Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Hansard source

I thank my colleague the member for Macquarie, as well as the previous speaker, the member for Gilmore and even the member for Calare who spoke earlier. They have all dealt with significant natural disasters in their electorates, and they know that we can do much, much better when it comes to disaster recovery payments. I am so proud that the Albanese Labor government is taking this issue seriously. When our communities go through natural disasters, we do not need to reinvent the recovery wheel. What we should be doing is listening to the lived experience of communities across this country, and that's exactly what the Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023 is about. It's exactly the experience that I know the member for Macquarie has expressed in this place before and directly to the minister, as I have as well.

It's incredibly important that we make it faster and easier to get immediate support and access to disaster recovery payments. Natural disasters are devastating enough without people having to jump through a variety of hoops to get a disaster payment which, effectively, buys them tomorrow's clothes. That's how simple this is. I've been on the ground with my community during nine declared natural disasters when I was the mayor of the Bega Valley Shire. You are standing with people who are experiencing one of the worst days of their lives, when all of their possessions are taken from them. So many regional Australians don't have the access to the services that our city counterparts do. It has taken a Labor government to make sure that we rectify this issue for regional Australia .

The passage of this bill will support regional and rural people to recover when disasters strike—and they will. The amendments that we are talking about will deliver urgent financial assistance to communities when time is of the essence. In my electorate, the Black Summer bushfires destroyed or damaged nearly 800 homes in the Eurobadalla Shire, nearly 600 homes in the Bega Valley, 240 homes in the Snowy Valleys, 80 homes in Queanbeyan-Palerang and around 160 homes in the Snowy Monaro Shire. The trauma of that experience for our communities and other communities around the country is ongoing. It doesn't go away when the political tourism leaves or when the cameras stop. I hope we never see another summer like the Black Summer, but we hope for the best and our communities prepare for the worst.

We want to make sure that applications to Services Australia are processed quickly. We need to put in these changes before the next high-risk weather season, which formally starts in only a few short weeks on 1 October. Faster and more efficient assessment of online claims for disaster recovery payments will be delivered through automation of parts of the assessment process. Our government is committed to improving the way in which we deliver that assistance to people, and this bill takes that process a step further. It provides the government with a clearer ability to quickly and efficiently support communities affected by disasters, when the scale of the disaster is beyond the capacity of any one state or territory government.

Last financial year alone, Services Australia processed over 1.6 million disaster recovery claims. I've seen firsthand what people do with that emergency funding, and we need to make sure that red tape gets out of the way so community members can deal with the next thing in front of them. As I said, for so many people, that is new clothes for the next day. The bill will make a practical difference for people who need faster recovery claims. This will allow a person to enter information in regard to a claim on a computer, and that information will be dealt with. Individual circumstances will still be considered with this new process, so that, if someone doesn't meet that streamlined criteria, their application will not be rejected. It will instead be considered manually, against a number of discretionary criteria. That's exactly what things like the bushfire royal commission recommended—a faster, more efficient disaster recovery system to deliver help to people. Critically, no-one will have their claim for a Disaster Recovery Payment rejected through automation.

The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment is just one of many support mechanisms that the Australian government provides to disaster affected communities. We know disasters happen across this country, and, with climate change, weather conditions will become more extreme and disasters will happen more frequently. It's a reality we can't ignore, and this is a practical step we must take to give credence to the lived experience of so many communities across this country who have asked for this help, and the Albanese government are delivering it.

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