Extreme floods, rain, wind, storm, hail, heat, drought and bushfire are already impacting Australia's economic growth - now Zurich Insurance & Mandela Partners are calculating the extent tourism will be affected

"Australians have focused a lot on the transition risks of climate change: focusing on the impacts that different carbon abatement policies will have on the economy and on communities in an effort to reduce emissions. But we focus much less on the physical impacts of climate change which are already occurring and, on current projections, will continue to worsen.

Why is this? One reason is data. There are many datasets which have been used to analyse the impact of different carbon abatement policies. The same cannot be said for adaptation.

This is the core innovation of the Zurich Resilience Solutions (ZRS) capability. By mapping the physical risks of climate change across every 10 square meters in Australia, it provides unparalleled insights into the tangible impacts of climate change on different assets and locations."

["The Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index: The impact of climate change on the Australian tourism industry", September 2024]

For the last two decades science has been telling the Australian general public that flood, rain, wind, storm, hail, heat, drought and bushfire are the horsemen of climate change and they are upon us now - not arriving some time in a distant future. Now the insurance industry is pointing to this fact of life.

The Zurich-Mandela risk report released this month looks at the effect climate change will have on Australia's natural and manmade tourism assets.

Given the degree to which tourism underpins local economies and the wider NSW Northern Rivers regional economy generating as it does up to $1.6 billion annually supporting est.14,416 jobs, this is a serious issue for the far north, its seven local government areas and the estimated 315,775 men, women and children who live there.

The Northern Rivers tourism industry is known to be vulnerable to externalities. Since 2018, flooding and bushfires have damaged natural amenity and infrastructure, while COVID-19 restrictions reduced visitation and spend in the region, with total visitor expenditure in 2021 down $423 million on 2019 levels.

[Dept. of Regional NSW, Northern Rivers Regional Economic Development Strategy – 2023 Update]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zurich Insurance Group, media release, 7 September 2024:

Zurich and Mandala release first Climate Risk Index for the Australian tourism sector

9 September 2024

Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich) and Mandala Partners (Mandala) today released Australia’s first Climate Risk Index for the Australian tourism sector.

Utilising Zurich’s global exposure analysis capability, the report analyses the impact of climate change on Australia’s top tourism sites – including major airports, national parks, beaches and museums – under different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios.

The Index – the first comprehensive, quantitative climate assessment of its kind for Australian tourism – finds that currently, half of Australia’s tourism assets are in an elevated risk category, facing considerable climate and natural peril risk.

This is set to rise to between 55 and 68 per cent of Australian tourism sites by 2050 under either an intermediate (two degrees Celsius of warming by 2041-2060) or extreme (three degrees) IPCC future climate scenario respectively. Under the more extreme scenario, 80 per cent of tourism sites will experience an increase in risk between 2025 and 2050.

Australia’s tourism industry plays an important role in the nation’s economy, contributing more than $170 billion in annual expenditure and over 620,000 jobs.

In terms of economic impact, around 30 per cent (up to 176,000) of these jobs nationally could be jeopardised – 65 per cent of which are outside our capital cities – in the event of a disaster scenario similar to that experienced following the bushfires of 2019-20.

The analysis also reveals that climate risk varies significantly by geography and site type (natural or man-made).

Queensland has both the highest number of sites facing elevated risks (79 per cent) and the most sites in the highest risk category (52 per cent) compared to any other jurisdiction. After Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have 69 per cent and 63 per cent of sites in the highest risk categories, respectively. Across the southern states, the risks were relatively lower.

By site category, the Index finds that all 31 of the busiest airports in Australia fall into the highest climate risk categories, including 94 per cent in the most extreme category, due to their geographic location and susceptibility to perils such as wind and storms.

Similarly, all of the analysed wine growing regions, botanic gardens, scenic roads & rail, and rainforests & national parks were found to be in the highest climate risk categories. Natural geological formations, museums, galleries and stadia face relatively lower risk.

Justin Delaney, Chief Executive Officer, Zurich Australia & New Zealand, said: “Australia’s tourism assets not only play a significant role in an increasingly diverse visitor economy but are collectively central to our national identity.”

