Australia is profoundly impacted by natural disasters and communities need appropriate and adequate relief and support to recover from these events.
Many communities are exposed to natural disasters on a recurring basis and experience repeated disruptions from flood, cyclone and fire events. Natural disasters around the country have claimed lives and impacted hundreds of thousands of people.
The capacity of communities to identify, mitigate and respond to natural disasters is critical. In the face of an increase in extreme weather events, rebuilding infrastructure to its original specifications and condition is not sufficient. Betterment funding, or a small additional investment, will save millions of dollars in years to come by ensuring that infrastructure is rebuilt to withstand new climate-change realities.
In its federal election advocacy campaign, ALGA is calling for the Federal Government to protect communities from the impacts of natural disasters by:
- ensuring that local government is not worse off under current reforms of the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements.
- investing in a targeted disaster mitigation program at a level of $200 million per annum for four years.
ALGA’s analysis indicates that this investment would have a cumulative Gross Domestic Product benefit of $620 million by the third year and create up to 1,500 new jobs.
Find out more about this and other federal election initiatives from ALGA at www.allpoliticsislocal.com.au