Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to the Emergency Response Fund Amendment (Disaster Ready Fund) Bill 2022 and about one of the Albanese government's key election commitments, the Disaster Ready Fund, which is designed to help communities better prepare for the impact of natural hazards. We are increasingly reminded of the need to strengthen Australia's disaster management capacity. Communities are regularly hit hard by natural hazards which then become humanitarian disasters. But with better advanced planning we might be able to avoid or at least mitigate the disastrous outcomes.

Disasters are neither natural nor inevitable.

Last week, I visited Eugowra, Parkes and Forbes in the New South Wales Central West to hear from communities affected by the ongoing devastating floods there. Eugowra is a small town with a population of 779 people that was absolutely smashed a week ago by what locals described as a 'tsunami of floodwater'. They were blindsided by the wave that roared through their town. One in five residents in Eugowra were rescued by boat or helicopter after that tsunami hit last Monday, and, sadly, lives were lost.

Just today, the Prime Minister visited Eugowra with the New South Wales Premier to meet people affected by the crisis and to announce recovery grants of up to $50,000 for small businesses and not-for-profit organisations affected by the September-October flooding events in New South Wales. That is an important quick-response aspect of this government's approach to dealing with the disaster.

But a vital point was made to me in Eugowra last Friday that reminds us why the resilience focus of the Disaster Ready Fund is just as important as the immediate recovery after a disaster. We need to build resilience ahead of time and not just respond to natural hazards when they get out of hand and become disasters. In Eugowra last Friday I spoke with small-business owner Greg Agustin, who owns a small auto mechanic shop in the main street of the town. Greg is a local SES incident controller, and he and his wife have been with the SES for decades. I asked if he had ever experienced a disaster of this scale, and he said, 'No flood like this.' Greg's workshop was absolutely devastated by the wall of water that hit Eugowra. He said he was initially thinking of just walking away from the business, such was the devastation, but he said he was already having second thoughts about that decision. He said: 'It depends on how the town goes. If they still need work done, well, I can still do it.' With each day that passes, there is a growing sense of optimism that the people of Eugowra will stick around and rebuild and that businesses will open up again.

Today's visit by the Prime Minister to announce the $50,000 business grants is a step on the path to recovery. I met with Mark McMullen and Sandra Arnold, local emergency service officers from the Australian Red Cross who had been first responders on the ground in Eugowra. Mark said, 'We need to continue to build community resilience through cross-training of services so we can adapt to the changing circumstances.' He was talking about improving the ways in which we respond to disasters by better coordinating our relief groups and working together.

Sandra told me of the importance of letting others know when you are safe in an emergency. The Red Cross Register.Find.Reunite service lets family, friends and emergency services know that you are safe in the event of an emergency. Sandra said that, during the summer bushfires of 2019-20, a staggering 71,000 people registered with the service and over 650 people were reunited thanks to it. It was used by agencies to learn the whereabouts of people who had fled the fires and to follow up with them.

We know that natural hazards such as floods, bushfires and violent storms are becoming more frequent and more severe, but there is much we can do individually and collectively to prevent them from turning into disasters. The Disaster Ready Fund seeks to curb the devastating impacts of natural hazards by investing in important disaster prevention projects. The Disaster Ready Fund will provide up to $200 million per year for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction initiatives, as recommended by the Productivity Commission in 2015.

Dedicating the Disaster Ready Fund to natural hazard risk reduction and resilience initiatives will provide a clearer distinction between funding sources for recovery and resilience and will enhance the focus on building resilience for future natural disasters. This will include investments in a broad range of infrastructure initiatives. Two areas for this could be so-called grey infrastructure, which includes human made structures, such as dams, sea walls, roads and water treatment plants; and green-blue infrastructure, which is the use of vegetation, soils and natural processes.

Both of these infrastructure approaches seek to mitigate the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on communities. These kinds of activities help deliver on the government's agenda for climate adaptation by implementing projects that futureproof Australian communities against future disaster impacts. The bill will transform the former government's inadequate Emergency Response Fund into a dedicated, ongoing source of funding for natural disaster resilience and risk reduction initiatives. Over three years their Emergency Response Fund didn't complete a single mitigation project or release a cent in recovery funding, which at the same time earned the former government over $800 million in interest. This left us dangerously unprepared, and the Albanese government won't repeat the mistakes of any previous government.

I also want to take the opportunity to congratulate the opposition and those within the Senate. Whilst there are some amendments moved, the essence of this bill is being supported, to the credit of the opposition as well, because not only is it important to hold us responsible for decisions that we all make in this place, including those in the past, but it's important that we are forward thinking for how we move together on this very important issue of dealing with these terrible disasters. By preparing for natural disasters we can protect lives and livelihoods and lower damage bills for floods, fires and cyclones. We are committed to better protecting towns—like all of us here—like Eugowra, for people like Greg, Sandra and Mark. We support the bill.