Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia is a vast continent which, habitually, experiences significant natural disasters such as bushfires, droughts, floods, cyclones and hail events. Evidence suggests that as our climate changes, so do the frequency and intensity of these events, bringing with them an imperative on our part to better prepare ourselves as one thing is certain: we are only moments away from the next disaster event.

This bill, the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, is an important and vital step in the right direction. Natural disaster resilience and risk reduction are logical and pragmatic approaches for us to take and are things that we cannot do too soon.

I've recalled the natural disaster experiences of my electorate on many occasions in this place and recently spoke of events occurring around the country. Everyone can remember the horrific summer bushfires of 2019-20. My community experienced firsthand the devastation of intense and fast-moving fires across the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island.

Kangaroo Island saw the largest fire that the island had ever recorded. The fire burnt more vegetation than any other fire, at any time. The fires started on 20 December 2019 and were finally declared under control on 21 January 2020. The carnage from this event was significant. Two people lost their lives. The homes of 56 people were destroyed, along with hundreds of other buildings, including a large ecotourism facility that was damaged. Twenty-three firefighters were injured and two CFS fire trucks were damaged. The fires burnt 211,000 hectares—almost half of the island—and burnt through one of the most important ecological sites, the Flinders Chase National Park. This park is home to the endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart and the glossy black-cockatoo. The fires killed an estimated 25,000 koalas on Kangaroo Island and destroyed the habitats of numerous other animals.

In the Adelaide Hills, also on 20 December, we experienced a major fire that started at Cudlee Creek. The fire spread rapidly throughout the townships of Mount Pleasant, Springton, Palmer, Mount Torrens, Harrogate, Inglewood, Gumeracha, Lobethal and Woodside. The fire went on to burn 23,000 hectares and resulted in the death of an elderly man and the destruction of 84 homes, more than 400 outbuildings and 292 vehicles.

I've got to say, in a rural community, losing your outbuildings is nearly as bad as losing your home, because your outbuildings are how you collect all of your rainwater, and if you lose your rainwater tanks, you just can't live there. I think sometimes people in the city don't realise that when your electricity goes off in a rural community, so does your water. If you lose that infrastructure, you lose your ability to live in that home, even if the home is still standing.

In the lead-up to these fires, South Australia had experienced dangerous fire conditions with strong winds, low humidity and high temperatures for several days. Nearly the entire state recorded its highest level of accumulated Forest Fire Danger Index for December. On 20 December, the conditions were horrendous. The state had already sweltered through four days of extreme heat. A temperature of 49.9 degrees was felt on the western side of our state and it was 43.9 degrees in Adelaide. More than 200 bushfires started that day, requiring more than 1,500 firefighters to respond. Thirty-one firefighters and two police officers were injured.

While we hope these events are never repeated, they will unfortunately and inevitably challenge us again. I'd just like to say: I heard many of the speeches with respect to this bill yesterday, and I was really disappointed at how many speeches were saying really quite negative things about the previous government and the actions of the previous government. I have to say, during those fires, the former Prime Minister visited both the Adelaide Hills and Kangaroo Island. Senator McKenzie and the member for Maranoa, who were both ministers at the time, also gave support. For the long period of recovery time after the fires had gone out, all those people were only a phone call away to support my community. I would like to mention that, while the whole of the nation was on fire, it was an extraordinarily difficult job for the government of the day. I'd also like to give a shout-out to BlazeAid because BlazeAid came into my community. People who didn't even live in Mayo or South Australia stayed for months and months and helped us rebuild our fences and our lives.

Talking about the future, we know that the best defence is to prepare and reduce risk. In August I spoke to the Climate Change Bill and referenced the catastrophic flooding occurring on many parts of the east coast. At that time around $5.3 billion in claims had been lodged, according to the Insurance Council of Australia. Just weeks later again we saw flooding across much of the east coast, and that is now spreading across much of our regional centres.

