Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into Climate Resilience

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:36): I am going to speak this evening in statements on reports on another inquiry that the Legislative Council’s Environment and Planning Committee (EPC) has put through its paces – and it is quite a compendium – which is the climate resilience inquiry. It was a Greens-delivered inquiry and one that the Nationals certainly were not super keen to embrace at the start. However, overwhelmingly there are some very interesting and compelling arguments from people who live outside the tram tracks and who have been able to provide some interesting dynamics and conversations and hence content and findings and recommendations.

It is actually to the minority report written by the Liberals and Nationals that I would like to address my comments today, stating that indeed we do not oppose the majority report but that in terms of a range of the government’s policy directives and indeed strategies in this space, many of the people who provided commentary to us spoke about how the Allan government talks a big game on climate resilience but its delivery is riddled with bureaucracy, political spin and buck-passing and that communities, particularly regional communities, often feel very much left behind. Indeed this goes to the point that in the very last chapter of this particular report there was an insertion – and you can see it in the transcript of proceedings there – that the Liberals and Nationals very much voted against having included in this commentary, the emergency services tax. That particular tax, that policy that has passed through this house, was not part of the terms of reference. It was not included, with no ability for people to make a statement on it or appear as testimony, and we opposed that and oppose the tax. And we will scrap the tax when in government.

Some of the other comments that I want to put on record here are in relation to coastal erosion and the ongoing issue that faces our regional people. In particular, many in my Gippsland coastal communities, down at Silverleaves and at Inverloch, are facing really grave concern not only for their beloved beaches and stretches of coastline but indeed for community assets and private assets as well. And just the frustration – and I heard the former member talking about the community consultation practices, which is another inquiry that the EPC is doing. Many of those people consistently feel that they are knocking on the door and seeking information, asking for consultation – and consultation, we know, is a two-way street. It is not being consultold. It is not, ‘This is what we’ve decided, and I’m sorry, community, but you can just lump it.’ It is about working through the best outcomes for community, and they feel that they have been left out of this loop, and all of the placating and late-to-the-table discussion still does not provide those communities with any measure of confidence that the government is going to get these issues right.

There is the cape-to-cape resilience project down there that the government has been working on for five years, and already my community – and we have heard it in this report – feel that it is out of date. It does not consider the dangers, and it is not considering the adaptation. ‘Chuck a bit of sand around and then retreat’ – that is the feeling that this community get. Well, I am standing up for these good people down there and our beautiful coastline, and I say the government needs to take this seriously. Indeed our recommendation speaks to ‘a coordinated response to coastal erosion that integrates site-specific engineered solutions combined with ecosystem-based adaptation as appropriate’. That is a bit of a garble, but it says it must be site specific, it must be bespoke, it must be in consultation with the community and it must achieve a desirable outcome. Moving sand around – that is what they are having to do on a weekly basis. Who wears the brunt of this? It is often councils, and councils are left with cost-shifting to pick up the pieces. So I call on the government to have a read of the minority report and to understand what communities are dealing with and work collaboratively with them, listening to the members who are most impacted, to get the best outcome for their communities and also the environment.