Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Casey we know quite a bit about emergency response and disaster resilience. We have experienced more than our fair share of bushfires, storms and other natural disasters. The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria caused widespread devastation and the greatest loss of life from fire in Casey in known history. One hundred and seventy three people tragically lost their lives, 414 were injured, more than a million wild and domesticated animals were lost and 450,000 hectares of land were burnt. More than 19,000 CFA members worked tirelessly, not just in the immediate emergency, but for weeks and months, to finally extinguish the last blaze. And many thousands of Victorians and millions of Australians came together to support those affected, including in my electorate of Casey, for the weeks, months and years of our physical and psychological recovery.

As Australians become more urbanised the fringes of cities encroach further into the bush and it is here in the frontier zone between bush and city that bushfires do much of their damage. It was in this edge environment, in my local communities of Healesville and Yarra Glen, that the Black Saturday bushfires inflicted the damage that made them some of the most destructive in Australian history. We cannot only measure the destruction in loss of property or even loss of life, from experience I can confirm that the devastation is much greater. The profound loss of life and injury to family and friends is accompanied by the loss of homes and the memories they contain, businesses that have been lovingly run for generations, the complete alteration of familiar landscapes and the sense of foreboding that such a disaster could happen again. I saw how this affected my family, my friends and my community as the fire ravaged regions of Casey. Doctors and psychologists reported a rise in suicides among bushfire survivors, along with alcohol and drug abuse and addictive behaviour such as gambling.

The importance of the Emergency Response Fund, now to be called the Disaster Ready Fund, cannot be denied. This bill essentially repurposes the Emergency Response Fund, turning it into an ongoing source of funding for natural disasters, resilience and risk reduction—to be known as the Disaster Ready Fund. This bill is little more than a change in acronym, as it will continue to be managed by the Future Fund Management Agency within the Department of Finance.

The Emergency Response Fund was set up by the coalition government in 2019 as an investment fund intended to grow over time to maximise the Commonwealth's capacity to support states and territories as they respond to major natural disasters into the future. Under previous legislation the government could access up to $50 million for pre-disaster resilience measures and up to $150 million for emergency response and recovery each financial year. The government made an election commitment to revamp the fund to spend $200 million annually on disaster prevention and resilience. It allows the DRF to provide up to $200 million per financial year for these initiatives.

In my first speech, I spoke of my commitment to making sure the effects of natural disasters are minimised due to effective resilience planning and preparation. This bill will ensure the coalition's promise, and my personal promise to my community, and will continue to support them through the tough times. One such recent example was on the night of 9 December 2021. Families hunkered down in their living rooms across the Dandenong Ranges as ferocious winds roared and the crash of trees breaking and falling thundered around them. Even houses that weren't hit by the gigantic trees falling shook with the impact. It was a genuine miracle that nobody was killed. In that one terrifying night 177 properties were damaged, 76 of which were deemed uninhabitable; thousands of trees fell across roads and power lines, trapping many in the Dandenongs; power was cut to more than 6,500 homes, including my own for 12 days; while phone and internet services also went down across the Dandenong Ranges and surrounding towns. Townships such as Kalorama, Monbulk and Mount Dandenong were hardest hit, with 373 hectares of the Dandenong Ranges impacted.

More than a year later there are still many who have not been able to rebuild or who have run into financial or practical obstacles preventing them from returning to their homes. I've met with many of these constituents and it's heartbreaking to hear their stories. They are trapped in this situation; they aren't able to move forward. One community example is the Mount Dandenong Preschool, which has been operating out of the Olinda Primary School as the preschool's old site remains unrepaired and condemned since the storm. The trauma for the children, parents and staff is ongoing because they are regularly seeing it covered in tarpaulin and fallen trees as they drive past.

As the local mayor, Jim Child, said recently, 'It was a crisis that tested us beyond belief, but people in this region are resilient and we know how to look after each other.' This is clear when you see the community groups that responded out of such tragedy and loss. New community bonds rose in the form of Rescue Logs and Treasuring Our Trees, two organisations that are taking those fallen trees to create new habitats for schools so that the children in those primary schools across Casey can have a new environment to play in, but also help them to recover from the trauma that they've experienced. Many more community organisations banded together at the time and have banded together since then.

