Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to deliver a contribution on behalf of the opposition today. I'll flag at the outset that the opposition will be supporting the Emergency Response Bill 2019, with amendments. Those amendments reflect some important commitments that we have secured from the government overnight, and I'll detail them over the course of this contribution.

To begin with I think it's worth re-emphasising the importance of governments of all persuasions, at all levels of government, not only taking action to deal with the consequences of natural disasters but also taking steps to minimise the impact of those disasters before they occur. Unfortunately, as a result of climate change, we do face the certainty of increased frequency and scale of natural disasters into the future.

Already this year we are seeing bushfires strike many parts of our country, including my home state of Queensland, in areas that have not traditionally experienced them. Of course, every summer that comes round we see floods, cyclones and bushfires right across the country. As I say, as a result of climate change, it is likely that these types of disasters will occur.

We can have a debate at another time about other steps that the government should be taking to address climate change, but I just want to focus today on the matters before us with this bill. The bill, as it was originally framed, would have provided an increase to funding by the federal government for disaster recovery efforts, but a concern that the opposition has had from the time we saw this bill was that the bill in its original form was inadequate in providing funding for what's known as mitigation, or resilience, infrastructure and efforts—things that can be done to minimise the impact of disasters when they do hit. I'm talking about things like flood levees, seawalls, firebreaks and higher dam walls, along with a range of other activities that can be undertaken to minimise the impact of natural disasters when they hit.

Labor has had concerns for some time that the government has not adequately invested in disaster mitigation—that is, works to reduce the impact of disasters before they actually hit. In fact, in Queensland there's been a debate going on for some time to build a flood levee in the city of Rockhampton, which has experienced, I think, three floods over the last seven or eight years. Obviously, building flood levees in areas that are prone to natural disasters reduces their impact. It doesn't mean that the flood doesn't occur or that rain doesn't fall, but it does mean that when we do experience floods—and, as I say, they are likely to be more frequent in the future—businesses don't get wiped out, homes don't get inundated and people don't experience a massive emotional toll, and that's not to mention the financial toll that homeowners, businesses, insurers and taxpayers incur in rectifying the damage that results from natural disasters.