Joint Media Release
Attorney-General
Parliamentary Secretary for Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction
Labor Candidate for McEwen
Labor Candidate for La Trobe
The Gillard Labor Government is supporting families and communities affected by the Victorian Bushfires.
The Black Saturday bushfires were Australia’s worst natural disaster since Federation, claiming 173 lives, devastating entire towns and communities and destroying more than 2,000 homes, leaving thousands of residents homeless.
The Australian Government has stood side by side with the local communities, the Victorian and local governments, business and non-government organisations in the effort to rebuild bushfire affected communities, brick by brick.
To date, the Federal Labor Government provided more than $460 million in response, recovery and reconstruction efforts including:
- Physical assistance from Federal Government capabilities such as the Australian Defence Force.
- Payments to individuals, community organisations and direct support to the Victorian Government through the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements.
- The activation of the Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment, giving much needed support to individuals in the immediate aftermath of the fires.
- The National Partnership Agreement on the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Plan.
- Prioritisation of bushfire affected communities under existing Federal Government programs.
We invested over $1 billion across bushfire affected areas under the Nation Building Economic Stimulus Plan, generating significant economic activity and employment opportunities for local communities.
We have also provided over $26 million to assist the States and Territories to establish a national telephone-based emergency warning capability.
This includes $15 million for the establishment of ‘Emergency Alert’, the national telephone-based emergency warning system.
Since ‘Emergency Alert’ became operational in December 2009, it has been used 37 times and has issued in excess of 258,000 messages.
The system has been used in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland for flood, tsunami, bushfire, chemical incidents and even a missing child.
In addition, we have invested $11.3 million to:
- Create the Location-Based Number Store (LBNS) – a secure, central database of telephone numbers that serves as the data source for ‘Emergency Alert’.
- Identify practical implementation options to deliver warning messages to mobile phones based on a handset’s physical location, rather than the owner’s billing address, following joint research with all State and Territory Governments.
Federal Labor is pursuing a comprehensive agenda to combat the scourge of bushfire arson, including launching a Bushfire Arson Prevention Manual to help communities develop strategies to prevent arson, investing in a Bushfire Arson Investigation Course to build the expertise of arson investigators across the country, and convening an annual Bushfire Arson Forum to coordinate action nationally and identify further priorities.
We have also invested $3 million for a comprehensive trial of bush fire detection cameras to enable the provision of exact information on where and when a fire starts.
The Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) is evaluating the trial by comparing the effectiveness of different camera systems and examining their ability to accurately detect fires, avoid false detections, and their potential to be integrated into existing emergency management processes. This includes comparing their effectiveness to existing manual detection techniques.
We are also working with the States and Territories to develop a common bandwidth for emergency communication channels and a National Emergency Call Centre Surge Capacity to allow people to receive information in a more timely way and reduce demand on the triple zero emergency number during large scale events.
Last week, Federal Labor welcomed the recommendations of the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. A re-elected Gillard Labor Government will support the pursuit of the six recommendations directed at the Federal Government.
The quiet courage shown by bushfire affected communities as they set about the task of rebuilding their lives and their towns has inspired a nation.
The Gillard Labor Government is committed to continuing its cooperation with these communities to ensure that their needs are met, now and into the future.
7 AUGUST 2010
COMMUNICATIONS UNIT: Phone: (02) 9384 2220 | Fax: (02) 9264 2213
AUTHORISED N.MARTIN for the ALP, 5/9 Sydney Ave. Barton ACT.
