Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to say that the coalition supports this urgency motion today. Colleagues, we don't live in a fictional world; we live in the real world, where Australians experience fires, floods and storms. They're not abstract possibilities; they are lived realities. Every farmer from where I come from in the Hunter, every small business out in Bourke, every family that has suffered floods in Lismore and recently on the Mid North Coast where I come from knows that it's not theoretical; it is personal and it is growing. That is why the Commonwealth first set about doing this report, Australia's first national climate risk assessment.

It has taken years of work. Hundreds of scientists, analysts and consultants, with government models, have pored over data for a huge amount of time. They've reviewed international models and consulted with communities. Millions of our taxpayer dollars have been invested into what the guiding document should be about the risks of the changing climate. Yet, despite all that effort and cost, despite the promises of transparency, this report is sitting in a drawer. Millions of dollars sitting in a drawer, hidden from the very Australians who paid for it. If the government thinks that hiding in a drawer is somehow making it safer, they are wrong—in fact, it does the opposite. A risk that is hidden is a risk that is ignored. Risks that are ignored quickly become disasters. Let's be clear: this isn't about one party's ideology or another's. This is about whether the people of this country are able to see, in black and white, the assessment of the challenges they face. It's not too much to ask, is it? We've paid the money and done the work. Can we see it? The initial report identified 56 national significant risks across health, defence, food, finance, ecosystems and regional communities. Eleven of those were judged so serious that they warranted the deepest analysis. Those findings should not have been locked away until after the election, and they should not be locked away now.

The government cannot credibly say it takes climate resilience seriously if it spends millions of dollars commissioning work from Australia's best minds and then buries the findings. You don't reduce risk by hiding it; you reduce it by confronting it, planning for it and resourcing the communities to be ready for it. Think of all that wasted effort if this report stays hidden. Farmers are planning their water infrastructure, councils are trying to design flood levies and insurers are recalculating premiums in regional towns for things that may or may not happen because they don't know the government is holding the data. All these people are left guessing because this government doesn't trust Australians with their own data.

Think of that wasted cost. Taxpayers paid for this. Ordinary Australians have every right to see what their money has produced. If we commission the first-ever national climate risk map but don't release it, what message does that send to people who may suffer and who want to know what's going on with our environment? What happens if we spend all this effort on it and say, 'You don't need to know'? That millions can be spent on a report that gathers dust on a minister's shelf is not leadership, is not accountability and is not that word we hear so often from the other side: transparency. They should not use words they don't know the meaning of.

Transparency builds trust. Hiding reports breeds suspicion. If these findings are confronting—and I think they may be—let's confront them together as a nation. If the report shows risks that are 'intense and scary', as some who have seen the draft say they are, then bring it out; let's all see it. That is all the more reason to tell Australians why it is going on and why we must see it. Resilience is not built on comfort; it is built on honesty, preparation and hard choices in the light of day. We cannot keep telling our nation and communities that we are preparing them for the future while refusing to share the very information that should underpin these decisions.

Release the report. Give local government, industry, farmers, health services, environmental sciences and families the data they need. Let them plan, let them adapt and let them have the respect of being trusted with the truth. Anything less is a betrayal of the work already done. The costs to the taxpayer are already borne. For once, let's be transparent. For once, let's not waste the work. Let's put it to use. Release the report so all Australians may have comfort in what they need to do to protect their environment and their own assets.