Submission to the Inquiry into lessons to be learned in relation to the Australian bushfire season 2019-20
15 June 2020 | Download full submission
Summary of recommendations
- Improve coordination of information and data sharing between local governments, consumers and the insurance industry.
- Fund community legal centres to train front-line government agencies to recognise legal issues. This includes understanding different legal assistance services and referral pathways.
- Support all local councils to deliver clear and well-targeted information about local disaster response efforts and available services to communities.
- Develop an overarching strategic framework for an integrated legal response, which establishes a formal, funded role for community legal centres and other local legal assistance providers.
- Improve coordination and communication on clean-up and debris removal, including timing and the interaction with people’s rights under their insurance policies.
- Invest in small- and large-scale mitigation projects nationally.
- Urgently adopt a whole-of-government approach to climate change that addresses mitigation and adaptation in a coordinated way.
- Integrate Indigenous land and fire management practices into formal disaster preparedness and hazard reduction practices.
- Ensure Aboriginal communities, including land management and fire experts, are central in the design of all land management programs that operate throughout the year.
- Adequately fund community legal centres to provide outreach legal assistance services during and after disasters.
- Continue to support locally led and directed recovery efforts, to ensure communities can properly address long-term psychological and legal impacts.
- Implement recommendations made by Financial Rights Legal Centre to improve the availability, affordability and transparency of insurance products against the risk of bushfires and other natural disasters.