Flooded Town Had No Insurance

Carol Martin has accused the Warmun community of being badly managed because many of the buildings damaged in the recent floods were not insured. The Minister for the Kimberley said that if Warmun was properly managed before the floods then there would be no need for any tax-payer money to be spent on rebuilding the town.

“Where is the insurance money? A proper community should pay insurance on its assets,” she said.

CEO of Warmun Community (Turkey Creek) Inc. Chris Clare has admitted that the buildings owned by the community were not covered by building and contents insurance. He has shifted the blame for the lack of insurance to a “Senior Commonwealth Officer”, who he claimed gave verbal advice four years ago to cancel the building and contents component of the town’s insurance.

Clare said that the advice from the Federal Officer, who he declined to name, was that the insurance would be carried by the State Government. Prior to receiving that advice, Warmun had been provided with Federal funds to meet the cost of the insurance.

He said: “We took the advice because it came from a Senior Official who made decisions about our funding.”

Asked if he had checked at the time whether the State Government would carry the insurance, he said no, he had not checked.

Clare said that although the community was not insured at the time of the flooding, he doubted whether they would have received any form of payout.
He said: “I don’t think we missed anything as insurance companies have, by and large, denied paying for flood damage in other recent disasters.”
He stressed the town did have workers’ compensation insurance, liability cover and insurance for vehicles.

The buildings damaged in the flood included the office administration block, the early childhood centre, playgroup centre, the recreation hall, the Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme building, the gym and equipment, the CDEP work centre building, the aged care centre, the disability centre and the health and dental clinics.

Other buildings damaged included the art gallery, which is a stand alone business not owned by the community, and the Ngalangangpum School, which belongs to Catholic Education WA and was insured.

John Vos, CEO of East Kimberley CDEP said: “The vehicles we had at Warmun were fully insured and we’ll be putting a claim in as soon as the assessments have been completed.”

Clare said: “All of the buildings in town were damaged, some irretrievably, some substantially. We’ve been lead to be aware that all will be fully reconditioned and upgraded.

“As we understand, the Federal Government couldn’t contribute until the state had declared the flood to be a natural disaster. Now that’s happened we are expecting more funding once a full assessment of the cost of reconstruction is worked out.”

The $15 million temporary housing project, announced by Kim Hames and Troy Buswell last week, was well received by Clare and the Warmun community who have insisted they want to return to Warmun as soon as possible.

The project will commence immediately and includes the building of a 200 bed accommodation village to house the evacuees. The houses that were washed away in the flood were owned by the WA Department of Housing and Clare expects more money will be announced once the cost of reconstruction has been properly assessed.

“We’re fortunate that we’re in the position that the Federal and State Governments have said they’ll rebuild. I think that’s wonderful. Culturally the people of Warmun are in a strange country while they’re in Kununurra. While it’s wonderful the village was available, there have been some behavioral concerns and the sooner they return home, the better.”

Listed On: http://3degree.ecu.edu.au/articles/3676