Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I rise in support of the member for Warringah's private member's bill, the Climate Change (National Framework for Adaptation) Bill 2025, and thank her for her tireless efforts since her election to protect our climate and environment.

The threat posed by climate change is existential. We know what is coming and yet we are failing to act decisively. Extreme weather events fuelled by climate change are already destroying lives and livelihoods across Australia. So far this year in Australia, we have faced Cyclone Alfred, the most severe drought in decades in South Australia, devastating floods on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, ocean heatwaves that are causing mass bleaching of the Great Barrier and Ningaloo reefs, and vast and deadly algal blooms off South Australia. The frequency and ferocity of extreme weather events will only get worse, and yet here in Australia we have not implemented even some of the most basic measures required to respond and adapt effectively.

The member for Warringah's bill addresses these failings. It would require government to undertake a number of actions, including regularly assessing climate risk, formulating a plan to address the risks and mapping our progress against that plan. These three actions represent some of the most basic and most commonsense steps required by any government that is serious about rising to meet the threat of climate change. I'd also like to highlight that the member for Warringah is calling for the cost of climate change to be incorporated into the federal budget. Until this happens, action will never meet the challenge. According to Deloitte Access Economics, extreme weather is already costing the economy more than $38 billion a year, and yet at last week's productivity roundtable climate risk wasn't even on the agenda.

Lastly, the most critical action of this framework, I believe, is to ensure all new bills are compatible with climate change adaptation and resilience measures. Why? This is because we have two fundamental flaws in our political decision-making process. One, we have siloed decision-making so that different ministers and departments take actions that conflict and undermine the goals of other ministers. Two, we have an absence of long-term vision. Without an all-of government response, we are unlikely to ever make real progress, and it cannot be left solely to the purview of the minister for climate change to act on this existential threat.

Implementing the member for Warringah's framework would embed climate resilience into the DNA of our decision-making across all sectors and levels of government, and in the strongest terms possible I commend this bill to the House.

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