Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

In respect of the ministerial statement on the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

This is a really important document that has been tabled here today. The coalition government has implemented for the first time in our history the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, which provides a guide to national action to address existing disaster risks and also to look into the future. We learnt many, many lessons from last year's catastrophic summer of bushfires. One of the things we did learn and understand is that, as a nation, we need to get better at coordination. We need to work cooperatively with the states to be prepared, to have an eye on the future and also to learn from the mistakes of the past.

Our National Partnership Agreement on Disaster Risk Reduction has agreed to invest $261 million over five years for these risk reduction initiatives. But one thing that I am particularly proud of in this framework, that I think is so vitally important, is that what we did learn from last summer's bushfires was how dependent we are on our emergency services—on our paid emergency services but, more importantly, on the volunteers and the charities and the not-for-profit organisations that come together to assist those paid personnel and then to support the communities in their recovery activities. And for the first time we are truly recognising those organisations, but we're also focusing a lens on their mental health and their wellbeing, because these people put themselves out there on the front line. I don't care if you're an SES volunteer, a rural fire service volunteer or a Red Cross volunteer pouring tea and being the support person for the other personnel at the end of a really tough day—you feel what you're going through, you're working day after day and you are seeing the ravages of the emergency on your friends, on your colleagues and, most importantly, on your community.

Last year, just after the bushfires, I travelled around the state of New South Wales and went to many bushfire affected communities. I went down to Malua Bay and I spoke with the volunteers who were coordinating efforts to provide people with the day-to-day essentials, people who'd lost everything. I went to Cobargo and I met this amazing woman who was coordinating recovery efforts for stock. She was coordinating getting stock feed in from all over the state and then distributing it on a triage basis to those who needed it most, and her efforts should be absolutely commended. I went to Rylstone and I met with personnel from Indonesia who'd come over with the Indonesian defence force to help with our efforts in our bushfire recovery. I also travelled to Wagga where I met our own Defence Force personnel and I met evacuees who had been rehomed temporarily at our RAAF base in Wagga. They said the RAAF personnel were their blue angels. They really spoke so highly of them. What I saw was that when these people put themselves out there, and they weren't thinking about themselves; they were thinking about their community.

But in the wash-up of all of this, we need to think of those people. We need to think about how they are doing in that wash-up, because during that time they absorbed all of the anguish of their communities and now it's time for us to help them. I'm so proud of our government and of the Nationals for working hard to invest over $15.9 million to support the mental health of emergency services and workers and their families. We're doing this by providing $11.5 million to the Black Dog Institute and to Fortem Australia, so that they can provide specialist mental health support services for those who responded to the 2019-20 bushfires and support for their families. We're also developing the first-ever mental health national action plan for emergency services workers, so that we can work to reduce suicide and mental illness among these vital personnel and the people who put themselves forward first when we're in times of need.

Further to that, our framework is also looking at critical incident planning capability so that next time we are better prepared and we can effectively respond to these critical incidents, not just bushfires. These incidents could be floods and other catastrophes, like cyclones in Queensland. We need to better understand and build resilience and develop our critical systems so that our first responders are better prepared and better able to hit the ground running. We're also investing in a number of management capabilities to assist in this. We are putting $88.1 million towards disaster and resilience research. This is vital money going to research into not only what causes catastrophes but also how best to address those catastrophes. We're also investing in streamlining our fire danger rating system, because at the moment, from state-to-state, we all use different terminology and different rating systems. We need to get better at working together as a nation. If we've learnt anything through COVID, it is that we are one nation and that borders, when they become hard borders, make life incredibly hard. When you don't have something like a pandemic—when you've got something like a bushfire—it doesn't give a toss about a line on a map or about where a river flows. That bushfire is going through regardless. It is so important for us to have the same language in that situation. We have responders who are doing the same job so we need the same language. It is vitally important that we get that right.

The National Coordination Mechanism and Emergency Management Australia are also leaning into a number of substantial challenges that we collectively face across this nation. But what we are also doing—and this is really important in the current environment—is incorporating COVID-safe guidelines. This is something we don't think of when we talk about emergencies in Australia. Last bushfire season people were evacuated. They went to the school hall. They're all crammed into that building. The Red Cross came along and served them tea. The Salvation Army brought them food. It was fantastic. Imagine if that happened right now in the time of the pandemic. We are already working on developing on how we adjust our response to ensure that we can do so in a COVID-safe way, to ensure that we have the hand sanitiser and to ensure we have enough space between people but, importantly, also to ensure that those people are safe from the emergency and safe from COVID.

We are learning all the time. This is not a silver bullet. This framework is an ongoing living document, and that is so important, because we know that, as technology gets better, as we get more data and as our knowledge gets better, we are going to improve how we respond to emergencies. This government is working really hard to make sure we are on the front foot and ready to go, ready to adapt.

I commend this framework and the report on it to the chamber and I encourage you all to read it. Please, as we go into summer and we go off for our summer holidays, remember to be bushfire ready. If you live in a regional area, like I do, have your bushfire plan ready, clear your gutters out, get your hoses ready and be prepared, because it's really important. If you're not safe, you're not going to be around to help your neighbours. So I commend the framework to the chamber. I wish you all a merry Christmas and a very safe bushfire-ready flood-ready season. Thank you.