Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Premier Mike Baird today announced disaster assistance has been activated for communities affected by New South Wales storms.

Assistance is being provided through the jointly-funded Commonwealth-State Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA) and is designed to help ease the financial burden that communities bear as a result of natural disasters.

Assistance is now available in the 37 local government areas of:

Bega	Blacktown	Byron	Camden
Campbelltown	Canterbury-Bankstown	Central Coast	City of Sydney
Coffs Harbour	Eurobodalla	Fairfield	Hornsby
Inner West	Kiama	Ku-ring-gai	Lane Cove
Lismore	Liverpool	Maitland	Northern Beaches
Parramatta	Penrith	Port Macquarie-Hastings	Queanbeyan-Palerang
Randwick	Ryde	Shellharbour	Shoalhaven
Sutherland	The Hills	Tweed	Waverley
Willoughby	Wingecarribee	Wollondilly	Wollongong
Woollahra

This assistance includes:

• Assistance to help eligible people whose homes or belongings have been damaged, and who meet an assets and income test;
• Assistance to help councils in the affected local government areas with the costs associated with cleaning up and restoring damaged public assets;
• Concessional interest rate loans for small businesses, primary producers and not-for-profit organisations; freight subsidies for primary producers; and
• Grants to not-for-profit organisations.

Prime Minister Turnbull said today’s announcement demonstrates the commitment of the Australian and New South Wales governments to work together to help disaster-affected communities get back on their feet.

“This support we’re announcing today is designed to provide immediate assistance to communities in the hardest hit local government areas.”

Premier Baird said this was the first tranche of natural disaster declarations and the NSW Government was working with other affected councils to identify impacts and make more declarations where appropriate.

“This assistance package will provide a much needed helping hand to affected families and businesses and also ensure funding is available to help local councils clean up and restore damaged infrastructure.”

For information on personal hardship and distress assistance, contact the Disaster Welfare Assistance Line on 1800 018 444.

To apply for a concessional loan, grant or freight subsidy, contact the NSW Rural Assistance Authority on 1800 678 593 or visit www.raa.nsw.gov.au.

Information on this disaster assistance is available at disasterassist.gov.au and emergency.nsw.gov.au.