I would humbly suggest that one of the Senators move to continue debate. I thought I had thrown out a number before, but apparently not. Given a bit of time- perhaps sometime this weekend, but not right away- I could come up with some sound numbers. In the meanwhile let me just lay out what assumptions I am making and what I'm going to be looking for when trying to find the numbers.
Questions I'll seek to answer:Q1. What were the
direct costs of earthquake, e.g. physical damage, lost goods, etc?
Q1a. What proportion (or how much) of these costs were covered by insurance?
Q1b. Of the uninsured losses, what proportion of these should the government provide compensation?
Q1c. What proportion (or how much) of these costs were to public infrastructures, e.g. roads, if not in this case then in comparable cases?Q2. What are the projected additional (or indirect)
economic losses to the region as a result of the earthquake?
Q2a. What are the specific projections for economic losses per industry or sector, where available?Q2b. For which sectors would government assistance mitigate or lessen economic losses and to what extent, as suggested by prior cases? Q2c. What would the costs of government assistance programs (e.g. tourism advertising campaigns, wine fairs) be, as suggested by prior cases?Q3. What mitigatory policies could be pursued by the Regional Government to reduce damage from future earthquakes and/or the costs thereof (e.g. the ShakeAlert system, Earthquake Insurance, etc)?
Q3a. What would the costs of studying such policies be?Q4. Maintaining that the federal and regional government should share the costs of relief and recovery, how should these costs be divided?
Now I don't want you all to lose me here, but I am going to put what I think the costs are in a mathematical expression. So let me define the variables, and forgive my gratuitous use of Century Schoolbook.
CPrivate = direct costs of losses for individuals/firms
CGovernment = direct cost of losses for the government
ψ = proportion of direct costs that are uninsured
λ = proportion of private uninsured damages the government would give relief for
L = the total cost of economic assistance programmes (see Q2c, above)
S = the total cost of studies on mitigatory programmes
φ = the proportion of the total costs to by assumed by the federal government
TE= the expense, in total, of relief aid and other associated schemes
TEφ= the total expense to the federal government
Thus the number you are looking for here is
TEφ, which is equal to...
TEφ = φ[(CPrivate × ψ × λ) + CGovernment + L + S]
So once I find the values- if the Senators could find some that would be very helpful, as well- to plug into this I can give you a number. But
φ is something you'll have to decide, although we can go off precedent, which I'll also look for. And it goes without saying that the cost assumed by the region would be:
TERegion = (1 - φ)[(CPrivate × ψ × λ) + CGovernment + L + S]
Hope this helps us come closer to an idea of a number here. You might want to think of any specific conditions or things you would want to see done, although I'm obviously perfectly happy to take a nice lump sum back home and allocate it via the Legislative Council. But while I completely trust myself, if I were a Senator, I would, at the very least, throw in a provision mandating that the money that is being spent for certain reasons be spent on those reasons, such that
φ(CPrivate × ψ × λ) must be spent on direct relief for uninsured damages,
φ(S) must be spent on studies and research into mitigatory and preventive programmes and policies, and so forth. So after finding
TEφ you'd just break it down and mandate that each thing be spent on what it is intended for...
