Newsroom

February 17, 2022

The much talked about and long-awaited Treasury Laws Amendment (Cyclone and Flood Damage Reinsurance Pool) Bill 2022 has passed the House of Representatives in Federal Parliament and will now move to the Senate for a final vote at the next sitting.

Kennedy MP, Bob Katter, paid tribute to some of the fighters who had long advocated for action on North Queensland’s skyrocketing insurance prices including, Ross McLennan and the Townsville Chamber of Commerce, Margaret Shaw 0AM, Mayor of Hinchinbrook Ramon Jayo, Rachael Coco and the Hinchinbrook Chamber of Commerce Industry & Tourism, Ron Bellert and the North Queensland Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd and most importantly George Christensen – Dawson MP.

“The Townsville Chamber of Commerce compiled excellent research which revealed 25 percent of homes in North Queensland are not insured due to the extreme price of insurance which is on average double that of the rest of Australia,” Mr Katter said.

“We’ve been fighting this battle for many years, and we had built up momentum before the Federal Government called for an ACCC inquiry and took the steam out of the issue. When you don’t want to act you have an inquiry.

“But it was George Christensen who went public on the need for a reinsurance pool for North Queensland and suddenly we were switched on again and we had a chance of getting this.

“We thank the Government for taking the sensible approach to reducing North Queensland’s insurance prices and for making changes to the Bill based on the feedback of locals. Now the insurance companies know that there is a reinsurance pool they can proceed to give us the insurance at a reasonable rate equivalent to the rest of Australia. We thank the Government very seriously for taking this initiative.

“There are some changes that may need to be made to the legislation and the regulations down the track and the Government has promised to review these in a year. So we will hold them to that.”