“This analysis, conducted in partnership with Mandala, serves to highlight the critical importance of improving resilience across our tourism assets, both to ensure the sustainability and longevity of these sites and to minimise downstream economic impacts – particularly in regional areas – on employment, business formation, consumption and investment.”

“More broadly, it also serves to highlight the quantum of data and insights that are available to understand the prevailing risk environment in order to shape and prepare our collective response,” Mr Delaney said.

Adam Triggs, Partner, Mandala Partners, said: “In Australia, we have focused a lot on how to reduce carbon emissions but have focused less on how to prepare for the physical impacts of climate change that we are already seeing: tourist attractions destroyed by bushfires, tourism sites made inaccessible by floods, man-made attractions damaged by hail and airports closed because of extreme winds”.

“A key reason for Australia’s more limited focus on the physical impacts of climate change is a lack of data, and this is exactly the gap that our partnership with Zurich seeks to fill,” Dr Triggs said.

The release of the Climate Risk Index for the tourism sector builds upon and follows a similar analysis by Zurich and Mandala on the climate risk facing the Australian energy generation sector in November 2023, the first assessment of its kind for an entire critical infrastructure asset class.

A full version of the report is available here.

-ENDS-

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Excerpts from the Zurich-Mandela report.

Source: Zurich Resilience Solutions using Jupiter Intelligence’s ClimateScore Global 2.6; Mandala analysis

Despite more natural sites facing climate risk overall, the proportion of man-made sites facing severe risk is higher

The Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index found that currently, 55% of natural tourism sites in Australia face climate risk. Of these sites, 14% are in the highest risk category, a further 23% are in the second highest category and 17% are in the third highest.

Most natural sites in Australia are either national parks, rainforests or beaches. These sites face significant risk from floods, storms and bushfires due to the potential for environmental degradation, which can permanently alter these sites. Extreme weather can also result in seasonal shifts, disrupt ecosystems and impact tourist visitation patterns.

Despite a higher volume of natural sites showing vulnerability to climate change overall, the proportion of impacted man-made sites facing severe risk is higher. Just under half of all man-made assets fall within the top three risk categories, with one quarter of these in the highest risk category. The most at-risk man-made sites are vineyards and airports, which face significant risk from heat, bushfires and flooding. Likewise, scenic roads (including bridges) and railways face significant risk....

In the 25 years from 2025 to 2050, the proportion of Australia’s tourism sites in the three highest climate risk categories will rise from 50% to 55%. Sites in the highest three risk categories are likely to face significant risk from multiple perils with a high impact on environmental degradation, tourism functionality and appeal, accessibility, and ecosystem balance (i.e. a national park with a ‘high risk’ from storms and a ‘very high risk’ from heat).

Under the more severe SSP5-8.5 climate scenario, which assumes little or no climate action and up to three degrees of warming by 2041-2060, 80% of sites will see an increase in risk between 2025 and 2050. Under this scenario, 68% of all sites will be in risk category 3 or above by 2050.....

STATE OF PLAY NSW NORTHERN RIVERS 2024: The risk of property uninsurability continues to concern the region

 

When record flood events hit south-east Queensland and Northern New South Wales in the first quarter of 2022 the Australian insurance industry was already dealing with est. 85,953 open insurance claims, driven by six declared insurance events that occurred in 2021 [Insurance Council of Australia, November 2023].

In September 2022 the Insurance Council of Australia observed:

The south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales flood has so far cost the insurance industry $5.28 billion – almost triple the cost of the 2011 Brisbane floods and now the second most costly extreme weather event in Australia’s history.

At that point in time the Insurance Council was asserting that:

At present no region in Australia is uninsurable, however worsening extreme weather events are driving up premiums in parts of the country most exposed to extreme weather risk and rendering insurance unaffordable for some.

A neat piece of hair splitting made despite the fact that three months before, the Climate Council had issued a media release highlighting an analysis indicating that:

One in 25 Australian properties will be effectively uninsurable by 2030, due to rising risks of extreme weather and climate change.

An analysis which, in breaking the Northern Rivers region into the two federal electorates which encompass its land mass, predicted that in the Richmond electorate 20% or 22,274 properties were at "high risk" while up to 11% or 11,691 properties were at "high risk" in the Page electorate.

