Issued by Senator the Hon Murray Watt - former Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Press conference in Brisbane, QLD
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BRISBANE
WEDNESDAY, 7 JUNE 2023
SUBJECTS: Disaster Ready Fund; PALM Scheme
MURRAY WATT: Well, thanks very much for coming along this morning. Today I’m very pleased to be announcing the first round of projects under the Albanese Government’s new Disaster Ready Fund. This is the next step in the Albanese Government’s plan to make sure that Australia is much better prepared as a country for disasters well into the future. I’ve obviously, over the last 12 months, spent a huge amount of time in communities that have been affected by natural disasters and one thing I’ve taken from that is that prevention is always better than cure. The more that we can be investing in projects upfront to prevent damage from occurring, the better for communities and the better for the taxpayer in terms of the repair bill that we face.
Since the election, we have invested a huge amount of money already in recovery and resilience for the future. We’ve already committed $2.7 billion towards Australians who are recovering from disasters in the forms of payments, infrastructure repair and other things. We’ve obviously got about $1.5 billion of home buyback programs underway with the Queensland and New South Wales Governments. We’ve invested over $700 million in improving our infrastructure that gets damaged in disasters to make sure that we build back better. And recently, you would have seen that we’ve invested over $200 million to upgrade the flood gauge network right across the country. And today we are announcing even more.
So today what we’re announcing is nearly $400 million in joint Federal-State investment in over 180 individual disaster readiness projects right across the country. These projects will be funded in every single State and Territory in the country and they’re based on proposals that each State and Territory Government put forward to us. And I want to thank each of the State and Territory Governments for their involvement in this scheme and in particular for them contributing to the funds that we have to make available. Of course, if we can be getting those co-contributions from State and Territory Governments, that means that our money can be spread further and that’s why we’ve been able to invest in 187 projects all up.
These projects were selected by an independent panel and I accepted every single one of those recommendations. We’re not operating like the former Government. We’re not getting involved in switching things around, with colour-coded spreadsheets. We’ve gone off the independent panel recommendations 100 per cent of the time. So today, this investment is the start of what will be the biggest long-term investment between Federal and State Governments in disaster prevention and disaster mitigation that we’ve ever seen in Australia’s history. Over the next five years, we will be investing up to $2 billion between Federal and State Governments to make sure that Australia is disaster ready and much more than it has been in the past.
One of the reasons these projects are so important is that they do ultimately save the taxpayer as well. We know that every year we see billions of dollars of taxpayer funds invested in recovery, in supporting people who have gone through disasters and repairing the damage. Now, we will always stand by disaster-affected communities to make sure that they get the resources they need to recover, but we do need to switch the dial a bit in Australia and make sure that we are investing more in prevention, rather than only in cure, and that is what we’ve seen in the past.
So these investments today, in the end, what they’re about is about protecting Australians from their loss of life and their properties. It is about protecting the taxpayer bottom line through the Budget, and it’s also about protecting Australians from the rising cost of insurance. Because we know from insurers that if we can reduce the risk of disasters, that will flow through to lower premiums and that’s what we would expect to see as a result of these investments.
The projects that we’re funding today span, as I say, right across the country and they cover everything from flood levees to sea walls, to fire communications to evacuation centres, flood data, mapping, every kind of thing you can possibly imagine to make sure that Australia is much better prepared for disasters in the future.
I might just hand over to the Coordinator-General of the National Emergency Management Agency, Brendan Moon, and can I thank Brendan and his team for the enormous amount of work they’ve done putting this together, but also for the terrific work that they do out on the ground assisting communities recovering from disasters. Thank you.
BRENDAN MOON, COORDINATOR GENERAL, NEMA: Thank you, Minister. Today is an important milestone for all of Australia. We know that communities that are prepared and that have invested in risk reduction over the years recover much more quickly after an event. And we have seen many of those communities throughout Australia suffer significant hardship and impacts from the most recent flooding events and as we start to move into a season that potentially bushfire will also be a risk for, I think today is an important milestone so we can start to invest in those projects that will support those communities recover and be able to be more resilient into the future.
