Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the Liberal member for Berowra. I am speaking after the Labor member for Herbert, the Labor member for Oxley, the Labor member for Solomon and the Labor member for Paterson. The last couple of members had to speak one after the other, because, apart from one climate change denier, the member for Berowra couldn't even get a single Liberal or National Party person to back him up. It's shameful.

Like most Australians, we understand that there are lots of natural disasters, and this has been a particularly brutal summer. In New South Wales, we have had more than 330 fires blazing across the state, with 20 homes destroyed and others damaged. In Tasmania, fires ravaged the World Heritage listed forests. Trees that were more than 1,000 years old were destroyed.

In Queensland, we have seen record-breaking rainfall, which caused extreme flooding that will create havoc for many years. The Bureau of Meteorology described the Far North Queensland rainfall event as 'exceptional'. In and around Townsville, the accumulated total rainfall over consecutive days was the city's highest on record since records began way back in 1888. Some areas have received more than 2,000 millimetres of rain over a 12-day period—2,000 millimetres is two metres of rain. Three people lost their lives in the Queensland floods, and more people are obviously suffering from bacterial infections from contaminated floodwaters. Stock losses are likely to reach more than half a million, and this is heartbreaking for a cattle industry already worn down by years of drought. The Insurance Council of Australia estimates that property damage in North Queensland will reach more than half a billion dollars.

You may wonder what's going on with our weather. The BOM last week made a statement in response to the heavy rainfall and flooding in tropical Queensland and they explained in their climate statement that they are likely 'to underestimate the probability of such rainfall in the future. This is because the climate system is changing and global warming increases the likelihood of heavy rainfall events in most locations.' The BOM's earlier report, The state of the climate 2018, reveals that Australia's climate has warmed by just over one per cent since 1910. The south-east of Australia has seen a decline of April to October rainfall of around 11 per cent since the late 1990s. Rainfall has increased across parts of Northern Australia since the 1970s, and there has been a long-term increase in extreme fire weather and in the duration of the fire season across large parts of Australia. The report also discusses why we're seeing these changes. It says:

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and methane, make it harder for the Earth to radiate this heat, so increase the temperature of the Earth's surface, ocean and atmosphere.

The Morrison government's own report says we're going to see more of these extreme weather events because of global warming, yet they have no real policy to address climate change and no-one prepared to even speak about it. Australians need a government who will give them the immediate assistance they need to recover when a disaster occurs but also one that has the foresight to implement policies that will reduce climate change and prevent future devastation from natural disasters.

In 2014, the Productivity Commission presented the coalition government with a report into natural disaster funding. The then Minister for Justice said on 1 May 2015 that a full response would be provided after consultation with the states. No coalition government response has yet been provided five years and many natural disasters later. This government has done nothing to prepare Australia for an increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters in the coming years. What it has done is scrap the only Commonwealth government oversight for national disaster relief and recovery arrangements. The government wound up the Australian Government Reconstruction Inspectorate in 2015, despite that agency identifying over $120 million in ineligible projects from Queensland alone. That was after the Queensland Reconstruction Authority had already identified $2.7 billion in ineligible claims. The Australian National Audit Office estimates that for every dollar spent in approved insurance, between $10 and $20 is saved in not paying out ineligible claims—money that could potentially be used to prepare for national disasters.

Why is this so? The Liberal Party doesn't understand Queensland. Look at the prime ministers they've had. You have the member for Cook, who comes from Bronte; the member for Warringah, who actually comes from Bronte; and then the former member for Wentworth, for a bit of variety, came from Point Piper. You could throw a blanket over those three suburbs! They don't fundamentally understand Queensland. Kevin Rudd and Bill Shorten, who's married to a Queenslander, understand the problems that beset our estate. We need a government that takes national disaster seriously, that will act to reduce climate change to lessen the extreme weather events and that is prepared for the disasters that we will face in the future. What do we need? We need a Labor government, not one that ignores Queensland.

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