[Jan Fisher]

The NSW state government came out with a grand plan after the disastrous floods of the previous few years.

It would provide grants to people living in flood prone areas to elevate their houses to avoid the worst of the flooding.

It all sounded so good on paper, and is an excellent and brave decision to solve an intractable problem, but like many things that start off well, it’s ground to a sad, dribble of an effort.

It was found exactly one person has been approved for the scheme since it was announced. One.

Between the federal and state governments, $700 million was promised to raise homes, retrofit for flood mitigation and buy back homes.

And somebody might be fiddling the figures when it comes to how many people have applied for the program.

According to The Guardian, the government claimed 5000 people applied for the scheme. That number has since been scaled back to 1426.

What’s the bet a lot of that money has been wasted on ‘administration’, consultancy fees and endless site inspections.

Time to do better.

What do you think should be done for people living in these areas?

[David Ryder]

While governments are good at wasteful spending another reason for the slow progress might be a lack of skilled workers and materials. There are big shortages of both in Australia.

[Author]

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