Primary producers on the outskirts of the Gladstone Regional Council area have been left in a a funding blackspot in the wake of Cyclone Marcia.
Despite being under the cyclone’s eye in February and suffering extensive damage, the group in the Raglan area are unable to access the $25,000 grant for clean-up costs because Gladstone was not activated as a disaster area.
Leonie Creed, who runs The Old Station and Langmorn with her sons Andrew and Ron, is frustrated at an invisible line that sees her neighbours in the Rockhampton and Banana local government areas access those grants.
“It’s the principle,” she said.
Mrs Creed, along with neighbour John Wall, Plumtree Pastoral, has spent the past seven months in political buck-passing as their applications for the grant and appeals through QRAA have been rejected.
“We believe there was no proper assessment of our area, and the devastation was unbelievable, with the wind and rain causing huge damage to fencing, roads, buildings, creek crossings, windmills and stockyards,” she said.
The area was in the direct line of the cyclone as it moved through the Livingstone and Rockhampton regions into the Banana shire and then turned into trough, affecting the North Burnett. All these areas, bar this Gladstone pocket, were activated as disaster areas and received Category C funding.
Like many primary producers in the area, the cyclone has cost the business over $200,000, but Mrs Creed said other properties in the area were even worse off.
The area was cut off from the outside world for over a week, and local graziers cleared trees from the roads to make it accessible.
Mrs Creed said no one from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries inspected the area, and it was not until Beef Week that a group of independent assessors visited.
Although a group from the Fire Service did turn up one day, they were only interested in inspecting homes for damage and were not interested in hearing about the rest of the damage.
Mrs Creed is speaking out because she is concerned about the number of primary producers in her area affected.
“Country people just take it on the chin and get on with it.”
She has contacted every tier of the government, from the local DAF through to the Prime Minister, to highlight the region’s plight.
“I am trying to get them to take our case seriously so that the Special Disaster Assistance (Clean-up & Recovery Grants) for Primary Producers could be activated for the affected western side of the Gladstone Regional Council area - or on a case-by-case basis,” Mrs Creed said.
“All parties are blaming one another for not activating the Special Disaster Assistance for our area.”
Without this QRAA refuse to release the grant.
In a letter sent to Mr Wall, QRAA spelled it out clearly - “your property is located outside the defined disaster area”.
QRAA also told Queensland Country Life it did not set the policy - this was the state government.
Although the disaster area was activated for the neighbouring local government areas, Gladstone missed out as the area affected was less than 35 per cent.
Queensland Country Life contacted the state and the federal government, both pointing the finger at each other.
The state government says Category C funding requires the written approval of the Prime Minister, and the federal government says it needs details from the state government to inform its decision.
Gladstone Regional Council chief executive Stuart Randle said although it was administrative convenience to stick to local government areas, this was not always the case.
“It is DAF that makes the call, and they can make individual property assessments,” he said.
“I would recommend the property owners contact the local DAF officers.”
Mr Randle said getting category A and B funding was like clockwork but there were always issues surrounding Category C and D funding.
The guidelines do not allow for any local government input “and if they want council to be responsible and part of the activation, then put that in the guidelines”, he said.
In all natural disaster cases, Fire Service workers would go out and make an assessment and feed this back to the state government.
Mr Randle noted that Gladstone was activated for Category D assistance, which required the same process for Category C.
A DAF spokesperson said the primary producers were eligible for Category B assistance, which provides freight subsidies of up to $5000 for the movement of recovery materials, Natural Disaster Loans of up to $250,000 at a concessional rate of 1.92 per cent, and Essential Working Capital Loans of up to $100,000 at a concessional rate of 1.92 per cent.
Mrs Creed said many primary producers did not want or need this.
“We can get a concessional loan, but most people are already operating on borrowed money and don’t need to borrow more,” she said.
And freight concession were appropriate in drought, but in this case most did not need them.
The DAF spokesperson continued: “The impacted parts of the Gladstone local government area were considered when the Queensland Government was preparing the submission for Category C activation to the Australian Government.
“Unfortunately, whilst we acknowledge that producers in the Gladstone area were impacted by the disaster, the area did not meet the eligibility thresholds required to activate Category C.”
The federal government’s response, along with stating what other assistance it has provided, places the blame on the state.
“Additional assistance under Category C of the NDRRA can only be provided on the basis of a request from an affected state following a state’s assessment of identified needs in an affected local government area,” a spokesperson said.
