Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of Senator David Pocock's matter of urgency. As the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Australia's Disaster Resilience, I have learnt a lot—I'm sure we all have on that committee—in the past year about what our communities need to protect them in this bushfire season. As of Tuesday 12 September, the committee had received over 138 submissions from organisations and everyday Australians, and we thank them dearly for that. Many of them are still coping with the impacts of the Black Saturday bushfires. Some of them are still living in tents and caravans.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services told the committee that the capacity of local governments to respond to natural disasters like bushfires is falling and that communities need more help from state governments and the Commonwealth. When a community is impacted by a fire it is the local government—the councils—that are on the front line. They are responsible for the evacuation centres and for most of the local roads, and they are often the ones left to do the clean-up. A large number of submissions pointed to the lack of resourcing to local governments and said that councils need to be better resourced and that they need to be consulted. Local councils don't have much say in the equipment they are given by state and federal governments, but they have to carry the cost of the maintenance, so, even if they get new fire trucks or water gliders or drones, they have to maintain them—and not only that; they have to hire and pay staff to operate the equipment. Many of these councils simply do not have the money to do that.

Mr Graeme Kelly, the General Secretary of the United Services Union, told the committee that Commonwealth funding to local councils has been decreasing since 1975. The 2021 National state of the assets report from the Australian Local Government Association, or ALGA, found that local government buildings and facilities were in extremely poor condition. ALGA has estimated that flood damage to council roads in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia alone is expected to be at least $3.8 billion. Councils collect less than four per cent of national taxation. ALGA is calling for financial assistance grants to be restored to at least one per cent of Commonwealth taxation revenue. That doesn't seem like a big ask, does it?

Just a month ago a community in Tasmania was cut off by a raging bushfire. Like a lot of communities down there, Coles Bay has just one road in and out. We need new technologies and we need funding at a grassroots level so our councils can do everything that they possibly can to prepare, warn and protect our communities because, like I have already said, they are the front line.

This September was the driest in our history. June to August 2023 were the hottest months on earth ever recorded. Our bushfire season has already started, and in August the CEO of the Australian Fire Authorities Council, Rob Webb, urged all Australians to plan and prepare for this year's bushfire season. The government needs to take that advice, too, and give our councils what they need to protect their communities. You need to do that. They are on starvation— (Time expired)