Mrs CROSIO(10.25 a.m.) —I too have to grieve today. I am sure that talking of great flooding disasters which have befallen this country over the last 50 years conjures up images to most Australians of Nyngan in the 1990s, or perhaps even Brisbane in 1974 in the wake of tropical cyclone Wanda.

It is not surprising that people's memories stem from the images captured by the television news or newspapers of the time. They remember those thousands of square kilometres that were covered by water, the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage and the tragic stories of lives lost and families ruined. It is a fact of life in this country that truly great disasters hang on longer in people's memories. The hundreds of other smaller ones, which impact just as hard on people but on a much smaller scale, gradually fall out of the nation's consciousness, which has neither the room nor the desire, I am ashamed to say, to keep them.

Indeed, not many people outside my own electorate remember the flooding disasters that occurred there in August 1986 and in April and May 1988, which affected so much of south western Sydney. There weren't any heroic pictures of people in sandbag lines for the television news and there weren't any fatalities to warrant the prolonged attention of the editors of our daily newspapers, yet there was the abject misery and helplessness that comes from watching all of one's worldly possessions and a lifetime of memories being swept away by a wall of dirty, brown water. To those that suffered and to the hundreds of people in my community that may not have directly experienced that tragedy but suffered along with those who did, these floods were as great as any included in the annals of Australia's worst natural disasters.

I make this point about the shortness of memory because it seems to me now that the federal government is suffering the same `inadequacy in the recollection department' by scrapping federal funding for the urban flood mitigation program. However, as much as I would like to pass off their lack of ingenuity and foresight in cutting their contributions as an example of just a brief lapse in memory, the consequences of their actions are far more serious and wide ranging. Their lack of commitment has completely disrupted the entire program, the effect of which is that people's homes and businesses, perhaps even their lives, stand a greater chance now of being threatened by flooding the longer this federal government withholds its financial support.

As the New South Wales minister for water resources between 1984 and 1988, I pushed long and hard for both state and federal governments to come to the aid of councils in western Sydney to improve their flood mitigation programs and, most particularly, to formulate an ongoing program of funding commitment. I was extremely pleased when, under the Hawke government, the urban flood mitigation program was finally completed. Under this partnership the New South Wales state government would match, dollar for dollar, money contributed by the federal government to provide for flood mitigation works. Local governments, in my case Fairfield City Council and Holroyd City Council, would then contribute 50c in each dollar based on a two by two by one funding ratio.

Since the late 1980s, much had been achieved in my area. We have now seen roads raised, houses raised, bridges constructed and flood walls built, but there is still a long way to go. The scale of the flooding problem facing the Fairfield city area is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that $33 million is still required over the next 15 years to complete the works identified in Fairfield City Council's approved flood plain management plans.

I think most members, perhaps not those new to this House but those of us who have been here for a while, will have experienced local councils in their electorates voicing their concerns over federal government funding— that they were not getting enough and how this affected their ratepayers. On occasions I have had the pleasure of making representations both on behalf of Fairfield City Council and Holroyd City Council, who were anxious about federal government funding in the past re flood mitigation, and organising several ministerial visits to the area to check on how this money was being spent. Despite the ups and downs, the funding was always there. There was never any question of the federal government's shrugging off its responsibilities in this particular area.

Fairfield City Council and the people in my electorate of Prospect anticipated receiving an extra $1.16 million from the federal government this year, based on previous urban flood mitigation arrangements. When combined with state and local government money this would have provided the residents of Fairfield City with $2.9 million to contribute to its flood mitigation program. And that is where the Howard government comes in.

On 17 July this year, the federal Minister for Transport and Regional Development (Mr Sharp)—perhaps we had better call him the minister for no regional development because there is no regional development—announced that the federal government would abolish the division of regional development in the transport department as part of its deficit reduction strategy, putting 220 public servants out of work and saving $150 million. As part of the decision, Mr Sharp also announced that the federal government would no longer fund any of the initiatives started by the previous government under its better cities program. That is where the rub is.

The money contributed by the federal government to meet its responsibilities under the urban flood mitigation program had prior to the election been moved across to come under the better cities campaign. Flood mitigation work in my electorate—indeed across the whole western Sydney region—has instantly gone on hold.

Just as with most of the cost cutting measures undertaken by this government, there seems to be no indication that cuts have been approached with any of the thought, any of the intellectual rigour, necessary for them to avoid causing widespread hardship. For this government a cut is a cut is a cut. I say to the Prime Minister (Mr Howard), his Treasurer (Mr Costello), the member for Hume (Mr Sharp) and all the ministers in the cabinet that a flood is a flood is a flood. Flood mitigation is not a glamour story. It is hard to get the headlines for cuts to flood mitigation funding when at the same time the government is hacking into education, legal aid and employment programs, yet the implications could be far greater.

I would remind my honourable colleagues that, whereas cuts to education funding and labour market programs directly impact on a person's life and lifestyle choices, cuts to flood mitigation funding could lead to a situation where the next great flood actually takes lives because the infrastructure to combat the floods is not in place due to lack of funding. Until you return funding to these projects, until you wake up to your responsibility and until you wake up to what the widespread consequences will be, you must bear and honour as a government the commitments that have been made in the past to this particular program.

When flooding comes to south western Sydney, as indeed it will come again, and when it destroys houses and destroys lives, we all know where we will be pointing the finger. The damage will be on the government's head. It does not give me great delight to say that because I have gone through year after year of experiencing the trauma and torment that have occurred when constituents of mine have been flooded out.

The members on the other side may find this comical. They may even think it is an empty threat. I suppose on one level they should be smiling. They came to serve their fellow Australians and now here they are, each and every one of them party to a budget which serves it to the Australian public like never before.

I kid you not. When, not if, my community is subjected once again to the disastrous floodwaters that we experienced in 1986 and 1988, without the federal government reaffirming its commitment to urban flood mitigation funding, I will be telling those constituents of mine the reason there was no flood wall built at the creek at the end of their street, why the proposed flood catchment area was never finished, why their roads were never raised, and why the commitment to those who had been given the authority to raise their houses so that they could come out of the one in 20 or one in 30 year flood will not be honoured, because the funding is not there.

I will tell them that it is because the Howard government has run out on them. It has given no thought or consideration to the consequences of what will take place in metropolitan communities that still experience, through drainage problems and creek problems, flooding of untold proportions. We have seen in a community like mine, as I have stated, year after year the destruction of houses falling into creeks and rivers. We as a community should not see this happen in the future.

These programs and commitments have been provided now on a regular basis since 1985. The federal government should at least honour the councils that have half completed programs—half a drainage channel is done, half a bridge is built. The councils were given a commitment to ongoing funding so you as a federal government should meet that commitment. The government has said not once since July but repeatedly and again in the budget the other night, `We as a federal government will not meet that commitment. You as the council and you as the ratepayers find the money or else.'

Naturally in a large city like mine, when there are so many other things that have to be achieved, flood mitigation seems to be always at the end of the cost estimates when councils are preparing their budgets. When the councils have a commitment of funding from federal and state government, the obligation is on the government to meet that commitment. The Howard government has left Fairfield city financially high and dry. (Time expired).