For the first time ever, this is a five-year program that will invest over $1 billion – sorry, over $200 million per year, matched by the States. And this will give people confidence that they can now start planning for the future, getting an understanding of the vulnerabilities of those communities, but also to make plans to deal with those so that their communities are better prepared and more resilient into the future.
To give you an idea of some of the projects that have been funded here, we have looked at infrastructure projects throughout Australia, including some of the most recently impacted communities in the Gulf of Carpentaria, across to north-western Australia, northern Victoria, central-western New South Wales and also northern New South Wales. These projects we know work. For those communities that have invested in resilient infrastructure in the past, we know that when they are re-impacted by disasters and weather events, 80 per cent of those betterment projects are functional immediately after the event, keeping communities connected, but also enabling them to mount their recovery afterwards.
We also know there have been significant impacts to homes. And what we’re seeing here in Queensland is the rollout of a Resilient Homes Fund to actually support people and communities in those cyclone-exposed areas to build back more resilient infrastructure, especially in vulnerable communities, and that also includes cyclone shelters, sea walls and also places of refuge. So, for those vulnerable disaster-exposed communities, they haven’t been left out and they have been a priority for this fund.
Additionally, we are working very closely with the States to start to look at: what are the hazards we need to get a better understanding of, so that communities can take decisions about how they will prepare and also how they will respond to events? We’re looking at additional flood mapping/modelling throughout Australia, but also importantly, we’re looking at bushfire risk. We’re also looking at preparing our most vulnerable communities. People-centred emergency management plans for those people with disabilities are also getting funded through this program.
So as I said upfront, this is a milestone for disaster risk reduction for this nation and it is important, and what we have seen has been the very very close engagement of State, Local Government and the communities who are absolutely invested in this program this year, but more importantly, into the long term. Thank you.
MURRAY WATT: We’ll take questions.
JOURNALIST: Can you give any extra details on the funding for Gulf Country communities, considering they were cut off for three months this wet season?
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, as Brendan has said, it’s obviously been very important to us to make sure that we’re not only supporting those communities as they recover but make sure that they are a lot more resilient for the future, because some of those communities, as you know, are in some of the most disaster-prone parts of the country. So to give you one example, and I might hand to Brendan to elaborate on this, we are investing in resilient infrastructure for a number of remote Indigenous communities including around Doomadgee. There’s also investments around Mount Isa and some of the other Gulf communities and then right up into the Cape as well – for example, the Pormpuraaw Airport, which will be resealed and made disaster resilient. But I might just hand over to Brendan to go into a bit more detail about that.
BRENDAN MOON: Thank you, Minister, and I think there are two parts to this question. So after the most immediate event, we’ve been working very very closely with the Queensland Government to support those communities that have been impacted by this particular event. And you’ve seen a number of relief measures that have been activated under Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements and that is providing support to individuals, to communities, to Local Governments to recover from this event. But, importantly also, there has been significant investment through the DRFA to support primary producers, small businesses, to start to have a conversation and decide on what are the priorities in resilient infrastructure as a result of the impact of this event. This is what we were hearing from Local Governments throughout the Gulf, was the impact of the flooding on the connectivity and the ability to get supplies and for their communities to function. So, we’re working right now with Local Government and the Queensland Government to look at what those priorities are.
But on top of that, the Disaster Ready Fund is actually looking at what are those long-term priorities for Gulf communities and also for remote communities in northwest Queensland and you’ll see a number of projects here where we’ve taken that long view about what are the vulnerabilities of those communities and what are the priorities for them? You will hear and see investment in airstrips. You will see investment in more Resilient Homes Funds. You’ll see investment in better communications for those communities, better understanding of flood risks. So, there’s a whole range of discussions and negotiations going on right now that will deal with some of the outcomes of that particular event, but also taking that long view as well.
JOURNALIST: When can community leaders from that region expect to get that funding to raise levees, et cetera?
