Speech to Climate Adaptation Conference, Perth, Western Australia

Thank you, Bianca and Jason, and the members of the National First Peoples Platform on Climate Change.

Kaya, ladies and gentlemen.

I’d like to acknowledge the Wadjuk people of the Noongar Nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet – the custodians of my home in Walyalup or Fremantle.

I recognise the critical value of their time-tested, age-old traditional knowledge in caring for country, and how vital that knowledge is to our shared effort to create a more sustainable and resilient future.

I am privileged and humbled to be able to take part today in the launch of the 2024 First Peoples Statement on Climate Change, and to make some general remarks about climate risk and adaptation.

On behalf of the Australian Government, I will consider this statement with the utmost respect and appreciation.

I want to acknowledge with gratitude the leadership of the National First Peoples Platform on Climate Change, and the NESP in helping to support the National First Peoples Gathering on Climate Change since 2018. And can I acknowledge Damian’s leadership as the Platform Steering Committee Chair.

I note that the Platform’s membership has recently been renewed, and I’d like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the new and returning members and wish you all the best for your work over the exciting period that lies ahead of us.

As I said in my speech at the 3rd National First Peoples Gathering on Climate Change in Dubbo last year, it is an article of faith for a government led by Anthony Albanese that no one should be left out of the opportunities that are being created from Australia’s transition to a clean energy future.

In our post-settlement history, we know that First Nations peoples have not shared in the economic growth and broader social and economic benefits that have occurred in the past. To a very significant degree, First Nations peoples were denied that opportunity.

It is therefore vital that First Nations communities are involved from the outset in this transformative endeavour. That’s a matter of fairness and common sense. And it is essential to an effective response because there is no greater or more far-reaching connection to country than through our First Nations heritage.

These principles must also apply to our work on climate adaptation.

First Nations knowledges, sciences and practices provide the longest continuous story of living responsibly and sustainably in a continent that has been subject to millennia of change and extremity across land, sea, freshwater and saltwater country.

It is also true that First Nations communities are today disproportionately exposed to the impacts of climate change. These risks affect connection to Country; these impacts will affect health, housing, and food and water security.

And it’s for all those reasons that the Albanese Government is acting on the basis that First Nations experience, expertise, and interests are central as we undertake what will be the defining effort of the 21st century: the transformation of our energy system, the decarbonisation of our economy, and the adaptation to the impacts of climate change that cannot be avoided.

In launching today’s Statement I acknowledge it reflects the strength, wisdom, and leadership of First Nations peoples and I look forward to continuing to shape our response to Australia’s climate future together.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a privilege to join this important gathering of people working together as part of a diverse but shared enterprise that is grappling with one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Can I thank the National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub and the West Australian Government for organising this conference.

I come here today wearing two hats: as the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy and as the Assistant Minister for Emergency Management.

Not so very long ago, neither of those areas of responsibility would have featured in the Ministerial line-up for an Australian government.

Today no one would question the roles that my senior Ministers, Chris Bowen and Kristy McBain hold in each of those areas, and where those responsibilities overlap in my role as the Assistant Minister tells you a fair bit about the challenges of our time.

Needless to say, Australia is now well past the point at which the term ‘climate change’ was predominantly used to describe the future.

Climate change is already affecting virtually every part of our landscape and of our ocean domain; virtually every part of our community, and our social and economic life together.

From that sobering state of affairs flows two imperatives: first, to continue the task of mitigation through our focus on emission reduction and broad decarbonisation in Australia, and by encouraging emission reduction through bilateral and multilateral cooperation; and second, to make sure we are adapting to the change we cannot avoid. That second task, that second imperative is both possible and it is necessary. Adaptation has occurred in Australia for tens of thousands of years through First Nations stewardship of country, and through the ingenuity and resilience of our nation as a community that has increasingly drawn on the experiences of migrants from all corners of the world.

We should absolutely have confidence in our ability and capacity to look ahead and take measured action to protect our communities, our environment, our economy, our way of life.

But before effective adaptation can occur, you need a robust and detailed understanding of the risks that you’re seeking to manage and avoid.

Much of that knowhow has been the subject of discussion at this very conference, and I know that over the past 3 days, this gathering has heard from Traditional Owners grappling with the impacts on Country and culture; from researchers extending the frontiers of knowledge; from policymakers who seek to shape decisions for action; and from practitioners working to translate ideas into tangible solutions on the ground.

And in a minute I will say some things about the forthcoming National Climate Risk Assessment and the National Adaptation Plan – which represent the essential building blocks of our response to the climate change that is already occurring and to aspects of that change that will continue under any mitigation scenario.

But first, a little bit of increasingly familiar context.

Only a few weeks ago, a vigorous coastal low-pressure system tore through southeast Australia.

Earlier in May, record-breaking floods in NSW’s Mid North Coast claimed 5 lives.

