From a Seed of an Idea to a National Conversation

What if regional businesses had the means and capacity to build a financial buffer before drought, flood, fire or cyclone struck, rather than having to surrender their agency to lengthy government processes for assistance after the damage was done?

It is this thought catalyst that underpins RDAWBB’s Business Resilience Reserve Account (BRRA), a financial resilience concept developed through the Regional Drought Resilience Implementation Program (RDRiP).

Wide Bay Burnett is no stranger to drought, flood, fire and cyclone. When a disaster occurs, businesses are able to access a range of government assistance measures, including Queensland Government programs and support delivered through the Commonwealth-State Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

These programs provide an important safety net, particularly for businesses that do not have the capacity to absorb significant losses. But the dominant model is still largely reactive: damage occurs, a disaster is declared, claims are assessed and assistance is provided to help businesses recover.

At the same time, public investment in disaster recovery significantly outweighs investment in resilience and risk reduction.

BRRA explores whether some of that burden can be shifted before disaster strikes, by giving businesses a reason and a mechanism to build their own financial reserves during better years.

BRRA takes a “different approach”: an opt-in financial resilience mechanism designed for eligible primary producers, agribusinesses and businesses operating in regional and remote areas.

Under the proposed model, businesses could set aside a portion of pre-tax profit into a designated reserve account. The mechanism draws on the familiar structure of Farm Management Deposits, using an established approach to encourage businesses to provision for future risk.

The intention is to create a resilience mindset, one where the business sets aside funds for a rainy day, which they are able to call upon during a drought or natural disaster declaration.

Rather than waiting for recovery funding after an event, businesses would have already started building their own capacity to respond.

How could it work?

The proposed BRRA has three key design pillars:

1. The deposit: Deposits are made from pre-tax profit, and this untaxed income provides an immediate tax advantage, while building financial resilience.

2. The withdrawal under a declaration: Under a disaster declaration or drought mechanism, the money is withdrawn and used for resilience and recovery purposes, no income tax is applied, simple just the GST on any purchases made.  Qualifying expenditure under a declaration includes such items as repairing damaged infrastructure, replacing stock or fodder, restoring water systems, business continuity costs and recovery works, all substantiated against the declaration in a way that mirrors existing DRFA categories. It's this exemption from taxable income that makes pre-saved money go the furthest at exactly the point the business needs it, and it is what rewards the operator who provisioned in advance.

3. The normal withdrawal: A safeguard built around the program. A business can withdraw this money at any time – it is, after all, their money. However, if the withdrawal occurs outside a declaration, the amount withdrawn is treated as assessable income and taxed accordingly.

   
   

   The deposit therefore provides a timing benefit, not a permanent tax exemption.

   That distinction is what prevents the account from functioning as a general tax shelter.

To be clear, BRRA is not intended to replace government assistance or the existing safety net for undercapitalised operators. Instead, it complements these systems by encouraging businesses with the capacity to do so to build their own financial preparedness.

“If businesses can put money aside in good years, they are better positioned to respond when conditions deteriorate.”

“That shifts part of the focus from recovery to preparation, from reactive assistance to forward planning, and from reliance on grants towards greater self-reliance" – Tim Sayre RDRiP Program coordinator

From Gympie to Canberra

A nebulous idea in its origins, the BRRA has come a long way from a seed thought sparked through conversations with a Gympie beef producer about the challenges regional businesses face when preparing for drought and natural disasters.

That early conversation has grown into a structural response framework now attracting national attention, with the BRRA selected as one of 12 projects to be presented at the Regional Australia Institute’s (RAI) Regionalisation Dialogue Day 2026 in Canberra on 15 September.

We’re excited about the opportunity to put a regional idea on a national stage and continue developing, testing and refining the BRRA so it can become a practical, workable mechanism with the potential to make a real difference to how regional businesses prepare for drought and natural disasters.

From a conversation in Gympie to a conversation in Canberra, the next step is to keep listening, questioning, refining and shaping the idea, with the goal of putting greater agency back in the hands of the people who live and work on the land.