Disaster support announced for flood affected residents

NSW residents and councils affected by the floods in NSW will soon be able to access disaster support funding.

Transcript

00:00And today I can announce in conjunction with the Commonwealth Government that

00:04personal hardship assistance grants of $180 per individual or $900 per family

00:11will be available as soon as possible. It's not today but I wanted to announce

00:16that that funding is on the way for communities that are subject to an

00:19evacuation order. Again jointly funded by the state and the Commonwealth

00:24Government a million dollar community recovery grants for local councils, one

00:28million dollars for each of the local councils that are affected by emergency

00:32orders will flow soon. Thank the Commonwealth for that. I want to make clear

00:37that I know particularly for businesses and the local economy it's going to take

00:41more than these hardship grants to get these towns back on their feet but I

00:46wanted to get the ball rolling and the clear message to both myself and the

00:49Prime Minister is that these projects and these grants were essential and needed to

00:54be announced as soon as possible. We'll have further details hopefully tomorrow

00:57morning about how to access it but they're available for essential things

01:02like food, clothing, emergency accommodation and the like. On top of the 16 local

01:10government areas in which we have announced disaster assistance I can

01:14announce that we're extending this to three additional local government areas

01:18Armidale, Musselbrook and Wolka. That support will be made available as soon as

01:26possible. In addition to that the disaster recovery allowance that we have indicated in

01:33four local government areas Kempsey, Port Macquarie, Midcoast and Dunggog. That

01:39provides for up to 13 weeks pay for people who are employees unable to work or

01:47people who are sole traders, self-employed. That will be made available from

01:522 p.m. on Monday, this coming Monday as well.