A New reconstruction authority will decide if infrastructure, and even entire suburbs, should be rebuilt in flood-hit parts of Queensland.
Premier Anna Bligh announced the new Queensland Reconstruction Authority would replace the rebuilding taskforce headed by Major General Mick Slater.
Its job will be to co-ordinate the rebuilding program in 60 flood-affected communities, with Major General Slater chairing a board of five. Co-ordinator General Graham Newton has been appointed chief executive.
Ms Bligh said the new entity would have greater powers than the taskforce and would be established by an act of parliament next month.
She said it would make tough calls, including whether some places should be rebuilt.
‘The reconstruction authority will be charged with working with local governments to determine, in some cases, whether we should be rebuilding exactly the same thing in exactly the same place, whether it’s a bridge, or whether it’s a suburb,” Ms Bligh explained.
We need to make smart decisions as a result of this event.
“Some of them are going to be very tough decisions, but we owe it to future generations to bite the bullet and make the right ones.”
She said communities would be consulted and the process would be given the sensitivity it required, adding some changes might see homes rebuilt on stilts.
“But we are going to go and talk to communities, and not just in Brisbane but right across Queensland, about whether some of the places we’ve seen homes built are the right places to rebuild them.”
“The last thing we want to do is rebuild in the same place and see that home flooded again in two or three years’ time.”
She said the authority would also prioritise which roads, bridges and railways should be repaired first.
The authority would have the powers to cut through red tape and would be required to report publicly on its progress, the premier said.
Major General Slater said the taskforce had been progressing well in regional areas until the southeast crisis complicated things.
“As the scope of the task has grown enormously the recovery taskforce was looking more and more incapable of meeting the requirements,” he said.
“The new authority will have the capacity and the legal authority to do what needs to be done. I’m actually looking forward to getting the expertise of the board around me.”
Major General Slater said there would always be hard decisions but that it was “not hard to make the right decisions”.
“This is going to be emotional. Part of my job is to make it as painless as possible and make things work as smoothly as possible.”
* Article from AAP
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