In Yamba alone, in the Clarence Valley section of the Page electorate, in a worst case scenario 5,237 properties are likely to become progressively uninsurable across a 70 year span commencing in 2030. A number that would contain all residential dwellings and other buildings in present day Yamba. 

While the Lismore City section of the Richmond electorate, in a worst case scenario is likely to see 5,711 properties become uninsurable over the same time period.

In the two years since the Insurance Council's statement the word "uninsurable" has continued to crop up in discussions concerning flood prone land and existing homes that had been built on such land - and as a region we have continued to twist this way and that trying to comes to terms with a grim reality.

The National Insurance Brokers Association in its October 2023 short submission to the federal parliamentary Inquiry into insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims was frank it its assessment of the insurance situation for so many households:

Increasing insurance losses due to more frequent natural disasters, as well as changes to actuarial and underwriting models and underlying risk profiles, have resulted in significant increases in insurance premiums in many parts of the country.....

The paradox of insurance is that those who are most impacted by natural perils, i.e. low socioeconomic households, are least likely to be able to afford to protect themselves from the effects of such events. Uninsurability has the potential to exacerbate existing inequalities by trapping vulnerable populations in high-risk areas and exposing them to greater social harm. Low socioeconomic households are less likely to be able to recover from natural disasters due to lower household incomes and less secure work. Low socioeconomic households are also more likely to be engaged in part-time or casual work. This demonstrates that the impacts of uninsurability will disproportionately affect those who are least able to protect themselves against these impacts.

The issue continues to be problematic for the NSW Northern Rivers region.......

Echo, 23 August 2024:

Insurance isn’t something that you necessarily have front of your mind most of the time but when you lose your house in a flood it suddenly takes on a whole new importance.

Insurance means that you have the opportunity to rebuild, to try to put your life back together – but flood insurance is not available to everyone, particularly those in flood risk areas and leaves them extremely vulnerable following natural disasters such as the 2022 flood.

Flood rubbish around You Are Here sign in Lismore, 7 March 2022. Photo David Lowe.

For a town like Lismore, and many others around the world, this lack of insurance means that they are unable to effectively rebuild following floods. The Inquiry into insurers’ responses to 2022 major floods claims has highlighted that ‘areas with low insurance cover have significantly worse post-disaster outcomes that negatively impact households, local businesses, and local economies’.

This Inquiry was commissioned by the then NRRC for the Community Leaders Forum that was led by Lismore MP Janelle Saffin, NSW Parliamentary Secretary for Disaster Recovery and made up of State MPs Tamara Smith (Ballina), Geoff Provest (Tweed), and Richie Williamson (Clarence); Federal Member for Page Kevin Hogan; and mayors Cr Steve Krieg (Lismore City), Cr Chris Cherry (Tweed Shire), Cr Kylie Webster (Kyogle), Cr Michael Lyon (Byron Shire), Cr Sharon Cadwallader (Ballina Shire), Cr Robert Mustow (Richmond Valley) and Cr Peter Johnstone (Clarence Valley).

‘I thank its authors, academics from the University of Queensland’s Business School – Professor Paula Jarzabkowski, Dr Katie Meissner and Dr Matthew Mason – who are very learned in this area,’ Ms Saffin said.

‘They have made a case study of Lismore that can be extrapolated across the Northern Rivers region, New South Wales, and indeed, other places in Australia....

...Whatever is done, government needs to be very involved in the response, and we must require mitigation and adaptation to be in the mix,’ she said.

Ms Saffin has made a submission, on behalf of the Community Leaders Forum to the Federal inquiry into insurers’ responses to the 2022 major floods claims utilising this report as the basis for that submission.

‘This analysis shows that the current problem of insurability will remain a wicked problem for Lismore, with no foreseeable reduction in the pricing of private sector flood insurance,’ states the report.

‘Without access to affordable insurance:

• Lismore property owners will struggle to attain or maintain mortgages;

• Lismore landlords will struggle to provide a robust residential or commercial rental market;

• Lismore businesses are likely to have their credit and growth compromised;

• The commercial attractiveness of Lismore is likely to suffer.’

