repair or retrofit their homes to incorporate flood resilient design and materials in liveable rooms or areas within the Defined Flood Level.
• Home-raising program: Funding to homeowners to raise their home, or move it to higher ground on your property, by elevating liveable rooms or areas of the dwelling above the Defined Flood Level.
• Voluntary home buy-back program: Funding to local governments for the voluntary buy-back of homes, where it is determined that repair, retrofitting or raising is not suitable. Buy-backs will be considered on a case-by-case basis and will take into consideration a range of factors including frequency of flooding, severity of flooding, risks to structural safety and human life and broader social impacts.

There is also some general information on rebuilding following floods here:

• Flood Resilient Building Guidance for Queensland Homes prepared by an architecture firm in collaboration with the state government and council
• Advice on building approvals from Business Queensland
• Advice from the QBCC

Essential Household Contents Grant (Qld gov)

• Up to $1,765/person or $5,300 for couples/families
• Means tested payment – you need to have a before tax income of less than $51,398 per year, up to $88,111 for families
• If you’ve lost essential household contents in the flood and don’t have insurance (or your insurance won’t pay for it)
• More information and link to application here 

Essential Services Safety and Reconnection Grant (Qld gov)

• $200 for inspection, up to $4,200 for repairs
• Means tested payment – you need to have a before tax income of less than $51,398 per year, up to $88,111 for families
• If you need to reconnect essential services like electricity or water, and don’t have insurance (or your insurance won’t pay for it)
• More information and link to application here 

Structural assistance grant (Qld gov)

• Up to $10,995/person or $14,685 for couples/families
• Means tested payment – you need to have a before tax income of less than $51,398 per year, up to $88,111 for families
• If your property needs structural repairs from flood damage and you don’t have insurance (or your insurance won’t pay for it)
• More information and link to application here 

Disaster recovery payment (Fed gov)

• $1,000/adult, $400/child
• Non means tested lump sum payment for those who have been “seriously affected” or suffered “major damage” to their home during the flood (including renters)
• Closes 3 September 
• More information and link to application here 

Disaster recovery allowance (Fed gov)

• Up to 13 weeks payment for lost income, up to the Jobseeker or Youth Allowance rates 
• Means tested 
• More information and link to application here 

Advice and support for renters

See this great fact sheet from Tenants Queensland that covers if you want to leave the property, if your landlord wants you to leave and how you can negotiate a rent reduction if the property has been impacted.

If it describes your cleaning responsibilities vs the property owner’s responsibilities after the flood.

Help with clean up

In the week following the flood, I was out with teams of volunteers giving flooded locals a hand cleaning up their places. We helped move flooded furniture, clean out fridges without power, gernied mud off walls and floors and shoveled mud.

We’ve built a group of volunteers that can still help locals with flood clean up jobs over the coming weeks. If you need help, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office at 3724 9100 or [email protected] and we’ll try to organise some extra hands for you. If possible, it’s best to give us a day or two notice so we can organise folks to help.

Gathering feedback for improving our response to the next local flood

This was my first time supporting our community through floods as the local MP. While my team and I have had some really lovely feedback about our response, I want to make sure I’m capturing any ideas or suggestions for what would be better next time.

I’d love it if you could fill out this five minute survey to help me capture this feedback. 

Submission to the Inspector-General of Emergency Management

The Inspector-General is conducting a review of the South East Queensland rainfall and flooding event in February-March 2022. You can read my submission here.