CHAIR – I suppose that leads into one of the areas of greatest need, particularly for councils, because they bear the brunt of either mitigating or adapting to climate change, among other things, but if we just concentrate on that. What do you see as the role of government, and your office in particular, in trying to negotiate that for councils? Again, you and I were involved with the Regional Climate Change Initiative and the good work that Katrina Graham did amongst other officers from each of our councils. How do you see both state government and councils being climate ready?
Mr VINCENT – There were a lot of points to that.
CHAIR – There were, yes.
Mr VINCENT – We’re seeing a lot of that through cooperation already. If you look at some of the vulnerable road users funded through the road safety levy. The state works very closely with councils there for projects, for pedestrian crossings and similar activities. We work very closely with some of the projects for some of the federal funding that is available to bring in and support some of that, even when you look at waste, with the operations in Launceston, Dulverton and Copping, and now with the waste levy starting to build up to some serious amounts, it’s very important that we make sure that that is supporting projects in the community and local as well.
We’re happy to support any other points that come forward from local government. Last year we did see a lot of discussion, before I took the role on, but certainly on the part of the Local Government Association wanting to do some centralised procurement with planners, which the department supports. I don’t think that’s quite where we want it to be yet, but that’s something we still want to progress.
Even with the learning modules, the amount of support from the department, that fits so much better, being driven and understood, and continuing to be developed by local government. There’s there’s quite a few things, when you start to look, that we are supporting them on. This openness that we have now continue, hopefully, because I’m in the chair with my previous hats on, I would like to see continue. The door is always open and the conversation is always transparent and open to what needs to happen or what they would like to have happen with sensible discussion around it.
CHAIR – I have more questions on climate change, but we’ll go through the rotation.
CHAIR – Good question. Minister, I’ll continue on the line around climate change. As I alluded to, there’s an increase in bushfires, floods and heatwaves. Councils, therefore, are increasingly expected to pick up the tab for fixing roads, gutters, stormwater drains and community halls. According to a recent report from The Australia Institute, councils are paying 12 times the insurance costs they were 20 years ago for climate change. This figure is only set to rise. What’s your government doing for local governments to foot the bill for climate change?
Overall, there’s $9.482 million set aside in the Budget, which is a decrease of $19,000 over the next four years, and that will be a decrease of $166,000 compared with the May Budget, for climate change activities. What’s the real commitment in this space, and recognising this as a significant problem?
Mr VINCENT – There is a commitment from the Minister for Environment towards working with LGAT to identify some of those climate change issues with local government, which I’m not totally across, I must admit.
We are working on an infrastructure side of things so that we stay across that with councils. We are also looking at supporting various funding issues to do with climate change initiatives within council, because a lot of that cuts across some of the infrastructure and foreshore with Parks and Crown. We’re working with councils very closely with that, for outfalls, filtration and better systems.
I suggest that I’d have to seek some more information to answer that properly from the Environment minister.
Mr HEALEY – The only thing I was going to point out is obviously ReCFIT do quite a lot of work in the climate change space. A lot of that is quite relevant to local government and supports their understanding of many of the impacts of climate change. I’ll also point out that the Resilience and Recovery Tasmania, within the Department of Premier Cabinet, does a lot of work with councils to understand the changing risks associated with fires and floods.
Obviously, a little while ago we did reform our bushfire planning system to try to, over a long period of time, moderate and reduce our risks associated with bushfires. I know there’s been a lot of investment and work in the mapping of flood risk as well, to try to improve councils’ ability to be able to manage that more effectively.
CHAIR – And there’s an overall mapping, is it the LiDAR project, through Hydro?
Mr HEALEY – Well, we were. I probably won’t confirm that we still are, but we were well ahead of the rest of the nation in terms of a lot of our climate‑related mapping, coastal hazards mapping, flood mapping, bushfire risk mapping, et cetera. I think there is quite a bit of work being done to try to understand the risk and how that’s changing, but more importantly, to allow communities to start to adapt to build resilience.
CHAIR – That resilience of communities, that Sparking Conversations project was really useful, but that building of resilience in communities must be fundamental for this.
Mr VINCENT – Chair, I believe the flood mapping was one of the biggest things that I came across in the last decade for an education process on how we need to change our thinking. It’s brought around a different view from the maturity now of TasWater and other agencies supplying information into council with regard to subdivision developments. Then when that subdivision goes into review every couple of years, flood mapping again to see what the difference is with the amount of hardstand, or where the water’s going now, where it’s directed, has been a very massive learning curve.
Some of that has come around because of the huge expenditure, especially in regional areas. I think Hobart has its own issues with ageing stormwater and infrastructure, but that body of work’s brought around a whole different level of understanding of what we need to do in direction of water ‑ the damage that’s causing the insurance side of things as well. That’s been a combined effort to continue to look at that.