We’ve experienced a return of marine heatwave conditions with coral bleaching at Ningaloo to bookend the awful impact that has been suffered by the Great Barrier Reef multiple times in recent years.

Here in WA, we’ve witnessed the unsettling mix of droughts and floods.

The South-West is becoming hotter and dryer. And two years ago floodwaters swept through the Kimberley region, destroying homes and businesses and cutting off remote Indigenous communities.

I want to acknowledge the Cook WA Government for establishing the state’s first Climate Adaptation Strategy in 2023, and more recently the creation of WA’s first dedicated Minister for Climate Resilience, my friend the Hon Don Punch, who addressed the conference earlier in the week.

Five years on, the Black Summer bushfires remain fresh in our collective memory: fires that were by some measure the largest ever recorded; fires that destroyed 300 homes; saw entire communities evacuated by naval ships under apocalyptic skies; fires that burned through 24 million hectares– that’s an area nearly as large as the United Kingdom; fires that are estimated to have killed up to 1 billion native animals.

It was the Royal Commission into those Black Summer bushfires that recommended the creation of the Australian Climate Service, which draws together the expertise of the CSIRO, the Bureau of Meteorology, GeoScience Australia, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

And when the Albanese government was elected, we provided funding of $27.4 million to the ACS to produce Australia’s first National Climate Risk Assessment.

As we all know, extreme weather isn’t new to Australia, but as the work of our climate scientists clearly indicates the effects of climate change is creating a different beast altogether.

And that means we’re already grappling with both near-term emergency events and longer-term climate risks.

But as Robert Glasser has observed, we can’t make the mistake of reflexively assuming that immediate problems are the only problems that we should regard as urgent.

The truth is if we don’t consider and apply smart longer-term interventions and adaptations, the shorter-term responses will become harder and less effective, and climate change impacts will be broader, deeper, and more costly.

Working to advance our national capacity when it comes to adaptation and risk-reduction, and working to ensure that those efforts are both aligned and streamlined is one of the reasons I have been appointed as both Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy and Assistant Minister for Emergency Management.

And I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work with you on that crucial task of charting and then steering the convergence of our approach to shorter-term emergency hazards and longer term climate change risks.

The sooner we act, the greater our chances of protecting the things we value most and the best chance we have to reduce the cost of responding that will otherwise fall on households, businesses, and governments alike.

And as with the energy system transformation that is under way, we know that work on both mitigation and adaptation comes with significant co-benefits, including substantial cost saving to households.

Our Cheaper Batteries Program and our Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative both make a contribution to reducing emissions, but both also help reduce energy costs for households and energy costs for the system as a whole – and of course the SHEPI will improve the liveability of housing for some of Australia’s most vulnerable – making it cooler in hot conditions and therefore better adapted to the climate impact that poses the biggest risk to human health.

Friends, investment in adaptation has to be a shared responsibility across all levels of government, across communities, and the private sector.

At the Commonwealth level, the Australian Government has taken some important first steps.

We’ve invested $1 billion in a Disaster Ready Fund that is supporting disaster risk reduction and resilience projects – and the third round of that $200 million per annum program closed for application recently.

Other funded adaptation work includes the $50 million Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program and the $200 million Urban Rivers and Catchments Program.

We’ve also delivered the first National Health and Climate Strategy, to guide our response to the health impacts of climate change, and to build healthy, climate-resilient communities.

In addition, we are investing $15.9 million to establish the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula Area Climate Resilience Centre. The centre will support the local community to build climate resilience through responses that are grounded in local experience. And I would like to acknowledge Councillor Kabay Tamu from the Torres Strait Island Regional Council who has travelled across the country to be here at the conference.  

As I noted earlier, the Australian Government also committed $27.4 million over 2 years to carefully and systematically assess the risks climate change poses nationally and to plan for a more resilient and well-adapted future.

The National Climate Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Plan are essential building blocks on which our concerted and collaborative approach to this task will be built.

Both have been shaped by extensive consultation across all levels of government, industry, academia, NGOs, and First Nations people.

Just to remind us of the scale of the work:

• it involved 2 phases of evidence-based risk assessment: a qualitative first pass and a quantitative second pass;
• it drew on the work of more than 250 climate risk experts and authors
• convened 41 assessment workshops around Australia with over 2,000 participants
• plus 11 sectoral roundtables and extensive consultation to form the National Adaptation Plan Issues Paper, which then drew more than 180 submissions.

I can rattle off those numbers pretty quickly – and they are impressive – but still fail to capture the scale, intensity, and commitment that has gone into this endeavour.

Thanks to all that work, from all those many people, a number of whom are here today, we will have the most comprehensive and authoritative account of the climate risks that Australia faces in the coming decades.

Before I say anything else, let me personally thank those who are here today or elsewhere for your contributions to this momentous piece of work.

