Dorothea Mackellar wrote of her love for this country, both beautiful and terrifying, a land '…of droughts and flooding rains…'
Australia is certainly a country of extremes. Every year we face floods, bushfires, storms and cyclones, at great personal cost and with major damage to infrastructure and the local economy.
The Productivity Commission and the Insurance Council of Australia say 97% of disaster funding is spent on mopping up and just 3% on getting ready. Deloitte Access Economics estimates the cost of mopping up will increase to at least $73 billion a year by 2060.
The Australian Government invests billions of dollars on 'mopping up and getting ready'. For example, over the past decade over $12 billion has been provided to the states and territories through the joint Commonwealth-State/Territory Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).
There's also funding directly to communities – like the grants under Round 1 of the Preparing Australian Communities Program which opens in early December. Grants of between $20,000 and $10 million are available to reduce the impact of future floods, bushfires and tropical cyclones.
Working with state and territory governments and using data and advice from the Australian Climate Service, priority areas have been determined based on factors such as disaster history, scientific hazard modelling, and climate change impacts on the estimated severity of future events.
This is a national program and unfortunately that means some communities significantly impacted in past natural disasters are not on the round 1 priority list.
However, no one is ruled out. The grants are open all local government areas across Australia.
Projects will be funded based on merit, so a local government area that isn't listed as a priority still has a good chance of receiving a share of the $150 million available under this round, if they put forward a strong application that meets all the criteria.
Rather than self-assess or be swayed by the negative comments of others, I strongly encourage potential applicants to do their research and start preparing an application. You can
