Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

As we speak today in this place, once again communities are sandbagged, houses are under water, crops are ruined and families are grieving. Lismore residents have had to face the risk of being flooded for the third time this year. Communities across New South Wales and Victoria have been dramatically affected. Residents of Maribyrnong in Melbourne are cleaning up—if they've even been able to get back into their homes. And we were warned. We've been warned for years, and we've not listened. For that, we are culpable.

I truly hope this legislation is a turning point for common sense, pragmatism, action and taking note of expert advice, because we knew that climate change would mean natural disasters of greater severity and frequency. Our own experts have reams of data on this and the advice we need. I recently witnessed the extraordinary air-monitoring work and greenhouse- and carbon-emission modelling at the CSIRO in Aspendale, just on the fringe of the electorate of Goldstein, for example. For decades, governments have neither listened nor heard the warnings. Climate policy has been politicised and weaponised. Talking about climate change during so-called natural disasters has been dismissed. Apparently, it hasn't been the right time. Ordinary Australians across the country have paid the price for this wilful blindness.

In many ways, community concern about this inaction has put me here to make this speech today. Few Australians—city or country, coastal or inland, urban or rural—remain untouched by the impacts of our changing climate. People in Goldstein and elsewhere want action, real changes to reduce carbon emissions, but unfortunately, due to our tardy actions, the impact of climate change will be baked in for some time. And we already know what that looks like: houses under water, properties burnt out, flora and fauna unlikely to recover, biodiversity reduced, our future prosperity at risk. Methane is growing exponentially, in part, due to increasing rotting vegetation and increased rain and flooding in the tropics, for example.

So far, properties in some places in North Queensland have been rendered uninsurable, and, as I said, Lismore and parts of Brisbane have been underwater twice or more in the past year. The Black Summer of 2020-21 cost lives, ruined futures and destroyed houses, fences and livestock. Two years on, some of the affected people are still living in tents. Urban areas like Goldstein also see an impact, particularly in the form of increasingly severe erosion on the shores of Melbourne's beautiful bay as more severe storm activity occurs with ever-increasing frequency.

This is something we can now expect, plan for and risk manage—indeed, we must. Yet management remains fragmented: multiple departments, stakeholders and levels of governments work at cross-purposes or remain unaware of what the other is doing. Wheels are reinvented, money is wasted and responsibility is not taken. Half the time, no-one even knows whose responsibility the particular issue is. In Goldstein and along Port Phillip Bay, 60-plus organisations have a stake in bayside management. Dozens of community organisations, councils, state government departments and more tell me they want support to become more cohesive. This is a facilitation role that the federal government can play, helped through this kind of funding in the Disaster Ready Fund.

The previous government barely talked the talk on this subject, let alone walked the walk, declaring disaster response to be largely a state responsibility. After the horrifying Black Summer—a disaster we were warned about, by the way—it took too much time to deploy the military to assist. Former NSW fire chief Greg Mullins told me it would happen months before it did. Again, we were warned. Over and over again, we have seen flood and fire victims struggle to get access to relief assistance and their government benefits.

The old Emergency Response Fund had $4.8 billion in the kitty, but it was not responsive. The emergency was that people in need couldn't get what they needed when they needed it. People in distress didn't get the money they needed. All it did was earn the government interest on the money allocated. With this legislation, we must do much better. We must prepare vulnerable communities for the acts of nature that appear inevitable, and we can no longer say that we didn't know.

The Bureau of Meteorology is warning us that we are in for another La Nina summer. Many parts of Australia are already sodden in ways they have not been for decades, and we don't have much time. This $200 million, the amount for disaster resilience and risk reduction, needs to be actively deployed expeditiously to have maximum impact, and, realistically, it is just a start. It's time to improve coordination, planning and cooperation. The Commonwealth Grants Rules and Guidelines must be used to ensure this money is spent well, expeditiously and, most importantly, where it's most immediately needed.

But we're also at the point where we need to become more realistic and more strategic about what's ahead. Part of that is about managing risk. How we will do that and with what kind of emergency workforce is something we must also begin to consider. While our Defence Force has always jumped to the task, dragging our forces away from training and deployment every time we have a disaster is not a long-term solution, with more frequent disasters predicted. We must consider developing a national disaster response force, with training and resources to match, if we are to manage the challenges we know are coming—just like we must take seriously giving vulnerable communities the tools for resilience. The events of the last year, in particular, have demonstrated that we have no more time to wait.

This legislation is a step in the right direction, but the money versus the cost of the damage is just a drop in the warming ocean. It's a reminder, too, of how much more there is to be done.

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