Federal government to create new natural disaster agency
The Australian government will follow the bushfire royal commission recommendationto create a new agency to improve Australia resilience after a disaster. It will give $600 million to the new National Recovery and Resilience Agency (NRRA) with the aim to oversee national responses to major natural disasters, advise on how to mitigate the impacts of future weather events, and help communities recover and rebuild.
In the past two years, Australians have faced floods, bushfires, cyclones, drought and now the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency will be given $600 million to fund projects to bushfire and cyclone-proof houses, and build levees in disaster prone areas. It will also support telecommunications infrastructure to better withstand disasters.
The federal government will also announce the creation of an Australian Climate Service, gathering experts from the Bureau of Meteorology, the CSIRO, ABS and Geoscience Australia, to better collate data to inform emergency management policy. The data will be used to help planning for power, water and telecommunications infrastructure, as well as housing in a future where climate change will continue to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters across Australia.