Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

It seems somewhat incongruous that we are debating the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022, a bill that changes its name, moves money from one pocket to another, from response to emergency management to mitigation projects, while across the eastern states we have thousands of people displaced by floods, children who can't go to school, parents who are probably a bit traumatised about what to do next, communities, including my home town, on evacuation orders and immeasurable losses that we're facing. We've had crop losses across the eastern seaboard, and not just the crops that are in the ground. But we have opportunity loss as well because we can't get the tractors on the paddocks to sow the summer crops, and we can't get the harvesters on the paddocks to take off or salvage any winter crops we may have had.

We have a town in the southern Riverina right now that is absolutely isolated. People had until one o'clock today to be escorted out of town. If they missed that window, they will remain in that town because, while the town is above the floodwaters, every road in and out of town is closed. Some properties will remain isolated for weeks, if not longer. The way the floodwaters move in the southern Riverina is slow—and I mean slow. Personally, my front driveway is about to be blocked off. We'll be taking a tinny across the main road to get the shops.

But against all that sadness and all the hardship, I am so proud to be part of a coalition who, when we were in government, established the Emergency Response Fund and the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements that are being used by the current government as we speak. These provide a method of partnership between state and federal governments so that we can respond without delay and so we don't have to wait for the layers and layers of bureaucracy to come into play. The Emergency Response Fund invested in this sort of work to help focus resources on the important work of both mitigation and—when we were in government—response.

For many at this present time, planning for prevention is not the front-of-mind issue. What people are asking is: how do we clean up, how do we patch up and how do we move forward? But I do agree that we do need to assess how we can be better, and this bill does help to do that. The two main policy changes in this bill are a renaming and a swapping of the primary responsibility of this bill from what we had as response to funding preparedness and mitigation activities so that communities can be better prepared for future disasters, be they flood, fire, cyclone or any other natural disaster.

Earlier this year, we would have liked to have thought the floods were behind us. March was dreadful. The Northern Rivers were devastated, and that region is looking not only at how to build back better but at how to mitigate for what the future may hold. There is so much work that needs to continue to rebuild Lismore and the Northern Rivers area. But now we're seeing flood after flood. We've seen the community of Broke in the Hunter have multiple floods in just months. We're seeing Forbes facing river peak after river peak. Then there's Echuca, Shepparton, Swan Hill, Deniliquin, Moulamein and Conargo—my little home village, where we've only just reopened our pub after eight years. Our pub burnt down eight years ago. We just reopened it in October, and they are now sandbagging as much as possible in the hope to protect the brand new flooring they put in.

In 2019 we set up the Emergency Response Fund—our government, the coalition government. The intention was for it to be an investment fund so that we had money ready for when disasters hit. This initial investment would grow over time—and it did grow over time. As at the end of December last year, the balance was $4.7 billion. That's an increase from a $3.97 billion initial investment. When the current minister, Senator Murray Watt, who I rate and who I work very well with, was shadow minister he—almost from the time the fund was established—criticised the government for not spending the money, even when we did haven't a disaster to respond to. He believed we had a crystal ball and that we could have predicted the level of damage caused by the one-in-500-year Lismore floods. He believed that we could have predicted that we would have three consecutive La Nina events that would lead to what is happening at the moment. We didn't think that. We thought we needed to be ready to pay for the repairs when natural disasters hit.

But I do acknowledge that preparedness and mitigation are very important, and the now government, when they were in opposition, made a commitment that they would spend $200 million annually on disaster prevention. This bill delivers on that commitment that they made, but what this bill lacks is the critical detail about how they will do that, what the money will cover, how potential projects will be assessed, transparency as to how funds will be dispensed, what prioritisation they will have and how it will be dispersed amongst the states. In introducing this bill into the House of Representatives it was evident that much of this important administrative and financial probity detail was missing.

As we know, the Senate Selection of Bills Committee raised concerns. The Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee held public inquiries, and while there was overall support for the intent of the legislation, concerns were raised about the why and how of its operation. The insurance industry believe $200 million annually is a bare minimum. The Red Cross in their evidence suggested there should be a significant proportion of the fund directed to building social and human resilience for people in communities. On the other hand the Australian Local Government Association suggested the bulk of the money is needed to be directed to local government for local mitigation projects and infrastructure and be allowed to build back better, because that's where it is needed to start.

Other witnesses raised a number of issues, from better database collection and improved accountability to accessibility and overall better access to information, but that's what's missing in this bill. I asked the Local Government Association about their reference to 'build back better' and whether there is a grey area between recovery and mitigation. Their response was clearly that it's very important to have a sharp and clear definition about the fact that this funding in the future, if this bill passes, can be used only for mitigation infrastructure and that local government advocates for a formula and needs-based funding arrangement that is transparent.

Other witnesses and submitters indicated a need to determine who the stakeholders might be, how and what funds could be used for, how projects are prioritised and how the jurisdictions are all covered. My concerns expressed at the inquiry and since are around these grey areas and around the recovery and mitigation. We know some local government areas were in the process of building mitigation projects but have been delayed by the current floods, by the lack of labour or by the inability to get materials. Now, I know that we don't have that crystal ball. We can't predict. We can look at the models. We can make our best guess. But that is not a silver bullet, and we all need to always be prepared for disaster. But I am willing to support this bill with an amendment that improves the transparency of the bill and improves the accountability of whoever is in government in the future.

There are many examples of impacts that have not been expected or previously experienced. Take, for example, Eugowra. They were preparing for a flood. They thought the waters would come on. They didn't expect a tsunami. I agree that we do need to invest in resilience and building measures and risk reduction, and that's why our government committed out of our Emergency Response Fund $150 million for the Northern Rivers resilience and mitigation projects that will be advised by work that is currently being done by the CSIRO. But we don't have the luxury of doing that in isolation from current and repetitive events.

Right now our communities are asking us to rebuild. We are learning. The latest floods have shown us that we need to reconsider where and how we build houses, roads, bridges and other transport routes. I acknowledge that the current minister has finally accepted that. When the former National Recovery and Resilience Agency Coordinator-General said the same thing, the guy who is now our Minister for Emergency Management called for him to be sacked. There is much talk now about planning laws. Those discussions need to be had, but we also need to acknowledge that we have allowed planning and development on floodplains. We need to work with those communities on what works best for them.

The opposition will support this bill. We will be moving an amendment to make it more transparent. We cannot underestimate the current fragility of our rural and regional communities. We pride ourselves on our toughness and our ability to get on with the job, but large parts of Australia are at present struggling and they need to know that we are going to stand by them in both recovery and future mitigation efforts. I implore the government to make sure that, while moving this funding from recovery to mitigation projects, they don't turn their back on the funding that will be required following these floods. In this latest disaster the road infrastructure that needs to be repaired is going to require a significant commitment from the government, so I implore the government not to forget this hard task at hand. We will support the bill with an amendment for this Emergency Response Fund.