Ms O’CONNOR question to MINISTER for INFRASTRUCURE, Mr VINCENT
The CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology have just today released the eighth biennial State of the Climate Report 2024. It states observations, reconstructions of past climate and climate modelling continue to provide a consistent picture of ongoing long‑term climate change interacting with underlying natural variability.
Associated changes in weather and climate extremes such as extreme heat, heavy rainfall, coastal inundation, fire weather, and drought exacerbate existing pressures on the health and wellbeing of our communities and ecosystems. The Bureau of Meteorology for this coming summer forecasts for Tasmania from December to February for our state to be 2.5 to 4 times more likely to be unusually warm and an 80 per cent chance of exceeding the median maximum temperatures. As Minister for Infrastructure, you would be aware of the risks not only to communities but also to our infrastructure that extreme weather events present.
What will you do as minister to make sure that our key infrastructure is protected from severe weather events to the greatest extent possible? Will you contemplate doing an audit of key infrastructure to better protect them in the future?
ANSWER
Thank you, Mr President, a bit in that, so I will seek some advice.
Thank you to the member for Hobart for the question. There is a fair bit in that but most departments do, wherever possible in planning future infrastructure, make sure that they take those into account as best as possible. I know in my area of the causeways, there is certainly planning involved for that regarding the height and other engineering to allow for – as much as we can – those events should they happen.
Most organisations also, as far as I have been told so far, have as much planning as they have in place for that, but it certainly is a question that I can ask as I move around the areas that I am responsible for.
SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTION
Ms O’CONNOR – Thank you for your answer, minister. You referred principally to infrastructure that will be built in the future. Most of the infrastructure we are talking about here, and the infrastructure that is heavily damaged, potentially, and has seen increasing floods for example, is existing infrastructure. The question really relates to planning and management for – it is called ruggedising, that is sort of climate talk – ruggedising our key infrastructure that exists. I do not expect you to answer that today, but it could be an ongoing conversation.
Mr VINCENT – Mr President, I will take that on notice.
