Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak in support of these clean energy bills, I want to talk about the Northern Rivers region, where I live and where my seat of Page is. Some of the seat of one of my colleagues, the honourable member for Richmond, is also in the Northern Rivers region. I note she is here in the chamber. I will be talking about my seat but also about the Northern Rivers, which covers a broader area. In our area we have communities which have embraced adaptation for climate change. They are ahead of it. They are not waiting for everybody to act. They are taking action themselves locally. What I want to address is a particular collaboration of groups called Sustain Northern Rivers. I will go through what it is doing in some detail because it is happening in our area.

The Northern Rivers region covers approximately 20,732 square kilometres and incorporates seven local government areas. Five of those local government areas are in my seat of Page. It is home to more than 292,000 people, almost 5,500 medium-sized businesses and tens of thousands of small businesses. Our region has a growth rate of up to 2.6 per cent compared to the New South Wales rate of 1.2 per cent. So it is a growth area.

Sustain Northern Rivers—SNR, as it is called—was formed in 2008 in direct response to climate change. It is a collaboration of 20 peak regional organisations working together to provide a local response to a global threat that impacts on us locally. The SNR is a collaborative platform that consults, collaborates and communicates. It empowers local communities to become self-sustaining. The focus is in four key areas: food, transport, energy and behavioural change—all of the areas that we need to address in adaptation to climate change.

Sustain Northern Rivers is a broad network. In the network are Byron Shire Council, which is in the seat of Richmond; a catchment management authority, which covers the whole area; Lismore City Council; Local Communities Services Association; Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority; North Coast Health Promotion; North Coast TAFE, which covers a huge area all across the North Coast; North-East Waste Forum; Northern Rivers Community Colleges, Northern Rivers Social Development Council; Northern Rivers Tourism; Northern Star Pty Ltd; Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health; New South Wales Department of Industry and Investment; New South Wales Department of Education and Training; Regional Development Australia—Northern Rivers; Richmond Valley Council, which is in my seat of Page; Southern Cross University; Tweed Shire Council; and Northern Rivers Youth Environment Society. I am told there are others joining that network and collaboration to prepare and work to adapt to climate change.

What does the SNR do? It helps Northern Rivers communities live and work more sustainably. It helps cut the collective carbon footprint of the Northern Rivers, fosters networks that stimulate innovation and action, facilitates collaboration amongst regional organisations, pools resources, shares knowledge and learns from past failures and successes. It maximises outcomes by coordinating our efforts and it sustains outcomes from time limited project grants. It also builds the adaptive capacity of Northern Rivers communities. Recently I had the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency in Lismore. We held a forum on the clean energy package and he got to meet with Sustained Northern Rivers who were able to put to him what they were doing and what their case was. They are also looking at the package and the opportunities available in the clean energy package, and there are many. People come into this place and I hear the other side always talking about the threats. They live in a world of absolute fear and threat.

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