BRENDAN MOON: So, right now, what we will do is we will be working with communities and also with the State Governments to establish funding agreements and implementation plans. Our expectation is that over the next month, we will have completed those and we will be looking to get those funds flowing as quickly as those agreements are all locked down.
MURRAY WATT: I can elaborate a little on that, if you like. Yeah. The funding that we’re announcing today becomes available from 1 July. It operates on a financial year basis, but we wanted to make sure that we had this process wrapped up and selected the projects before we get to that point so we can be ready to go on day one when the money becomes available. So as Brendan said, the next step, having chosen these projects, is to enter funding agreements with State and Territory Governments so that the money can be delivered. Our expectation is that every single one of these projects that we announce today will be completed within three years, but obviously, in many cases they will be able to happen much more quickly than that. But, yes, so the point is to get that all wrapped up by the end of this financial year so we can be ready to go.
Again, we can provide you with some specific details about Gulf communities, but I do know that, as I say, it’s airstrips, it’s cyclone shelters, it’s communications upgrades, it’s flood warning systems about some of the roads that people need to be able to access. And I was reminded just thinking about this that we just recently actually announced over $20 million in funding for some road resilience projects in Gulf communities as well. I visited Burketown shortly after the floods with Brendan, met with the local mayors there, met with Bob Katter, who was there as well, and it was made very clear to us that one of the major problems is that the road network gets shut down, bridges get overwhelmed - and that’s the kind of thing that we want to be making much more resilient for the future so that those communities are not cut off as long as they have been in the past.
JOURNALIST: Minister, why is the Government changing the PALM scheme?
MURRAY WATT: Yes, so this is, I guess, in my agriculture role. This process obviously has been led by Minister Tony Burke as the employment and workplace relations Minister, but I’ve obviously been involved in that, as has Pat Conroy, the Minister for the Pacific.
Basically, we went to the election making a commitment that we would both expand the PALM scheme, which is an important source of labour on Australian farms and also to protect workers better than what we’ve seen in the past. And I think we’ve all been pretty concerned about some of the abuses that we’ve seen of workers from overseas, whether they be under the PALM scheme or other migrant workers. So, we made very clear that we wanted to expand the scheme and protect those workers better.
Since the election, we have expanded the scheme dramatically. We now have over 35,000 PALM workers working on Australian farms and processing sheds right around the country, and that’s a record number. We’ve never had anything like that before. So, what we’re doing now is moving on to the second part of that election commitment, which is about protecting workers better than they have been in the past. I think that it’s in the interests of the agriculture sector to make sure that it has a good reputation as a place to work and that people feel if they’re working in agriculture, that they’re going to be treated well, paid fairly and be given good conditions. And when it comes to the PALM scheme, it’s obviously also important that we maintain a good reputation amongst our Pacific family as the source countries for these labourers.
So, the changes that we’ve made after a lot of consultation with employer groups, unions, are all about, as I say, protecting that workforce better than what we’ve seen in the past, maintaining our reputation overseas, and I think the other thing to note is that the changes we’ve agreed to will be staged over the next 12 months, so we’re not making radical overnight changes to this scheme. We understand that this is an adjustment for farmers and those who use the scheme, and the first changes will begin over the next six months with more to follow after that.
JOURNALIST: And how does the Government expect farmers to guarantee 30 hours of work per week when seasonal conditions may mean there’s not 30 hours of work?
MURRAY WATT: We recognise that agriculture is a sector that’s impacted by the weather and by other seasonal conditions and when, particularly in horticulture, particular fruit and vegetables are ready for harvest, but we’re confident that by working with the sector, we can make this system work in a way that delivers the labour that farmers need, and that’s certainly what’s happened up until now, but also at the same time delivers people the protections that they need.
We’ve done an enormous amount of work with farm employers and unions since coming to office to develop the agriculture sector workforce, as I say, delivering record numbers of PALM workers, delivering over 13,000 fee-free TAFE places in agriculture courses, expanding the range of wage subsidies and apprenticeships that are on offer, and tightening the PALM scheme in this way we think is a way of shoring it up for the long term to make sure that it remains a strong labour source for Australian farmers.