Considering all the continual flooding I think it is high time the Federal Government make areas out of bounds for housing! Unless they want to do some work on making the areas a bit higher!!

Should people be allowed to rebuild on land that is constantly at threat from floods or fires?

IMO perhaps not, must be better ways to go.

governments should but will they ??

Yes in most instances you should be able to keep living where you are but only if the housing is modified to be more flood and/or fire resistant. Where it's not possible or feasible to do that then people should be assisted to relocate and new housing should only be constructed where it can comply.

assessing land suitability for housing is not an issue for federal government. It's for local government to decide within state overlays and to stipulate minimum building standards for insurable flood risk areas. People who choose to build in high risk areas must be willing to accept consequences of those decisions when/if the risk eventuates. If the flood risk is uninsurable for the area then the area should be zoned accordingly to activities commensurate with the risk rather than residential. Obviously some folks will find some areas zoned residential be rezone to reflect flood risk and see the valuation decline accordingly – good news for them they will pay less rates.

The problem is that residential development was allowed on flood plains. It's not rocket science to identify a flood plain but councils and government turned a blind eye to the dangers and now the price has to be paid.

All this rubbish about the fires and floods being the worst we have had because of climate change is a falsehood, people have short memories, the older I get the more normal the weather is, we have had worse floods and fires in Australia's history well before the country was "found" by explorers.

The ONLY difference is the greedy councils and developers who let people build on flood plains and fire prone areas for the big dollar. They are the ones, as well as the governments, who should be paying the price for the relocation of affected families.

This is Australia and this has been the norm for thousands of years, Wake up and use the brains you were given and think back, even use the "inter-web" or other research means to find the truth.

I expect the watermelons and other  with vested interests to make some future generation comments.

As for sea level rises there is no proof, even Bob Brown was caught out with his stupid comments about the sea level was rising higher in Hobart, then the news was given to him they installed a more accurate measuring device at Hobart. What a crock this false information is and has been disproved.