The prime minister, Scott Morrison, says the commonwealth will co-fund a $741m natural disaster resilience package for flood-prone Queensland communities – just a day after rejecting the request and claiming it was not his government’s responsibility.
Morrison made the about-face during an interview with Brisbane radio station 4BC on Thursday morning.
It followed fierce criticism of the Morrison government on Wednesday, including from the Insurance Council of Australia, which said the federal government could not “wash its hands” of responsibility.
The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, wrote to Morrison on 19 March asking to go halves in the package, designed to pay for retrofitting, house raising or the voluntary buyback of flood-damaged homes.
Morrison wrote to Palaszczuk on Tuesday night rejecting the request. He said in his letter that the measures were “outside the scope” of federal disaster recovery programs and the responsibility of state and local governments.
When asked about the situation on Thursday morning, Morrison said the federal government had already committed more money to flood recovery than the Queensland government and that the requests made “go well beyond” others for “floods of this nature”.
He said the federal government would now pay for half the resilience package.
“If Queensland wants to play politics with floods before an election, that’s up to them,” Morrison said.
“I don’t want to play politics with this, I just want to make sure people get the help they need.
“Yes, we will provide that support. Yes, it is beyond the scope of what is normally done.”
At a press conference in the flood-hit suburb of Goodna, Queensland’s treasurer and acting premier, Cameron Dick, said it was “regrettable that it took so long for the prime minister to act”.
“It took him three weeks to consider our proposal. In 36 hours, after the prime minister said no, he’s now said yes,” Dick said.
“This should not be the matter of whether there’s an election or not, this should be a matter of government business.”
Dick labelled as “nonsense” a claim from the prime minister that more transparency was needed to ensure payments were being made.
“The Queensland Reconstruction Authority is responsible … for all resilience payments,” Dick said.
“Currently, [the prime minister has] two advisers on the board ... he knows exactly what we do with the money.”
Morrison told 4BC the federal government would attach “conditions” to the payment that demanded Queensland be “transparent with the payments being made … I want them to report to the public”.
He claimed the Queensland government was sitting on $52m provided for previous disaster recovery, a claim Guardian Australia is seeking to verify.
On Wednesday, the Insurance Council of Australia released a statement that criticised the federal government’s decision not to help fund the resilience package.
In February, the ICA released a report calling for $726m to be invested jointly by the Queensland and federal governments over five years. It had welcomed the resilience funding when it was announced by the Queensland government.
“As severe rain and flooding continues to impact the east coast, the failure of the federal government to match Queensland’s investment in measures to improve household and community protections against extreme weather is disappointing and short-sighted,” the ICA’s chief executive, Andrew Hall, said.
“If Australia is to get serious about improving our resilience to flood, bushfire and cyclone, all levels of government must contribute.
“Australians – particularly those still impacted by the ongoing rain and flooding – want governments to come together to provide better protections against worsening extreme weather, not wash their hands of responsibility.”