Mitigation, relocation and adaptation key

Ms Saffin noted that the submission found that there is no single, per-existing solution for the complex problem of uninsurability in Lismore.

It makes four recommendations about the potential of a new insurance ecosystem for Lismore:

1. A national risk pool is a tested solution that, when well-designed, could support affordable insurance in Lismore for residents and small businesses providing it is accompanied by a medium and long-term program of risk reduction including relocation.

2. Small parametric products, which can be spent flexibly by policyholders, have potential to provide economic benefit to Lismore business owners supporting them with rapid response to business interruptions, particularly from small-scale events.

3. Parts of Lismore fall within the uninsurable zone and could be considered for insurance innovations to support planned migration and provide insurance cover during any transitionary period.

4. Lismore residents and business owners will benefit from a sustained program of embedding risk management capabilities throughout the community to support them in reducing their risk and increasing their financial ability to respond to hazards.

29 months & 9 days after a catastrophic record flood hit Lismore and the long drawn out housing uncertainty for many residents continues

 

ECHO, 5 August 2024:

More voices of Lismore’s right-to-occupy movement have been heard after police failed to enforce another eviction notice distributed last week.

People from the Northern Rivers and beyond have been occupying, or squatting in, some of Lismore’s otherwise empty and shut-up flood impacted houses for an unknown period of time.

Some started to speak out in recent months after receiving threats of eviction from the NSW Reconstruction Authority.

The properties in question had been sold back to the government through the RA’s Resilient Homes Program.

But it quickly emerged that former homeowners were often happy to have people living in their old houses and caring for the properties, as were neighbours....

Last week, some squatters again received eviction notices from the RA and a police visit.

The letters were direct copies of the notices sent in June, including the same issue date of 17 June, House You founder Chels Hood-Withey said.

Lismore-based community group Reclaim Our Recovery issued a statement on Thursday describing police involvement.

‘This morning RA security decided to call police, triggering an attempt at an eviction by officers,’ the statement read.

‘The residents and supporters held their ground for today but police have promised to attend at 9am Friday 2nd to ensure people are out of the house,’ RoR said, referring to 172 Currie St, North Lismore.

‘People who live there, don’t have anywhere else to go, and intend to stay.’

Supporters again rallied around occupiers on Friday, hosting breakfasts at impacted properties.

This time, police didn’t end up coming.....

Mr Presco said, like Mr Ricketts in June, he was desperate to find out what assistance, if any, existed for people to move bought-back houses from Lismore’s floodplain to higher ground.

‘There’s meant to be houses, land packages, released at below market value in the new land release over at Southern Cross University,’ Mr Presco said, referring to an announcement from the RA earlier this year of new house-lots to be ready by 2026 as part of the Resilient Lands Program.

Mr Presco said it seemed the RA had back-tracked on the inclusion of land for floodplain houses in the land release.....

People were sheltering in the old homes at the end of winter, Mr Presco said, and were quite vulnerable.

They worried about police showing up ‘to drag them out,’ he said, ‘before they potentially get bulldozed’.

‘Turning them into social housing or relocating them seems a bit too difficult for a government agency that’s got a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars,’ Mr Presco said.

‘I don’t understand the absurdity of the situation.’

Speaking from another bought-back home, Roisin McSweeney said she and fellow occupiers had expected police to follow up on threatened evictions but were feeling resilient.

‘We’ve got a lot of support and a bit of a reputation for protecting these homes that we believe need to be lived in,’ Ms McSweeney said.

When science speaks and governments refuse to hear, the world enters a dark and perilous place

 

“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.” [The Guardian, online, 8 May 2024]

When science speaks of what world governments and their peoples once thought of as an impossibility and, the vast majority of Australian politicians still refuse to admit the extent of the perilous situation situation we find ourselves in, then as a society we have entered a dark place.

The Guardian, 8 May 2024:

Climate crisis

World’s top climate scientists expect global heating to blast past 1.5C target

Exclusive: Planet is headed for at least 2.5C of heating with disastrous results for humanity, poll of hundreds of scientists finds

‘Hopeless and broken’: why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair

Damian Carrington Environment editor

Wed 8 May 2024 19.00 AEST

Hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists expect global temperatures to rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above preindustrial levels this century, blasting past internationally agreed targets and causing catastrophic consequences for humanity and the planet, an exclusive Guardian survey has revealed.

Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met.

Many of the scientists envisage a “semi-dystopian” future, with famines, conflicts and mass migration, driven by heatwaves, wildfires, floods and storms of an intensity and frequency far beyond those that have already struck.

Numerous experts said they had been left feeling hopeless, infuriated and scared by the failure of governments to act despite the clear scientific evidence provided.

“I think we are headed for major societal disruption within the next five years,” said Gretta Pecl, at the University of Tasmania. “[Authorities] will be overwhelmed by extreme event after extreme event, food production will be disrupted. I could not feel greater despair over the future.”

But many said the climate fight must continue, however high global temperature rose, because every fraction of a degree avoided would reduce human suffering.

Peter Cox, at the University of Exeter, UK, said: “Climate change will not suddenly become dangerous at 1.5C – it already is. And it will not be ‘game over’ if we pass 2C, which we might well do.”

The Guardian approached every contactable lead author or review editor of IPCC reports since 2018. Almost half replied, 380 of 843. The IPCC’s reports are the gold standard assessments of climate change, approved by all governments and produced by experts in physical and social sciences. The results show that many of the most knowledgeable people on the planet expect climate havoc to unfold in the coming decades.

The climate crisis is already causing profounddamage to lives and livelihoods across the world, with only 1.2C (2.16F) of global heating on average over the past four years. Jesse Keenan, at Tulane University in the US, said: “This is just the beginning: buckle up.”

Nathalie Hilmi, at the Monaco Scientific Centre, who expects a rise of 3C, agreed: “We cannot stay below 1.5C.”

The experts said massive preparations to protect people from the worst of the coming climate disasters were now critical. Leticia Cotrim da Cunha, at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said: “I am extremely worried about the costs in human lives.”

The 1.5C target was chosen to prevent the worst of the climate crisis and has been seen as an importantguiding star for international negotiations. Current climate policies mean the world is ontrack for about 2.7C, and the Guardian survey shows few IPCC experts expect the world to deliver the huge action required to reduce that.

Younger scientists were more pessimistic, with 52% of respondents under 50 expecting a rise of at least 3C, compared with 38% of those over 50. Female scientists were also more downbeat than male scientists, with 49% thinking global temperature would rise at least 3C, compared with 38%. There was little difference between scientists from different continents.

Dipak Dasgupta, at the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, said: “If the world, unbelievably wealthy as it is, stands by and does little to address the plight of the poor, we will all lose eventually.”

The experts were clear on why the world is failing to tackle the climate crisis. A lack of political will was cited by almost three-quarters of the respondents, while 60% also blamed vested corporate interests, such as the fossil fuel industry.

Many also mentioned inequality and a failure of the rich world to help the poor, who suffer most from climate impacts. “I expect a semi-dystopian future with substantial pain and suffering for the people of the global south,” said a South African scientist, who chose not to be named. “The world’s response to date is reprehensible – we live in an age of fools.”

About a quarter of the IPCC experts who responded thought global temperature rise would be kept to 2C or below but even they tempered their hopes.

“I am convinced that we have all the solutions needed for a 1.5C path and that we will implement them in the coming 20 years,” said Henry Neufeldt, at the UN’s Copenhagen Climate Centre. “But I fear that our actions might come too late and we cross one or severaltipping points.”

Lisa Schipper, at University of Bonn in Germany, said: “My only source of hope is the fact that, as an educator, I can see the next generation being so smart and understanding the politics.”

Help get resurrected 'zombie' development applications out of the NSW planning system. Sign this petition now.

