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Australian Prime Minister Commits Billions to Fire Recovery

The devil will be in the details for who gets what.

It is one thing to say funding for losses by people from the wildfires is coming, it is another completely more complicated to administer those funds and determine who gets how much and for what. See Australia government says it’ll pay ‘whatever it takes’ to help citizens recover from deadly wildfires.

I love the phrase, "Doing whatever it takes" when making a promise. How wise it is to say such things is another matter. To me it sounds like a classic, "over promising and disappointing people" in the future.

It also will be interesting to see what agency gets tapped to administer these new funds and if there are any existing processes in place to do so. I could be wrong, but it is unlikely that there is a "well-established federal individual assistance program" like here in the USA, already in place in Australia. 

More future problems for the Prime Minister?

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.