And then – without wanting to make anyone feel unnecessarily exhausted – let me be clear in saying: there is much important work ahead for all of us.

We know that further and deeper collaboration with the states and territories is required, knitting together the work at the federal level with the plans and programs that states and territories have been developing.  And we know that we require a more detailed assessment of the risks that climate change poses to First Nations communities.

I’ll come now to the National Climate Risk Assessment itself.

Last year, of course we got an early picture of the nationally significant climate risks facing Australia after the government released the first pass assessment.

It’s the outcome of the second pass assessment of 11 priority risks that will soon be delivered – and I’m glad this morning to be able to provide an indication of how that assessment will land.

As everyone in this room would be well aware, the key systems that support our way of life are already under pressure from the impacts of climate change.

These are systems that underpin some of the fundamental things we need to sustain our basic needs and for our broader wellbeing – like water, food, health services, our environment and infrastructure.

They’re under threat from more extreme heat and heatwaves; from more severe rainfall and flood events; from longer droughts, more frequent and more intense bushfires and so on.

What is very apparent is that not only are these climate hazards projected to intensify and become more frequent, but they will also present a different and more difficult challenge for being concurrent, compounding, and cascading events.

In particular, we will see increases in extreme temperatures and heatwaves.

We will spend more time in drought, especially in the southern and eastern areas and in south-western Australia.

We will face higher bushfire risk.

And we will have to deal with the ongoing rise in sea levels– in addition to increased ocean temperature and acidification, which contribute to disasters like the algal bloom currently affecting South Australia.

When you combine these hazards with our exposure to them, and then focus the lens through a range of specific vulnerabilities, you then have a risk assessment that represents a clear picture of our shared challenge.

And it is a substantial challenge.

But this forthcoming piece of analysis will put us in the best position to avoid the worst scenarios through our renewed commitment to ambitious mitigation by emission reduction work in Australia and globally, and it will put us in the best position to avoid the worst impacts of climate hazards through effective adaptation.

In other words, this work will be the means by which we calibrate our action in response, and will be the basis of measured optimism: because they point the way towards a sustainable future.

Australia, equipped with the most comprehensive and detailed understanding that we’ve ever had of the climate risks we face, will now be in a stronger position than ever before to plan and deliver appropriate responses.

Of course, the Australian government has a responsibility to lead that work on a collaborative basis.

We have accepted that responsibility as a KPI of good government for some considerable time, and we have been acting in a concerted, focused, and collaborative fashion since the election of the Albanese government in 2022.  We know there is no time to waste.

Recent court decisions in Australia and internationally, including this week at the ICJ, have reinforced that position.

Sadly, that is not accepted in every part of Australia’s political spectrum – and at the moment there is a live debate with the Coalition about scrapping the commitment to net zero by 2050, which to be honest always felt like a very grudging, fingers-crossed-behind-your-back kind of position in the first place.

On that point let me note that one of the systems considered through the NCRA process relates to governance itself – which should be pretty obvious, because if our governance on this issue is not of the highest standard, the consequences are genuinely dire.

And I think the fact that the federal opposition cannot even agree that climate change is real and that climate action is vital speaks volumes about the nature of that risk.

But let me turn now to the NCRA’s companion piece of work, the equally important National Adaptation Plan, which, for the first time will set out a framework for adapting to nationally significant climate risks.

The plan sets out a clear vision and objectives for what will constitute a well-adapted Australia, with an overview of roles and responsibilities, and an outline of the principles that define effective adaptation.

And while it does not set out specific solutions to specific impacts, it does present a stocktake of existing policies and measures across the eight systems, and it identifies areas that require timely consideration.

The Albanese government has already commenced considerable adaptation work.  We know there is more to be done – and I know, with my shared responsibilities across climate and emergency management, that there is work underway as a result of the Colvin Review into disaster relief funding arrangements and the Glasser Review into the governance of emergency management.

Ultimately, we know that adaptation – or, if you like, risk-reduction and resilience, which tends to be the emergency management frame – is everyone’s business: governments, households, industry, business, community groups, and individuals.

And in short order we need adaptation to become an ever-present way of thinking so that what we do in every area of life is sensibly informed by climate risks and therefore sensibly resilient to those impacts.

Friends, I’m proud of the work that we’ve accomplished together in the last few years, but it is a statement of the complete obvious to say that the journey has a long way to go.

The growing risks posed by climate change will continue to test our resolve and will require our sustained and creative policy attention.

As we reach the point of delivering the most detailed and comprehensive, and the most thoroughly science-backed assessment of climate risks with a new framework for coordinating the national adaptation effort we will have crossed an important threshold.

From that foundation we must continue to work together in our shared effort to ensure Australia is in the best position to respond to climate impacts for generations to come.

I hope you’ll allow me to continue to count on your support and wise counsel.

Thank you.