Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian government has many dozens of websites. Each department has its own website, and all of these websites are designed to provide services and information on matters of interest to the Australian people. But there is one website in particular that massively outperforms others in the number of hits it gets—that is, the Bureau of Meteorology's website. Commonly known as the BOM, the bureau's website racks up in excess of 471 million visits per year. It would seem then that Australians are certainly enthusiastic followers and observers of the weather and this House often reflects this interest in the weather with all our discussions on climate—not only daily, but annually and decade wise.

There are certainly good reasons for this. Australia's climate is unlike the climates of Europe and indeed most other settled parts of the world. It is, and has been, distinguished by its great unpredictability and experience of extremes. We know from the detailed records available that Australia's climate has always been unpredictable. This unpredictability was encountered by European settlers in Western Australia, who struggled in the early years with arable agriculture, due in part to the difficulty of predicting the first rains of winter. And we see this unpredictability today with years of great rains and floods in Queensland, for example, prompting motions in this House, followed by drought just a few short months later, prompting the drought relief package put forward by the Minister for Agriculture. So in its unpredictability, Australia's weather has largely defied modelling and made longer term predictions more difficult.

We also know from the records that Australia's climate has been characterised by extremes. Throughout history we have not only had long painful droughts but also devastatingly prolonged floods. We have had major fires whipped up by strong winds and heatwaves as well as cold snaps and avalanches in the same state. And, again, you do not have to look too far back through the record books to see this pattern. Just a couple of years, or indeed a couple of months, will do. I know that during the bushfires in Victoria in 2009, my sister, who lives in Healesville, had about 10 fire trucks out there and they had six helicopters drop enormous amounts of water on their property just to save the property. The 173 fatalities in that particular bushfire is a great example of what extreme weather conditions can do in Australia.

These characteristics of Australia's weather tend not to be limited geographically but to apply right across Australia. In fact, as much as they apply in Western Australia, they are perhaps accentuated even further in the eastern states with the polarising impact of the El Nino and La Nina climate events of the Pacific impacting particularly on that region. However, that being said, researchers did in recent years link the La Nina effect to a local issue in my electorate of Swan. A major mosquito plague in 2010-11 spurred calls for action from many of my constituents, some of whom formed the Waterford action group. Michael Hopkin at the West Australianreported at the time, on 6 April 2011:

Perth is enduring a mosquito plague as a by-product of the La Nina weather pattern that has blighted Australia …

Populations of mosquitoes throughout the city have been boosted by the high tides triggered by La Nina, bringing misery to many.

The extreme tidal conditions have increased the inundation of tidal salt marshes where the insects breed …

Mr Deputy Speaker Randall, you were probably one of those people who experienced those mosquito plagues due to the location of where you live. Another of my constituents, a Mr Wilson Tuckey of Ascot, was also concerned about this issue and felt prompted to write to me in 2011 and seek some help. There was even the trouble of getting mosquito traps and baits put in place as they were being used over in the east for the mosquito activity associated with the Queensland floods of that year. Fortunately, we were able to get some action at the local council level at the time for some emergency mosquito control.

Flooding has affected the people of Perth in the past, and I have mentioned the challenges faced in the early days of settlement in Perth, but there has been very little major flooding of the Swan River since the 1960s. The walling of the river and reclamation of land has somewhat mitigated the flood risk as the Swan becomes a wide estuarine channel as it passes the City of Perth before it meets the Indian Ocean at Fremantle. Also the dredging of channels that has taken place to allow navigation and prevent algal blooms has acted to reduce the risk of flooding. But this does not mean that the risk is not still there as a high rainfall winter and a combination of tides could again see a flooding event.

The last 100-year flood in Perth was recorded in 1872. A 10-year flood was recorded as far back as 1983. So you could say that Perth is due a major flooding event. And my electorate of Swan, with river frontage on three sides, would certainly once again be impacted. Many people in the Waterford area, as well as in Como and in South Perth, would also be impacted. The state should be prepared for such an event, and we can only hope that complacency has not slipped in following a number of years without flooding.

The 1872 flood is the most significant on record and caused considerable property damage in Perth. The Parliamentary Library has stated that The Perth GazetteandWestern Australian Journal on 26 July 1872 reported:

In and about Perth, the water owing to the force of the incoming seas at the mouth of the river presented a scene of a great lake, all the jetties were submerged, the high roads to Fremantle covered, and passage traffic rendered impossible quantities of sandalwood lying along the banks of river were washed away, and the inhabitants of the suburban villas on the slopes of Mount Eliza obliged to scramble up the hill sides to get into Perth.

The 1926 flood was also considered extremely damaging and is still distinguished as one of the highest rainfall events in Perth's history. The event caused the collapse of the Fremantle rail bridge.

In my electorate of Swan, there was extensive damage as well. The member for Swan at the time was Mr Henry Gregory of the Country Party who served a long stint as the member for Swan, from 1922 to 1940. No doubt he had his work cut out helping the residents with the clean-up. I know that in your time as the member for Swan, Mr Deputy Speaker Randall, you would have helped many residents in the clean-up of issues and items in the electorate of Swan as well.

