Flood Relief Funding Boost for Australian States of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania

A family are evacuated by State Emergency Service workers due to rising floodwaters in Sydney, Australia, on July 4, 2022. (Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

The federal government has announced it will provide more than A$10 million (US$6.71 million) in additional funding to Emergency and Food Relief providers, in the wake of recent floods and cost of living pressures.

“The Albanese Labor government is committed to helping those in need and ensuring there are appropriate services in place to support that,” Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth said in a statement on Sunday.

“This additional funding means 84 Emergency Relief providers can continue helping Australians when they need it most, providing vouchers, food and clothing parcels, as well as referrals to other services.”

About A$7.4 million (US$4.97 million) will be distributed to 84 Emergency Relief providers across NSW, Victoria, and Tasmania impacted by flooding.

A further A$2.8 million (US$1.88 million) will be shared between Food Relief providers nationally.

The allocation of funding is in response to a recommendation by the National Coordination Group.

“We have acted immediately to ensure this support is there. We have also taken the step to provide one-off funding to our national food relief providers,” Rishworth said.

It comes after a Victorian mountain resort says it faces a drought of visitors and $100 million in lost revenue after heavy rains caused a landslide that will take months to clear, as summer snow falls.

This week’s snowfall is a novelty for many, but it happens more regularly than people think, Falls Creek Alpine Resort chief executive Stuart Smythe says.

He referred back to early December, 2019, when there was 2cm of snow as the Country Fire Authority held a bushfire briefing in the early throes of Black Summer.

“You were walking through snow and you could see the plumes of smoke over on the Kosciuszko ranges,” Smythe told AAP.

“It was only something you'd ever see in Australia.”

Since Black Summer, Falls Creek has faced COVID-19 lockdowns and capacity restrictions. Operations returned to normal during this year’s snow season, only for it to be isolated by a huge landslide caused by heavy rains in October.

Meanwhile in New South Wales, a new authority tasked with rebuilding after the onslaught of natural disasters in the state has hired its first interim head, as Resilience NSW leader Shane Fitzsimmons is fired and his agency scrapped.

Michael Cassel has been appointed as the acting CEO of the NSW Reconstruction Authority, which has been formed in response to a recommendation from an independent flood inquiry.

A government-commissioned report into the flood response by chief scientist Mary O'Kane and former police commissioner Mick Fuller, proposed the body among 28 recommendations.

The now scrapped Resilience NSW will be subsumed within the new body after it came under fire for its bureaucratic response to flood victims in the Northern Rivers in unprecedented floods in February.