Bushfire Recovery Support

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (14:44): Supplementary arising from the Treasurer's answer: is there a capacity for the state government to apply to the commonwealth for disaster recovery funds to replace the public assets belonging to the Department for Environment and Water that were lost to the fires? If so, will you be doing so?

The Hon. R.I. LUCAS (Treasurer) (14:44): The member will be delighted to know that the government is a number of weeks ahead of the honourable member. They are the sorts of discussions we have been having for some time. As I think I indicated in my contribution to the bushfire recovery, we acknowledge the contribution from the commonwealth government in relation to a $2 billion overall fund which is available to the states and territories. We are actively exploring with the commonwealth what the guidelines and the rules might be in relation to not only the sorts of issues the honourable member has raised but indeed many, many others.

To answer the question specifically: do we have an answer in relation to that particular issue? The answer is no, but we are in active discussions in relation to how flexible the commonwealth is prepared to be in terms of the funding. Clearly, if the commonwealth was prepared to provide infrastructure-related funding to replace some of the assets that we have lost, we would welcome that sort of assistance and contribution. At this stage we don't have a resolution of that particular issue as yet.