The Federal Budget has left flood-prone communities exposed by not providing enough for mitigation infrastructure in last week’s Budget, the Insurance Council of Australia says.

CEO Rob Whelan says the Government’s priorities are “short-sighted”.

“Despite the chaos, destruction, heartbreak and financial hardship caused by floods across three states over the past 18 months, the Federal Government has failed to heed the insurance industry’s call for urgent investments in flood mitigation works,” he said.

The budget allocates $26.1 million a year for the next four years for natural disaster resilience.

“We would rather have seen a substantial, far-sighted budget investment in measures that would protect frequently flooded towns,” Mr Whelan said.

“Building permanent levees around dozens of flood-prone communities and improving flood mapping would ultimately mean governments would spend much less in disaster relief funding.”

He says the dividend extracted from the Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation should have been directly applied to natural disaster mitigation. See other story

However, Mr Whelan is pleased with the $4.2 million increase given to the Bureau of Meteorology to improve its ability to respond to extreme weather events.