Greater Taree City Council is still waiting on the NSW Government to fund the road repair bill for more than 400 sites damaged during the flood of June 2011, some eight months ago.

Mr Oakeshott said the repair bill was $19 million, however, the NSW Government was likely to fund only 50 to 75 per cent of the damage, leaving ratepayers to fund the rest.

"Not only has this council waited too long for the money to come through, it's not even likely to receive enough to meet the actual bill. And this comes at a time when the council is still assessing damage from last week's flood," Mr Oakeshott told the Parliament.

"Last year's fiasco involving flood grants for farmers who lost stock, fences and pastures is further evidence that the system doesn't work.

"The category c application, which provides $15,000 grants to farmers and small businesses affected by floods, was rejected by the NSW Government, and then eight weeks later, due to public outrage, was approved.

"That is not the way the process should work. Farmers shouldn't have to stand outside local members' offices and call for a change in the way an application is made.

"But that's exactly what happened last year and I am concerned that we are about to see it again, now that we are experiencing our third flood in as many years on the Mid-North Coast.

"The evidence points to a cumbersome, burdensome and failing system which does not recognise that natural disasters are part of life in Australia."

Emergency management minister Robert McClelland agreed the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery arrangements were "complicated".

"You could study them for three years and obtain a degree and still not know how they applied in specific circumstances," he said of the joint Commonwealth/state program.

Mr Oakeshott said Australia needed to plan appropriately, within its existing tax base and budgets, for natural disasters.

"We need to establish a natural disaster fund so that whether it is fire or flood, we as a country are ready.

"Local councils such as Greater Taree simply can't afford for us to do nothing." Mr Oakeshott said.