The Queensland government has raised the prospect of abandoning some flood-prone areas and relocating residents and businesses to higher ground.
It was a strategy employed in the Lockyer Valley town of Grantham, where the 2011 floods claimed more than a dozen lives.
Premier Campbell Newman toured the North Burnett towns of Gayndah and Mundubbera, south-west of Bundaberg, on Friday.
With hundreds of homes and businesses wiped out by flooding for the second time in 24 months, he wondered about the sense in rebuilding:
"It's no longer good enough, or acceptable, for the federal and state governments to keep writing cheques to replace the same sections of the same roads that were flooded two years ago, probably 10 years ago, and many times over the last 50 years," he said.
"We've got to do things better."
The ABC reports the damage bill is almost $A2.5 billion and change is coming.
