Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has, as we would expect of them, published a very solid piece of work and it will make a significant contribution to emergency management policies and practice in Australia. What the report does at the outset is highlight in no uncertain terms that climate change poses a clear and present danger to the national security interests of Australia and Australians. It indicates the extent to which Australians will be exposed to risks to their personal safety and, of course, the risks to the infrastructure of our nation. The report specifically notes that, in his National Security Statement of December 2008, the Prime Minister mentioned that climate change represents a most fundamental risk to national security. Indeed, in large part, that was the basis of the government, in that National Security Statement, adopting an all-hazards approach to national security—an approach which, regrettably, has been shown to be valid because of recent tragedies that we have seen unfold late last year and this year.

To deliver on that long-term strategic focus the emergency management sector in my department has been restructured into three divisions. The first division will focus on long-term planning and policy development; the second will focus on training and equipment acquisitions; and the third, the traditional Emergency Management Australia, responds to an immediate crisis. The new structures are assisting in moving beyond what has been described in that report—I believe validly, at least in part, when I took office—as something of a reactive capability to emergency management situations rather than a long-term planning and forward-thinking approach. Many of the other recommendations in the report are also being addressed. For instance, the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management is currently developing a climate change action plan, and that is going to be considered at the November meeting of the council. Also, in April of this year, the Council of Australian Governments, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, agreed on an urgent need for governments around Australia to re-examine Australia’s arrangements for managing national disasters. The task force charged with improving oversight and coordination of that natural disaster policy and response arrangements will report to the September 2009 meeting.

In the meantime, the Commonwealth and state governments have agreed to implement a national emergency warning system. That was the subject of some deliberation, of course, during the recent royal commission into the Victorian bushfires, again, under the leadership of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has contributed $26 million to establish that national emergency warning system, which we are hoping will be in place in October-November for the start of the bushfire season. At this stage it will focus on the capability of sending messages to billing addresses and to fixed lines, but we have allocated funds to improve that capability in due course and to have it specific-location based. We are also working with Telstra and other interested groups to look at what we can do to show national leadership in the area of triple-0 response capability. Telstra is under an obligation to provide that capability to link those suffering distress to state emergency responders. Also, the Commonwealth and state governments are currently in the process of developing a national catastrophic disaster plan, and indeed a national exercise will be conducted next month as part of the development of that plan. Also, the Attorney-General’s Department have been negotiating a national partnership agreement on the disaster resilience program. For the 2009-10 year we have allocated $79.3 million for that purpose.

A considerable amount has been undertaken to engage in national security reform at a government level, but in addition we are engaging with the private sector by expanding the role of the trusted information sharing networks which were developed under the period of the former government, primarily to focus on engaging the private sector to assist in protecting private infrastructure. We are expanding the role of those trusted information sharing networks to specifically focus, again, on an all-hazards approach and specifically on emergency management. Finally, the report notes the crucial importance of volunteers and that a lot of work is being undertaken at a federal and state level to look at what we can do to encourage, to train and to retain our volunteers. We will shortly be having something to say about that.

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