Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

Unlike those opposite, our government believes in the science of climate change, and what that means is that we understand that natural disasters are increasing in severity and in frequency as a consequence of these changes to our climate. It is one of the reasons that we take our commitment to reduce emissions as seriously as we do. It's also why we are taking serious steps, and have since coming to government, to rebuild trust with communities—trust that was, regrettably, lost under the previous government. We want communities to know that in a disaster the Commonwealth government will be there to support them, and that has included building good, strong working relationships with all states and territories to ensure that we can prepare effectively together, respond quickly together and recover well together.