Council
Magazine,
7 March 2022:
The
Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) has called for a
targeted $200 million per year disaster mitigation fund, for local
governments to address the impacts of climate change and help
increase Australia’s resiliency.
ALGA
President, Linda Scott, said the Association is seeking the disaster
mitigation fund as well as an extra $200 million over four years for
a Local Government Climate Response Partnership Fund.
“In
2014, the Productivity Commission recommended increased investment in
disaster mitigation, but currently less than five per cent of
disaster funding in Australia goes towards mitigation and community
resilience measures,” Cr Scott said.
“We
appreciate the support that has quickly been provided by states and
the Commonwealth to households and communities impacted by these
devastating floods in Queensland and New South Wales.
“However,
we need greater investment in disaster mitigation and climate change
adaptation to reduce the severity and impact of future natural
disasters.
“The
current legislation allows for $200 million per year to be spent from
the Federal Government’s $4.8 billion Emergency Management Fund.
“However,
since 2019 the Government has only committed $150 million in total
from this fund.
“This
month’s Federal Budget is an opportunity for the Commonwealth to
provide additional assistance that will help protect our communities
from increasing disaster events.
“Investing
in mitigation makes economic sense, and significantly reduces the
costs governments incur during recovery.”
Cr
Scott said ALGA is also advocating for a Local Government Climate
Response Partnership Fund of $200 million over four years to help
councils address the impacts of climate change in their communities.
“Across
our nation, we are seeing floods and fires that are more severe, and
more destructive,” Cr Scott said.
“Providing
our councils with funding to address the impacts of climate change in
our communities will help us increase our resilience to future
natural disasters.”
The
Guardian,
23 March 2022:
Lismore
council has been gripped by in-fighting over whether it should make
references to “climate change” following the flood disaster and a
decision to pause its work on flood mitigation despite warnings the
“optics” of doing so were “not good”.
The
disaster-ravaged town is still in the early stages of recovering from
an unprecedented 14.4-metre flood, which wiped out thousands of homes
and businesses and brought Lismore to its knees.
On
Tuesday, in a late-night sitting, Lismore council proposed a message
of thanks to volunteers and the community for their efforts in the
immediate response and clean-up effort.
It
included a line saying the council “acknowledges we are likely to
experience further disasters of this nature as climate change
continues to escalate”.
The
words “climate change” prompted a reaction from four councillors,
led by independent councillor Big Rob, who attempted to have the
reference removed and replaced with a line saying “we are
definitely going to experience further disasters of this nature”.
Rob
– who says he does not deny climate change but likes to “stir up
lefties” – said he did not think a message of community support
was the right place to make “political” statements about climate
change.
“That
motion was about thanking people, not being political about climate
change,” he said…….
The
effort to delete the reference to climate change failed. But it
rankled other councillors, including Greens councillor Adam Guise,
who first proposed the climate change reference be added.
“They
tried to couch it as not politicising it,” Guise said . “But this
is the whole thing about climate change, it’s not political, it’s
science.”
The
dispute came amid further divisions within council over a decision to
halt the work of a key committee working to improve flood mitigation
measures in Lismore.
That
occurred despite councillors acknowledging the “optics” of
pausing the flood mitigation committee so soon after a disaster were
“not good”.
The
council has also sacked members of the Lismore community who were on
a community reference group advising council on flood mitigation.
On
Tuesday, at 11pm, the council decided to pause the work of the
floodplain committee to wait for more information from CSIRO, which
has been given $10m to explore flood mitigation measures in the
region.
Lismore
council decided it should hold off doing any further work on flood
mitigation of its own until it understood what CSIRO was doing.
But
councillor Vanessa Ekins, who chairs the committee, warned that could
take months. She said pausing the committee was “very dangerous
ground” and would not look good to Lismore residents.
“We
have just been through a big flood, we are still experiencing that
and for us to send a message out there that we are pausing work that
we have been working really hard on for years until we hear what the
CSIRO are doing … they might take six months to tell us what
they’re doing,” she said.
“This
could take a really, really long time and meanwhile our community has
no guidance from us, we’re not doing anything, we’ve paused the
consultation we’re currently engaged in until someone else tells us
what they’re doing.”
She
said the decision was “absolutely outrageous”.
“It’s
really important that our flood plain committee continues the work
that it’s been doing for the last five years on mitigating the
impacts of flooding on the CBD and residences,” she said. “We
were in the middle of a consultation process with members of the
community about various options.”
Others
were furious that community members had been sacked from the
committee so soon after the floods.
“We
had community members on that committee with five years’ experience
and expertise in understanding the mitigation options that were
before us,” councillor Elly Bird said. “To throw all of that
experience away, I don’t support it.”
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