Multiple La Nina cycles have resulted in successive waves of heavy rainfall events. It seems to be a daily occurrence that we're listening to this on the news. The impact of these events isn't restricted to those living in the affected regions. Hundreds of homes have been damaged, adding to the already stretched construction sector and this will be felt across much of our nation. Our vast food bowl, which all Australians rely on for fresh food, has experienced substantial temporary destruction, further adding to the cost-of-living pressures.

It's unclear from the bill how the $200 million per annum will be allocated for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction. I'm pleased that the government has moved from a reactionary to a preparatory footing. This bill is a start. Of course, I support it. I say to members who are experiencing flooding in their electorate now that the hearts of those in my community go out to your communities. I have the end of the River Murray in my electorate and I know that many in South Australia are beginning to hold their breath as we see the River Murray waters continue further downstream. I commend this bill to the House.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise on the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022 and to follow the member for Mayo, who took time out today to explain to the chamber and put on the record the impact that natural disasters and the fires have had on her community. I thank her for doing so this morning and I thank her for her support for the measures in this bill.

These are preventative measures. Like with preventative health measures, this bill has an economic dividend. We know that when we spend money on preventative health we save millions of dollars as well as improve the health of millions of people. We have a healthier community and lower costs in our hospitals and to Medicare. When we spend upfront we save money at the back end. This bill is about doing the same thing in response to climate change.

We in this country can and do respond to natural disasters. We know we do so now at an increasing rate as disasters increasingly impact us. One could argue—and blind Freddy knows—that climate change means more natural disasters or, rather, more human induced disasters of the natural environment. When we say 'natural disasters' there's an implication that they are happening not because it's anyone's fault but because it's a natural disaster. For centuries we didn't blame anyone and, if we did blame someone, we blamed the gods. In this current environment and modern society we know that climate change is seeing increasing natural disasters. This bill is about ensuring that as a country we have a fund that allows us to do preventative things rather than just respond to these events. I think every Australian will welcome the government putting in place these measures.

My community, after the 1973 floods, did extensive flood mitigation, which held us in good stead last week. When the floods came through and the river rose, we didn't end up needing mass evacuations in my community, because we'd done flood mitigation decades ago. It was tested in the '83 floods, when we all gave a sigh of relief because people's homes and properties weren't inundated and we weren't cut off from other parts of Melbourne, and it was tested again last week, when the river rose higher than I've seen it for some time. It rose higher than in '83, but, because of those mitigation measures, we were all safe.

This makes sense on so many levels. We knew it was coming—science told us it was coming—and we're now seeing it with our own eyes and feeling it in our own communities, particularly with the floods in Australia that we've seen across this year. It would be wrong not to mention those communities and the impact the floods of the last 12 months have had on them, and it would be wrong not to mention the impact that the bushfires have had, across the last several years, in communities in different parts of the country.

My community has been fortunate. Grassfires have threatened my community, because we're surrounded still by the Iramoo plains, and grassfires can move very quickly, as we know from history. On multiple occasions a fire has begun at Aireys Inlet or somewhere else down the coast. It can start in a forest, spread to the grass and move very quickly, and we can wake to find Gisborne is burning. It's come through the back of my community. So grassfires are a threat that my community knows well—we know how fast they can move on a bad day for bushfires—but across the country we have seen catastrophic events in recent times. This bill is about ensuring that we have mitigation processes and that we're ready for these disasters. It's about ensuring that we put funds where they're needed—to ensure we have the people on the ground trained to do mitigation works when they need to be done, whether they be about fires, floods or cyclones.