 

"Zombie development applications (DAs), or legacy DAs, are old approvals that are resurrected by a developer and pursued under outdated legislation....‘When a zombie DA gets resurrected, it isn’t measured against current environmental and natural disaster legislation, but instead is tragically measured against older, out of date standards, that are vastly out of step with local community values and crucial environmental regulations,’....‘zombie developments are an ecologically harmful leverage of loopholes in planning legislation, which pushes local populations of threatened species all the way to the edge of their ability to stave off extinction, and robs local communities of places they truly value....‘The accumulative impacts of zombie developments all along the coastline is a “death by a thousand cuts” effect to our threatened species and their rare and beautiful habitats.’"  [Echo, 2 December 2023] 

Property developers and land speculators are using zombie DAs to build large residential subdivisions on high risk floodplains along the 1,973 km length of the NSW coastal zone. Raising the level of communal risk for long-established local communities in times of natural disaster and/or climate emergency.

"GET THE ZOMBIES OUT OF THE PLANNING SYSTEM

Property developers are taking advantage of legal loopholes to force through decades-old developments which are driving the extinction crisis, filling floodplains and causing pain in local communities. These developments are against the evidence of modern science, against modern environmental protection laws and against the wishes of local communities.

They may not like it, but developers should at least follow the law of the day, even if it changes. We can’t have long-dead development proposals haunting our communities forever.

There’s been a groundswell of incredible community action in response to these zombie developments - thousands of locals signing petitions, showing up to rallies and taking direct action. A movement is building to put the planet and people before the profit of property developers.

NOW IS THE MOMENT TO CALL ON THE MINISTER FOR PLANNING PAUL SCULLY TO SHUT THESE ZOMBIE DEVELOPMENTS DOWN."

Sign the petition to NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully MLA at:

https://www.suehigginson.org/zombie_development_sepp

Clarence Valley Emergency Operations Centre and a new NSW Rural Fire Service Fire Control Centre to be built on council land at Grafton Regional Airport

 

A much needed response to the increased need for co-ordinated disaster planning due to the increasing scale and intensity of climate change impacts beginning to be experienced in the Northern Rivers region....

 

Aerial view of site of the proposed Clarence Valley Emergency Operations Centre, Grafton Regional Airport. IMAGE: Clarence Valley Council

 

Clarence Valley Independent, 15 November 2023:

Disaster responses in the region will be streamlined and managed from a new $13.569 million Emergency Operations Centre, co-located with a new Fire Control centre at the Clarence Valley Regional Airport, with council currently assessing a development application for the facility.

The NSW Government announced $8.9 million in funding toward the project in February as part of a $75.1 million investment to upgrade 13 fire control and emergency operations centres across the state.

The DA 2023/0627 for 419 Airport Road, Glenugie, on land owned by Clarence Valley Council proposes construction of a NSW Rural Fire Service Fire Control Centre within the airport precinct, 11 south-east of Grafton.

The Emergency Operations Centre will be located north of the current airport terminal and feature an operations room, a planning and logistics room, two training rooms, meeting rooms, general offices, IT room, storage rooms, meal room, outdoor undercover area, bathrooms and amenities, and be fronted by 12 undercover parking spaces.

North of the single storey Emergency Operations Centre, which features 75 rooftop solar panels, will be a regional Rural Fire Service stores building designed to house equipment for the Clarence Valley District and vehicles, if approved by council.

Surrounding the Emergency Operations Centre will be new adjoining sheds, a helipad, internal roads and parking, with the site having a footprint of 6,100 square metres.

In addition to the administration, training, and operations centre spaces of the Rural Fire Control Centre, the facility “will also be able to function as an emergency operations centre for State Government Agencies and Local Government to assist in managing bush-fire support and recovery functions.”....

Federal parliamentary inquiry into insurer response to the 2022 floods & other matters gets the go ahead on 7 August 2023

Hon Stephen Jones MP, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services, media release, 3 August 2023:

Insurance claims handling under the microscope in parliamentary inquiry into insurer responses to the 2022 floods

Today, the Assistant Treasurer will give notice to the House of Representatives tabling a motion to establish a Parliamentary Inquiry into insurer responses to the 2022 floods. The motion will be presented to the house on the next day of sitting, Monday 7 August.

The inquiry will take a whole of economy view of the ongoing challenges faced by intense and frequent flood events.

It is consumer focussed - investigating land use planning, affordability of coverage, supply chain issues, labour shortages, claims handling, and dispute resolution processes.