Effective emergency management is as much about planning and preparation as it is about response, clean-up and recovery. In Casey, we unfortunately have extensive experience with emergencies. But as is often the case in Australia, amazing people come together to build resilience, to protect their families, their businesses and their communities. The local Yarra Ranges council have led this emergency response in Casey. They've developed a new program called the Yarra Ranges resilience project to protect our communities by increasing disaster preparedness, risk management, recovery and future resilience. I am very proud to say that the previous coalition government committed $10 million to this plan so as to increase our community's ability to mitigate, avoid, withstand and recover from the effects of bushfires, floods and storms. This project is going to be delivered by council in partnership with other levels of government recovery departments along with local businesses and communities. This project is one that is dear to my heart. One of the first meetings I had when I was successful in becoming the member for Casey was to meet with the Yarra Ranges council about this important area and to get an update on this project that is making a difference, and will continue to make a difference, in the lives of our residents.

The Yarra Ranges resilience project includes proactive tree management and clean-up. It includes plant based resilience planning and buildings. It's about establishing an emergency relief network and evacuation plans. This one in particular is really important for our communities, because we know—we experienced it during Black Saturday; we experienced it during the June storms—given the location of our towns and some of the roads that are one-way in and one-way out, those communities cannot rely on emergency services responses outside of their own town. It is so important that they have plans if the emergency comes, but also relief networks that allow them to evacuate, if they have that opportunity, before the risk is there.

It also allows for a resilient energy precinct. We're running a program with Monash University in Monbulk to have a microgrid and to have the energy there to be self-sufficient, which is so important. We saw it in June when these communities were without power and they were also without access. Emergency services couldn't get in; no-one could get out. We're talking about 100 metres of road completely blocked by trees. It took significant time to get through, and it's no-one's fault other than the reality dealing with the disaster that we had. This project will allow those communities to have the power they need at that time. Crucially, bushfire risk assessments will be done throughout the Dandenong Ranges and Casey because there is a significant and dangerous bushfire risk there.

Obviously, the coalition supports programs that effectively promote disaster resilience and risk reduction, although I do have a few concerns as I look through this legislation. I've not been able to see any information around how the funds will be distributed or any clear definition of what constitutes a mitigation or disaster-prevention project. It is very important that we have that clarity so that the money we're investing on behalf of our residents and taxpayers will make a tangible difference to our communities.

I note that the Minister for Emergency Management referred to activities such as river gauges and rain modelling as examples, but these are activities of the Bureau of Meteorology, the BoM, not something I would expect the DRF to undertake or fund. Minister Watt has also mentioned that there will be guidelines and consultations to be held with stakeholders but cannot say who the stakeholders are or even what the guidelines will look like. Again, while this fund, this money, is needed and is crucial, it is so important that we get it right, that we engage at the community level. We in the electorate of Casey know that the community understand their needs better than anyone. We have to engage, like we have through the Yarra Ranges resilience project, with the right stakeholders.

We've all seen the devastating floods inundating northern Victoria over the last week. In Casey last week we had minor flooding. We were fortunate; we managed to avoid the worst of the damage. Unfortunately, the clubrooms at the Yarra Glen Cricket Club were damaged and will need to undergo repairs. Just last night, my home town of Lilydale and the towns of Upwey and Belgrave experienced flash flooding, with between 60 and 65 millimetres of rain hitting those towns in about 30 minutes. The local SES received calls from 12 people trapped in their cars after driving through floodwaters. It's another example of how even in our urban areas the risk of flood is very real. Power was cut to thousands of homes. The main street literally looked like a river. We were lucky not to see any loss of life, but there will be a huge clean-up. I've spoken to businesses and residents, and I stand by their side and look forward to getting home on Friday to see them and support them. We need to help those businesses, which have already had significant challenges in the last two years. I send my heartfelt condolences to those impacted, including my own staff, who were impacted but were back at work today to support the residents and constituents of Casey. As I said, I'm very much looking forward to getting home and supporting them.

The government, as we know, needs to be ready and prepared to act when significant events occur. We still don't know what the long-term impacts will be for not only Victoria but the wider community—the impacts on food prices and long-term recovery. When we talk about food prices, it's important to note that it's always our most vulnerable who suffer. We need to make sure that we're protecting life, protecting property and protecting our agricultural bowls. In Casey last week we were fortunate. I spoke to a farmer the day after the floods hit. He'd been up all night defending his property by removing water with pumps, trying to do what he could. He was lucky. He said there was a gap of 30 centimetres, after which the banks of the river would have been breached. If that river had breached, his farm and many others in the Yarra Valley would have been destroyed. We saw heartbreaking footage from Rochester and other towns, where farmers were about to pick their crops. It impacts them and the wider community, but it also impacts our most vulnerable through increased prices.

Just to be clear: this bill doesn't provide additional money. I'll always support additional money for natural disaster events, and I hope that the government continue to recognise the urgency and importance of real action, because that is something that needs to be bipartisan. I look forward to supporting this bill and continuing to support the residents of Casey and the nation as we continue to struggle with these natural disasters.

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