The Parliamentary Library quotes an article in the Western Mail of 29 July 1926 which notes:

The people of the Mill Point area [South Perth] were in dire need of practical assistance ... During the night no fewer than fourteen houses situated in Suburban Road between Scott Street and the Point, were invaded by the rising waters Two houses in Stone Street and one in Melville Terrace were also flooded ... Along the whole road to Mill Point, from the Scott Street intersection as far as eye could see, water flowed not dully and placidly, but actively, in high surging currents flecked with foam and breaking here and there into waves. A yacht in full sail went up Suburban road ...

Perth is subject to frequent severe storms that roll in off the Indian Ocean during winter. Perhaps one of the most severe storms in recent times was the famous hailstorm in March 2010, when golf ball sized hailstones up to six centimetres in diameter pelted the city and caused great damage.

The Premier, Colin Barnett, declared the storm a natural disaster, but it was also an economic disaster for the insurance industry, with many cars written off. In fact, at the time, as WA Today reported in an article on 22 March 2010, the Insurance Council of Australia declared the storms to be a general insurance catastrophe. To this day, if you visit Perth you will see cars with golf ball dents still driving around in the city and in all the suburbs. At the time, the Premier was reported as saying the storm was an extreme and freak event. On my own property, there was about $3,000 worth of damage to windows, patio roofs and things like that. It took 18 months for a lot of people to get their places repaired.

I also mention the work we have been doing in the House of Representatives centred on the subject of skin cancer. We know that in summer UV levels can rise, and this is another element that people of Australia do face and have to monitor. Skin cancer has been called Australia's national cancer. We have found that it is certainly an issue which affects people right across Australia, in some places more than others. Australians have always had to not only follow the weather but also predict it. Thankfully, this is slightly easier today than in the past, thanks to our meteorologists and our Bureau of Meteorology website. As the parliamentary secretary noted during his contribution, the Bureau of Meteorology is relied upon every day by the Australian community to deliver accurate and timely information, particularly during events where life and property are at risk.

In 2012-13, a trial of advertising took place on the BOM website. This followed the 2011 Munro review of the bureau's capacity to respond to future extreme weather and natural disaster events and to provide seasonal forecasting services. It recommended that options be explored to obtain revenue from advertising on the bureau's website. The trial was considered a success and was introduced permanently on 1 July 2013.

However, the Australian Government Solicitor recommended in August 2012 and June 2013 that, while the trial could be supported, there was a real risk that once the bureau officially commenced advertising it would not be supported by any statutory power or by the executive power of the Commonwealth. The Solicitor-General specifically advised that it would be advisable as soon as possible to put the position beyond doubt by legislating to expressly amend the Meteorology Act to empower the director of the bureau to accept paid advertising. In fact, these concerns were later borne out to be correct when Fairfax Media challenged the bureau's ability to disallow some of its advertising of its own weather provider. Why the previous government did not act on this advice from the Solicitor-General, I do not know. Perhaps it was something to do with all the chaos in the Labor Party at the time and the changes in the ministers associated with the changes from prime ministers Rudd to Gillard and back to Rudd again. Whatever the reason, we are acting today to put this matter beyond doubt. I am encouraged by the enthusiasm displayed by coalition members on the speakers list who are the only ones talking on this bill. The government brings forward today the Meteorology Amendment (Online Advertising) Bill to confirm the powers of the Director of Meteorology to accept paid advertising on the bureau's website. At the same time, it will also require the director to develop and publish guidelines determining the types of advertising that may be accepted on the bureau's website. I pay credit to the bureau for proceeding with these measures, which will not only enable them to advance the services that they provide but also save the taxpayers some money at a time when the country is in a significant amount of debt. It is a testament to the successes of websites which include short-term forecasts, including UV index information, a system of warnings for information on long-term weather trends and also long-term record collection and trends. The media also takes information from the Bureau of Meteorology, especially when there are extreme events and weather warnings in place. It is an essential website and a source of information that can save lives.

I would like to make a few brief comments on the government websites in general. In June, the Minister for Communications held a briefing on the UK government's digital strategy with Liam Maxwell, Chief Technology Officer of Her Majesty's Government. The UK government had a similar issue to the one Australia experiences now: a multitude of different government websites across departments and tiers of government, all costing the taxpayers millions of dollars in waste. The UK government project centralised IT and it has saved the UK taxpayer billions of pounds while delivering better services to constituents and focused on delivering what the people actually need to do when they visit a government website. The Bureau of Meteorology's website is a great example of a government service widely used and valued and, thanks to this legislation, largely paying its way. It is clearly well used because there is a demand for advertising.

In conclusion, I would like to make the point that there will clearly be many benefits to taxpayers from following the approach that the UK have commenced. I am sure that this is a path that the Minister for Communications will be considering. In the advice to the coalition party room, they said that by outsourcing and changing the way they put their IT and everything together they saved the UK £16 billion. It is something that I am sure we as a government should be able to look at as well. I commend the bill to the House.

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