Media Release

KENNEDY MP, Bob Katter has said a State Government Insurance Office (SGIO) should be re-established, following the release of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC)’s final report into northern Australia insurance, which found increasingly high premiums are leading to a rise in the number of uninsured homes.

Mr Katter said he did not believe the price of insurances should be rising in northern Australia as modern building codes, introduced after Cyclone Tracy, had made new homes near indestructible in cyclones.

“In Innisfail all the houses that could be gone are gone, as the ones that are there withstood Cyclone Larry, which was one of the worst cyclones in Australian history,” he said.

“Larry was a cyclone that snapped telephone poles in three and made buildings in the main street unrecognisable. In Innisfail you could draw a line between old Innisfail and new Innisfail. The old part looked like the bombing of Dresden and the new part looked like nothing had happened.”

Mr Katter said it wasn’t the first-time insurance providers had made insuring a home in North Queensland near impossible, and that governments must intervene.

“This was exactly the same situation Red Ted Theodore found himself in during the 1920s,” he said.

“I will continue to advocate for the reintroduction of the SGIO for the benefit of the people of north Queensland. It was introduced in the first place because the insurance companies would not insure the people of Innisfail after a big flood.

“There is no justification for the extreme insurance prices in north Queensland, especially for the modern post-Tracy buildings. The Insurance Actuaries’ decisions are based upon historical data. They don’t look forward, they look backwards. If you look backwards then it’s a pretty grim situation for north Queensland. It’s not if you look forward.”

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