I'm really proud to be part of a government that recognises climate change as the threat that it is to us in this country. I'm pleased to be in a government that is thoughtful and has acted, in five months and six days, to bring this bill into the House, to give confidence to the Australian people that we understand preventive measures, understand what's needed, and we won't sit on our hands while people face disaster after disaster without an adequate response, in terms of prevention, from government. I'm really pleased to stand here and speak on the bill before us today. In my community, both fires and floods have been historical things. As I've outlined, flood mitigation measures proved to be effective this time. But who knows whether they'll be effective into the future? So I would hope that, through a fund like this, my local government and the Victorian state government could work with the federal government to look at ways through which we can track the rainfall, track what might be coming in the future, to see whether more mitigation needs to happen in my community.

It would be remiss of me not to talk about those members of the Melbourne community evacuated across Maribyrnong last week. Those families woken at five o'clock in the morning with an evacuation order would absolutely have been shocked and alarmed. One of the things about Victoria, and one of the things about Melbourne, obviously, is that, with so many new families arriving from around the world, many do not have that history of knowledge. So it would have been a shock for many families that the Maribyrnong can flood like that. I know it was a shock to me when I read not this year but in previous years that Swanson Street is part of a floodplain and that, if we get big enough rains, Swanson Street floods. That's in Melbourne's CBD.

We all remember footage of floods from history, but this bill focuses people's minds clearly on what potentially could be coming. It's putting in place measures to ensure that those things are foreseen where they can be and plans are put in place. All three levels of government can work together to minimise the impact of the disasters that we know are coming while this government commits to turning back the tide on climate change. These are really important matters. I know that every community around the country is focused on these things at the moment.

I'm waiting for my phone to give me my most recent BOM flood alert because the Werribee River is one of the watch areas and has been for over a week. I know there are people and families around the country doing the same. Last Friday, my office was evacuated. The Department of Finance rang and said, 'Turn off the electricity and evacuate the office.' We are probably 30 metres from the Werribee River. You wouldn't have contemplated that that part of Werribee could flood, so it was a shock to my staff. I was busy that day and one of my sons rang me and said, 'Mum, there's an evacuation order for our street.' So I got home to find the SES knocking on doors, like they do all the time in this country for floods. These were young SES volunteers knocking on doors. They advised me and my family to move things to higher ground, to ensure that the power was turned off and that they thought that the river would peak at 6 pm that evening. This was at 12 o'clock in the afternoon.

I lived that experience with my neighbours last week, so the comfort of this piece of legislation is extraordinary. I'll leave my comments there and thank the members of the executive of the government for bringing this bill forward. I commend the bill to the House.

Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank all members who have contributed to the debate on the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill. The bill will implement the government's election commitment to replace the Emergency Response Fund with a dedicating ongoing natural disaster resilience and risk reduction fund, the Disaster Ready Fund. The Disaster Ready Fund will provide up to $200 million a year to mitigate the devastating impacts of natural disasters by providing funding for disaster resilience and mitigation initiatives. The bill requires that this disbursement amount be reviewed at least every five years and provides the flexibility for responsible ministers to adjust the amount via a disallowable legislative instrument if appropriate. The responsible ministers will consult with the Future Fund Board of Guardians prior to making any adjustments.

The government has agreed to fund the existing $200 million commitment from the Emergency Response Fund for 2022-23, including recovery initiatives. From 1 July 2023, the bill will amend the Emergency Response Fund Act 2019 to remove funding for recovery initiatives and focus support on the government's objective to improve Australia's disaster readiness by increasing funding for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction initiatives. Funding for natural disaster recovery efforts will continue with other dedicated Commonwealth programs.

The bill will transfer responsibility for Disaster Ready Fund expenditure to the National Emergency Management Agency, which was established on 1 September 2022. The bill will also streamline arrangements for transfers from the Disaster Ready Fund special account and make administrative improvements to the operation of the fund to make it consistent with other investment funds. Once again, I thank all members for their contribution, particularly that of my friend the member for Lalor just a few moments ago. I commend the bill to the chamber.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Page moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Question unresolved.

As the question is unresolved, in accordance with standing order 188, the question will be included in the Federation Chamber's report to the House on the bill.