Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. Will the Attorney-General inform the House about the Commonwealth’s emergency response to natural disasters across Australia this summer?

Robert McClelland (Barton, Australian Labor Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question and note the tremendous assistance that she and indeed other members of this House have given to constituents affected by the natural disasters that have affected the Australian population during this summer period. Literally hundreds of thousands of Australians have been impacted. We are well aware, from the debate yesterday and from the member’s personal accounts, of the impact of the floods in Queensland and Cyclone Yasi. Extensive flooding also occurred in Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia. Western Australia received extensive flooding at Carnarvon in December, severe storms and, just this week, severe bushfires with some 60 homes destroyed and 30 seriously damaged. In fact, the area now covered by natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements in Australia exceeds the area of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Portugal combined.

Of course, substantial preparations went into the season. We had noticed that it was going to be a bad year for the second time. Emergency Management Australia conducted pre-season briefings but this time they did it on a localised basis assisted by Geoscience Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology, the defence forces and human services. For the first time, they commissioned emergency management liaison officers from the Commonwealth, with state emergency responders, and they were in turn able to call on assistance and liaison officers from other agencies.

Financially, there has been massive relief. The Prime Minister has indicated that to date there have been in the order of 357,000 claims under the Australian government disaster recovery payments totalling some $421 million and 38,000 Australians or thereabouts are receiving disaster income recovery subsidies right around Australia totalling some $19 million. But, as the Treasurer has indicated, when the full extent of natural disaster relief and recovery arrangements are implemented, that bill, including the reconstruction of infrastructure right around Australia, will be in the order of billions of dollars.

These events have been significant. This Friday I have called an extraordinary meeting of emergency management ministers from the various states and territories around Australia. We will be receiving a debriefing from each of the ministers regarding the impact in their state or territory and conducting an initial assessment of the impact of these natural disasters and the response. But also, significantly, we will be sitting down to plan future directions in respect of emergency management policy development. We think that exercise will be of benefit to the Council of Australian Governments meeting next week, chaired, of course, by the Prime Minister, which will be developing a whole-of-government national resilience strategy.

These events have been devastating. Regrettably, they are part of our natural environment, but can I assure all members that the federal government is committed to providing every reasonable assistance to individuals, to businesses and to communities who have been affected and, significantly, is taking all necessary action in partnership with our governments around Australia to increase the capacity of resilience of local communities, to minimise the impact of these natural disasters and to bounce back after they inevitably occur.