Disaster assistance has been announced in response to storms that affected parts of southern NSW and the NSW East Coast in October 2017.
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Assistance for the local government areas of MidCoast, Goulburn Mulwaree, Kempsey, Lake Macquarie and Port Macquarie Hastings is being provided through the jointly-funded Commonwealth-State Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA).
Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security Angus Taylor, who has responsibility for Commonwealth disaster assistance, said the assistance would help councils with clean-up costs and ensure that damaged infrastructure could be repaired.
“Various locations across the state experienced thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, large hail and damaging winds, which caused power outages and widespread property damage,” Mr Taylor said.
“Transport networks were also affected and emergency services personnel undertook extensive clean-up operations.”
NSW Minister for Emergency Services Troy Grant said the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments were committed to working together to ensure disaster affected communities received the support they needed to recover.
Minister Grant said that a range of assistance had been activated to help storm affected communities.
“In addition to the funding for clean-up and repairs, support is available for affected people, small businesses, primary producers and non-profit organisations,” Mr Grant said.
Assistance available under the NDRRA may include:
- help for eligible people whose homes or belongings have been damaged
- support for affected local councils to help with the costs of cleaning up and restoring damaged essential public assets
- concessional interest rate loans for small businesses, primary producers and non-profit organisations
- freight subsidies for primary producers, and
- grants to eligible non-profit organisations.
Further information on disaster assistance is available on the Australian Government’s Disaster Assist website disasterassist.gov.au and the NSW emergency information and response website atemergency.nsw.gov.au.