James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the amendment moved by the member for Page to the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022. I would like to start by acknowledging what he's been through with his community over the last few years, particularly with the town of Lismore. I lived for a couple of years in Alstonville, which is not far from Lismore, so I know the area very well. Lismore has been absolutely belted a couple of times in a row, and it's been really tough for that community. Lives, livelihoods and infrastructure have suffered enormous damage.

The member for Page has been an exemplary leader and supporter to his community through all those challenges, and we wish the best for the Northern Rivers area of New South Wales in the recovery that they are going through. I never thought I'd say this as a South Australian—because we should never complain about the rain—but, if more rain could fall on the other side of the Great Dividing Range for the next few months, I think both the people of Lismore and the people of Adelaide would appreciate it in equal measure.

The amendment that he's has moved is absolutely coming from a place of very deep experience. I know other members have had experiences of natural disasters in their electorates in recent times, but certainly the member for Page would have to be at the top of the list of local members who have been dealing with the enormous impact of natural disasters within their communities over the last 12 months. We send him best wishes and congratulate him on what he's done for his community. I certainly support the amendment he's moved to this second reading question.

The second thing I want to say is that the great thing about this parliament is that it brings together people from every corner of this nation. There are not too many countries in the world that have such geographic diversity as Australia. To have tropical forests, snow, deserts and everything in between within one country is almost unique. Except for maybe the United States, I can't think of any other country that has that great variety of geography. Of course, we have an unbelievably varied climate associated with that.

As a member from metropolitan Adelaide, I don't have a lot of great or direct experience in the impact of and the recovery from things like hurricanes or tropical cyclones, but we equally have our own types of natural disasters in South Australia that aren't necessarily felt in other places. Drought is one that shouldn't be forgotten when we're having this discussion. While some natural disasters occur in great instancy, a drought is one of the most consistent natural disasters that we have in this country. It has enormous impacts that are completely akin to the types of things felt by communities as a result of other natural disasters such as floods and the like.

In my own electorate, we've certainly had serious rain events in the years gone by. My electorate is in the Torrens catchment, and we have had flash flood events that have led us to develop local plans to better manage the impact of short, significant rain events that come through the hills facing the Mount Lofty Ranges and that have caused a lot of damage to property in years gone by. We also have the Brown Hill Creek catchment, which comes out of the Mitcham hills.

Councils, including from my electorate, have worked together really well to develop plans that need to be invested in to deal with the risks of once-in-10-year, once-in-50-year, once-in-100-year or—as we now talk of—once-in-1,000-year events. We've undertaken some projects in that Brown Hill Creek catchment, but there's a lot of work to be done to complete that project for the residents not just of my electorate but of a number of other electorates in Adelaide so that they can deal with the risk of a once-in-100-year event, which could cause a lot of significant property damage. And there is always the risk of worse, including loss of life, when these sorts of weather events occur. Obviously I'm very happy to support the next iteration of this fund that helps communities like my own invest in the sort of resilience projects needed to prepare communities and mitigate the risks of these very significant natural disasters and weather events. We are certainly seeing some significant ones at the moment. They are of course on the rainfall side of things.

I mentioned at the start of my remarks that of course in South Australia we should never complain about the rain. These serious weather and flooding events have been a terrible misfortune for communities in the Murray-Darling Basin catchment, in northern New South Wales, particularly Moree, and in the recent month in Victoria at Shepparton, Echuca and other towns along the tributary rivers and now of course the Murray itself. Coming into South Australia there are some significant flooding risks in the Riverland in South Australia at Renmark and the like. Of course, whilst we hope there is not significant damage to communities and to agricultural production and other economic activity, it is pleasing to see such significant flows that are breaking records when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly within South Australia. I think we're at almost 80,000 megalitres a day crossing the border. We have a good chance of breaking records that go back to the early 1990s.

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It does underscore that we are always going to be dealing with unpredictable weather patterns, the risk of bushfires and droughts, which, unfortunately, will return. It is a certainty that we will have droughts to contend with in the future, despite what we're experiencing right now on the other side of the coin.

This does put in place an ability for the Commonwealth to invest in a whole range of measures that will help local communities better prepare for these events.

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I think it's not until next financial year that any new decisions related to this mechanism will be entered into. We don't have the details about what they might be, but we do know that the announcements and commitments we have made to significantly impacted communities are going to be honoured by the new government.

This is an area that we should be working together in. I'm pleased that the coalition is supporting this bill. I respect and support the member for Page's second reading amendment, for the reasons I outlined at the beginning of my contribution. Nonetheless, I think that when it comes to supporting our communities to deal with these significant events that they are going to face in the future we should be doing it with a sense of unity. I anticipate that this will be supported through the parliament without dissent. With those comments I commend the bill to the House.

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