The Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee Lessons to be learned in relation to the Australian bushfire season 2019-20 © Commonwealth of Australia 2020 ISBN 978-1-76093-121-6 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License. The details of this licence are available on the Creative Commons website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/au/. Members Chair Senator Tim Ayres ALP, NSW Deputy Chair Senator James Paterson LP, VIC Members Senator Kimberley Kitching ALP, VIC Senator Malcolm Roberts PHON, QLD Senator Paul Scarr LP, QLD Senator Murray Watt ALP, QLD Participating Members Senator Janet Rice AG, VIC Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee Secretariat: Sarah Redden, Acting Committee Secretary (from 10.08.2020) Ann Palmer, Committee Secretary (to 07.08.2020) Kate Campbell, Principal Research Officer Tas Larnach, Principal Research Officer Lisa Butson, Assistant Programming Officer Caroline Wang, Senior Research Officer (to 28.08.2020) Nicola Knackstredt, Senior Research Officer Angie Lilley, Senior Research Officer Adrienne White, Senior Research Officer Kate Morris, Research Officer Jo-Anne Holmes, Administrative Officer Michaela Le Cheile, Administrative Officer iii Contents Members ............................................................................................................................................. iii Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... xi Terms of Reference ......................................................................................................................... xiii List of Recommendations ................................................................................................................ xv Chapter 1—Introduction and overview of the 2019-20 bushfire season ................................... 1 Referral .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Conduct of the inquiry ........................................................................................................................ 2 Update on the committee's work ............................................................................................ 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 2 The 2019–20 bushfire season ............................................................................................................. 3 Preconditions of the 2019–20 bushfires ................................................................................. 4 The impact of climate change ............................................................................................................. 7 The extreme nature of the fires .......................................................................................................... 9 Bushfire smoke ....................................................................................................................... 10 Longer bushfire seasons ................................................................................................................... 10 Key issues and complexities in addressing bushfire threats ........................................... 13 Scope of interim report ...................................................................................................................... 13 Other inquiries into the bushfires ........................................................................................ 14 Interim report structure ......................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2—Disaster management frameworks .......................................................................... 17 Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements ............................................ 17 Existing disaster management frameworks ................................................................................... 18 Local governments.................................................................................................................. 19 State and territory governments ........................................................................................... 20 Commonwealth Government ............................................................................................... 21 Emergency Management Australia ................................................................................................. 22 Disaster management arrangements during the 2019–20 bushfire season ................................ 23 Work of EMA .......................................................................................................................... 23 Australian Defence Force support ........................................................................................ 25 National Bushfire Recovery Agency ............................................................................................... 28 v National Bushfire Recovery Fund ........................................................................................ 29 Disaster recovery funding ................................................................................................................ 37 Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements ......................................................................... 37 Emergency Response Fund ................................................................................................... 41 Commonwealth recovery payments to individuals .......................................................... 43 Committee views ............................................................................................................................... 45 ADF support ............................................................................................................................ 46 National Bushfire Recovery Agency .................................................................................... 46 Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements ......................................................................... 47 Emergency Response Fund ................................................................................................... 48 Commonwealth recovery payments .................................................................................... 48 Chapter 3—Government action and hazard reduction .............................................................. 49 Warnings of elevated bushfire risk .................................................................................................. 49 Forecasts for the 2019–20 bushfire season ........................................................................... 49 Briefings provided to the Executive ................................................................................................ 53 Briefings to the Prime Minister ............................................................................................. 53 Requests by Emergency Leaders for Climate Action to brief the Prime Minister ......... 54 Hazard reduction and bushfire mitigation .................................................................................... 57 Challenges with hazard reduction activities ...................................................................... 60 Indigenous land management practices .............................................................................. 62 Funding and research ............................................................................................................. 64 Committee views ............................................................................................................................... 65 Hazard reduction activity ...................................................................................................... 65 Chapter 4—Human health impacts of the fires ........................................................................... 67 Physical health impacts ..................................................................................................................... 67 Bushfire smoke ........................................................................................................................ 68 Mental health impacts ....................................................................................................................... 73 Personal experiences .............................................................................................................. 74 Mental health and first responders ...................................................................................... 75 Vulnerable groups .................................................................................................................. 77 Government responses to health impacts .......................................................................... 79 Better Access Bushfire Recovery Telehealth initiative ..................................................... 83 vi Committee views ............................................................................................................................... 85 Research funding ..................................................................................................................