Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Could I thank the members of the chamber who have made contributions to this debate. Everyone of them has been a really important one.

We just heard there from the member for Eden-Monaro, who has probably one of the best on-the-ground experiences of this problem. She told us that her community has experienced nine declared natural disasters in the period of time that she was the mayor of her local community. We heard, too, from the member for Macquarie. Those in the chamber will know that the member for Macquarie's community has struggled with fire and flood and storm damage, virtually relentless natural disasters, over a period of some years now, just in the time she's been in the parliament.

I thank the members who have contributed to the debate. I am enormously respectful of the commitment they show to their local communities and the leadership that we see them provide those communities when they are under these most distressing of circumstances. It's partly through the advocacy of these members that we bring forward to the parliament a bill that will assist families and communities when they are going through those dark periods recovering from natural disasters. The Social Security Amendment (Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment) Bill 2023 will amend the Social Security Act 1991 to ensure we can continue to support Australians when times are tough.

The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment will offer a helping hand in the immediate aftermath of a major disaster, and it has already assisted tens of thousands of impacted Australians in recent years. We heard the member for Eden-Monaro talk earlier about the immediacy of needs that people have when their entire livelihood has essentially been destroyed by a natural disaster. We are literally talking about how a family feeds the children and buys new clothes and shoes so that people have something to wear the next day. That is the sense of immediacy that's needed here, and we don't want to set up a payment system where people are waiting for months and months for the money that they very much deserve. So we are very focused on ensuring Australians have what they need when they are in that recovery period immediately after the event.

The amendments proposed in the bill will provide the government with great ability to quickly and efficiently support communities when the scale of disaster requires government assistance and beyond government assistance provided by state and territory governments.

It's not accidental that the bill is coming before a parliament at this particular period. We have the high-risk weather season formally starting on 1 October 2023. I've spoken to the parliament about the information that we have as a government and as a community about what this high-risk weather season is going to look like, and we need to share this information as far and wide as we can. What we know is that there are weather patterns coming our way that will be facilitating greater vulnerability to fire, greater vulnerability to storms and, in fact, this is the season that we have experienced since the Black Summer bushfires that is most dangerous for the country.

Of course, any government worth their salt is going to use the information that we have from the various scientific sources to make sure that we are preparing. The minister responsible for emergency services has been doing an enormous amount of work with state and territory governments and with people around the country to try to make sure we have what we need in place.

The members who spoke before me talked about the fact we are going to have natural disasters in our country. No politician should or would ever suggest otherwise. What's important for us is that we build that national resilience in our communities and that government is there to give a helping hand to people in the moment that they need it, and that is the intention of the bill before the parliament.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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