The February-March 2022 floods in South‑East Queensland and NSW are the costliest natural disaster for insurance costs, totalling around $5.87 billion, in Australian history.

The Assistant Treasurer has visited the communities impacted by floods in Southeast Queensland with Graham Perrett MP and the Northern Rivers with Janelle Saffin MP; and following a visit to flood ravaged towns in Central West NSW last month announced the inquiry alongside Member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP.

Today, the Albanese Government has released the terms of reference.

The committee will hear directly from affected communities, holding public hearings across the country in regions affected by the 2022 floods. A final report will be handed down during the third quarter of 2024.

The Inquiry will inform the Albanese Government’s broader program of work to address insurance access and affordability. This includes up to $1 billion over five years from 2023-24 (up to $200 million per year) to invest in measures that better protect homes and communities from extreme weather through the flagship Disaster Ready Fund.

The Government is taking proactive steps to mitigate disaster risk and build climate resilient communities. Currently, 97% of disaster funding is going toward recovery and only 3% toward risk mitigation. We want to flip that on its head.

The terms of reference for the inquiry are below.

The Standing Committee on Economics for inquiry and report by quarter 3, 2024:

1. response of insurers to the claims resulting from major 2022 floods, including:

(i) south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) floods of February and March 2022;

(ii) Hunter and greater Sydney floods of July 2022;

(iii)Victorian, NSW and Tasmanian floods of October 2022; and

(iv) central west NSW floods of November and December 2022;

2. the inquiry shall have regard to the following matters in respect of the aforementioned floods

(i) the experiences of policyholders before, during and after making claims;

(ii) the different types of insurance contracts offered by insurers and held by policy holders;

(iii) timeframes for resolving claims;

(iv) obstacles to resolving claims, including factors internal to insurers and external, such as access to disaster hit regions, temporary accommodation, labour market conditions and supply chains;

(v) insurer communication with policyholders;

(vi) accessibility and affordability of hydrology reports and assessments to policy holders;

(vii) affordability of insurance coverage to policy holders;

(viii) claimants’ and insurers’ experience of internal dispute resolution processes; and

(ix) the impact of land use planning decisions and disaster mitigation efforts on the availability and affordability of insurance.

3. the inquiry shall also have regard to insurer preparedness for future flood events

4. the inquiry will take into consideration findings from other reports such as Deloitte’s external review of insurers’ responses to the 2022 floods, and ASICs Claims Handling review. 

The House of Representatives agreed to the creation of this inquiry on the afternoon of Monday 7 August 2023.

The Great Koala National Park is no closer to becoming a reality than it was when Labor made a commitment to such a park in January 2015

 

IMAGE: Animal Justice Party NSW

"Of more than 458 000 hectares of Areas of Regional Koala Significance (ARKS) mapped in NSW, only 21% are inside a National Park.

"One of our most iconic species is being subjected to native forest logging and out of control land clearing, and the National Parks estate can't save it unless something big changes.

"Koalas now face extinction in our lifetimes without urgent action. Yet their habitat has virtually no protection from the logging and clearing that is driving this decline.”

[Nature Conservation Council (NCC) chief executive Jacqui Mumford, 28 February 2023]

This was NSW Labor eight years and five months ago….

AAP General News Wire, excerpt, 19 January 2015:

Labor has announced it will work with the Wilderness Society to help nature conservation in NSW.

The Great Koala National Park proposal would take in 315,000 hectares of hinterland forest between Macksville and Woolgoolga, north of Coffs Harbour, combining 176,000 hectares of state forest with 140,000 hectares of existing protected areas.

The park will provide a lifeline to the population of about 4500 koalas that live in the region……

This was NSW Labor in 2023 at Day 81 of its new term as state government – still no further ahead than the talking points of 2015, ignoring the fact that Koala numbers in New South Wales had fallen from est. 36,000 in 2016 to perhaps as few as 11,000 remaining in the wild by 2020 and, as a political party as deep in the pocket of Forestry NSW as the Liberal & National parties…..

Excerpt from letter to the Clerk of the NSW Legislative Assembly from Minister for Climate Change, Minister for Energy, Minister for the Environment, Minister for Heritage & Labor MLC Penny Sharpe. Click to enlarge