Rebuilding resilient communities amid climate-induced drought and bushfires

The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into its attempts to deal with the worst impacts of a climate crisis it prefers to ignore. But this money will never achieve its stated aim nor reach those who need it most.

The federal Coalition government’s Drought Response, Resilience and Preparedness Plan, released in November last year, sets out its proposal for dealing with the most severe drought in living memory — one that has been made worse by the climate crisis.

The government is offering $50 million for an On-farm Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebate Scheme to improve on-farm water management and $36.9 million over five years “to improve water security and drought resilience in the Great Artesian Basin through increasing artesian pressure and reducing wastage”.

The plan also proposes to spend about $3.5 billion on a national water infrastructure plan that will take even more water out of river systems.

Meanwhile, after initially denying the recent East Coast bushfire catastrophe was anything out of the ordinary, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has set up a National Bushfire Recovery Agency.

The agency is set to receive $2 billion, which comes on top of the more than $100 million in disaster recovery payments and allowances that have already been disbursed.

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Eyewitness: East Gippsland burns

East Gippsland is one region among many affected by disastrous bushfires. Three quarters of it — stretching about 250 km from west to east and 150 km from south to north — has been burned as I write this: about 700,000 hectares.

The last two years have been dry with 2019 being the driest on record, with less than half average rainfall. Fires started by lightning strikes last November 21. Despite the efforts of professional fire crews, the Country Fire Authority (CFA) and water bombers, the fires continued and expanded in bursts. Much of the terrain was inaccessible.

On December 30, at 44° Celsius, they raced out of the forests and devastated communities, including mine at Sarsfield, 12 km from Bairnsdale. They left our mud brick house but little else, including our grandsons’ cabin and most of their possessions. Dozens of houses were lost in Sarsfield and neighbouring Clifton Creek.

We had six weeks of warning and expected to be hit, so we evacuated in time with what we particularly did not want to lose. Many people had friends or relatives in Bairnsdale to go to. We used the Organic Centre. A relief centre was set up by the shire, then an additional one as evacuee numbers mounted.

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