Supporting flood recovery
Since Cyclone Fina in November 2025, the Territory has experienced widespread flooding and Katherine experienced its worst floods in nearly 30 years. The floods, along with other severe weather events, resulted in significant losses to communities and businesses, which are still being assessed. The economic impact of these natural disasters is yet to be fully quantified but is expected to be substantial and cannot be measured in economic terms alone.
The 2026 Budget provides over $130 million on the capital works program for flood recovery and resilience initiatives including a $100 million Flood Recovery Fund, $30.5 million Roads Repair Package, as well as significant operational commitments for flood and disaster recovery in 2025-26 and 2026-27.
Joint funding arrangements with the Commonwealth are also in place under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangement 2018.
The Flood Recovery Fund will prioritise rebuilding roads, bridges and flood mitigation works. It will be delivered through a staged approach, with an initial allocation to rebuild roads and other key infrastructure damaged during the flooding events, and a further allocation to focus on long-term resilience, including building better roads, bridges and flood mitigation infrastructure to reduce the future impacts of floods.
An immediate commitment of $12.5 million has already been made as part of the first stage, including:
- $4.9 million for flood mitigation work in Alice Springs
- $4 million to support levee and drainage improvements in Katherine North
- $2.5 million to develop Territory-wide early warning IT solutions
- $600,000 to support the Jawoyn Association to undertake detailed design works to upgrade the Maud Creek bridge
- $500,000 to develop a plan to relocate the town of Daly River/Nauiyu to higher ground.
The Flood Recovery Fund is in addition to other operational costs associated with the flooding. At late‑April 2026, the Territory Government had committed over $42 million in operational expenditure, including over:
- $3.5 million for emergency food, clothing and temporary accommodation
- $1.6 million for evacuation and transportation
- $4 million for waste management
- $7.7 million in personal hardship payments
- $16.9 million for repairs and maintenance on housing and other public assets such as roads, bridges, schools and clinics.
Roads Repair Package
The $30.5 million Roads Repair Package will rebuild key road infrastructure damaged by recent flooding. The package includes:
- $8 million for Top End roads including Cox Peninsula Road, Daly River Road, Wooliana Road and Port Keats Road
- $16 million for Big Rivers roads including the Roper Highway, Central Arnhem Highway, Carpentaria Highway and Bing Bong Road
- $6.5 million for Barkly roads including the Murray Downs Road, Elkedra Propacc Road and Kurundi Road.
