Queensland to create permanent disaster recovery agency. New body to get $30m annual funding to deal with aftermath of increased number of severe natural disasters caused by climate change.

The Queensland government is to establish Australia’s first permanent disaster recovery agency to deal with a future of more extreme cyclones and floods brought on by climate change.

Deputy premier Jackie Trad said it was inevitable that Queensland, which already “bears the brunt of most of the natural disasters that beset Australia”, would face more catastrophes, more often.

The Queensland Reconstruction Authority – originally set up to deal with the 2011 floods, rated by the World Bank as Australia’s largest natural disaster of recent years – was due to wind up in June.
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But Trad said new laws before parliament this week would make the agency – currently dealing with the aftermath of 14 natural disasters between 2013 and 2014 alone – a permanent arm of government costing about $30m a year.

Note from the Diva: Queensland is one of six states in Australia. (I had to look it up.)  I am not aware of any state in the U.S. that has created an agency to deal with recovery.