Proposal for Australian coastal housing removal
Updated
An Australian parliamentary report has raised the possibility of banning human occupation in areas of Australia's coastline threatened by rising sea levels. The lower house environment committee has spent 18 months examining the effect the changing climate will have on coastal Australia.
Today a delegation of religious leaders will be hoping to influence Australia's emissions trading negotiations by persuading politicians to think of climate change as a moral issue.
Presenter: Naomi Woodley
Speaker: Mal Washer, Liberal Party MP; Jennie George, Labor Party MP; Alan Stokes, National Seachange Taskforce; Thea Ormerod, Chair of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change
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NAOMI WOODLEY: As the Federal Government and Opposition settle into negotiations over the emissions trading legislation, a parliamentary committee has called for a new sense of urgency to address the impact of climate change. After a year and a half of work, the committee has declared that when it comes to Australia's coastline the time to act is now.
And while some in the Coalition publicly question the existence of climate change, the committee's deputy chair, Liberal MP Mal Washer, has been left in no doubt.
MAL WASHER: There's little in reality left of our coast. It's all got groynes or sandbags or pumping sand, it was a disaster. I mean, it's washed away and that's the reality, so climate change is absolutely and vitally real.
NAOMI WOODLEY: The committee is calling for a new national approach to managing climate change, rising sea levels and coastal erosion in many Australian communities.
The committee's chair, Labor MP Jennie George, wants an all-government ministerial council.
JENNIE GEORGE: This would replace what is often described as complex and highly fragmented arrangements currently applying across jurisdictions, sectors and agencies.
NAOMI WOODLEY: The committee wants the Productivity Commission to investigate the implications of climate change for the insurance industry. It's suggested that the commission look into ways in which the Government could ban occupation or development of land facing sea hazards.
With 80 per cent of Australia's population based in coastal areas, it's a recommendation that could have significant implications, but it's pleased Alan Stokes from the National Sea Change Taskforce.
ALAN STOKES: There are areas around the Australian coast that are vulnerable to such an extent to the impact of climate change, that there can be no guarantee that people can live there in the future in a sense of security and there is a need to get government agreement on this.
NAOMI WOODLEY: He says the committee's recommendations should be treated as a blueprint for the future of Australia's coastline.
ALAN STOKES: Unless they're adopted, what we're really looking at is the prospect of losing those attributes in the coast and in coastal communities that people find so attractive at the moment.
