Malcolm Turnbull calls for greater spending on disaster mitigation
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Version 0 of 1. Malcolm Turnbull has called for Australia to spend much more on natural disaster mitigation for floods and bushfires. He visited Virginia in South Australia on Monday, a district heavily under water after last week’s 50-years storm. He said serious consideration had to be given to the area’s flood mitigation because it was an important food bowl. He said Australia must start spending more on natural disaster mitigation generally, as the Productivity Commission recommended in 2015. “Governments over-invest in post-disaster reconstruction and underinvest in mitigation that would limit the impact of natural disasters in the first place,” the Productivity Commission warned last year. “As such, natural disaster costs have become a growing, unfunded liability for governments.” Turnbull said his government was now talking to state and local governments about ways to better balance the country’s disaster recovery and relief funding so it was more focused on mitigation. “Over the years, we have not spent enough money in Australia on disaster mitigation,” he said on Monday. “We need to spend more in advance so that we have to spend less after the rainfall events or the bushfire events that occur so it’s important to invest in mitigation, in advance.” Last week’s storm damaged more than 20 separate transmission towers and led to a blackout of the state of South Australia for hours. |