White paper to build Australia’s resilience to natural disasters

The Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience & Safer Communities has released a white paper that details a sustainable and comprehensive approach to managing natural disasters. The white paper aims to save lives, reduce damage to property and vital national infrastructure, and free taxpayer money to spend on essential public services.

The ‘Building our Nation’s Resilience to Natural Disasters’ white paper forecasts the cost of natural disasters in Australia to rise from $6.3 billion a year currently to around $23 billion a year in 2050 as population density increases and the severity and frequency of storms, floods, cyclones and bushfires grow (in fact, the Climate Commission this week stated that extreme weather is set to increase). Australia already experiences at least four natural disasters a year and has done so since 1967.

Each year the Australian Government currently spends an estimated $560 million on post-disaster relief and recovery compared with an estimated $50 million on pre-disaster resilience. The white paper notes how an investment in resilience expenditure would generate massive cost savings in disaster response - for example, resilience expenditure of around $250 million a year to 2050 would ultimately generate budget savings of more than $12 billion and Australian Government disaster response expenditure could be reduced by more than 50%.

It acknowledges that while there is a lot of positive resilience and disaster management activity already underway, with work taking place under different policies, departments and agencies, there is an opportunity to be better aligned and coordinated.

Thus, the white paper recommends the following actions:

• Improve coordination of pre-disaster resilience by appointing a National Resilience Advisor and establishing a Business and Community Advisory Group. The advisor would coordinate and prioritise activity across all levels of government, while the group would support them and leverage knowledge and expertise.
• Commit to long-term annual consolidated funding for pre-disaster resilience. The fund would consolidate current mitigation spend and centralise new spending to deliver long-term taxpayer savings.
• Identify and prioritise pre-disaster investment activities that deliver a positive net impact on future budget outlays. All mitigation would be prioritised based on the national interest and economic benefit as determined by the cost benefit ratio achieved and future budget impact.

The roundtable comprises the CEOs of the Australian Red Cross, Insurance Australia Group, Investa, Munich Re, Optus and Westpac, some of whom have offered their companies’ services in supporting the new approach. Investa CEO Scott MacDonald said his company will “provide builders and home buyers with information on how they can best design their homes to manage costs and improve resilience”, as well as work with industry associations and partners. Munich Re CEO Heinrich Eder added that his company has “built the world’s largest database on natural disaster losses and [we] are prepared to share this research to work with all levels of government and like-minded commercial organisations”.

The Greens have welcomed the release of the white paper, with Greens Leader Christine Milne claiming the government is currently “failing to invest in risk mitigation of natural disasters”.

“More than 200 people died over the past four years in disasters such as the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria, Cyclone Yasi in Queensland and major floods in several states. Hundreds of thousands more were directly affected through injury, illness or loss of property,” said Milne.

“We need to spend more on lessening the impact of natural disasters and better target the spending to projects of state and national significance, which is the approach discussed in the roundtable’s white paper.”

Milne noted that the government’s last budget stopped funding for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, “which has been providing the critical information needed by decision-makers to manage climate-change risks”. With the Greens having received submissions saying more needs to be done to combat climate change impacts, the white paper could provide the influence the party has been hoping for.

For a copy of the paper, visit http://australianbusinessroundtable.com.au/white-paper.