Disaster Adaptation Plan Guidelines

Now. Hopefully the technology will work well for us this morning. So I'd like to welcome Minister Janelle Saffin. Thank you Mel and look can I say thank you for that lovely introduction. And you rightly say that I'm passionate. Passionate about, the reconstruction authority, passionate about what we're charged to do and passionate about, the launch today of the disaster adaptation guidelines, because in some ways they are quite revolutionary.

A document that can look ordinary but quite a revolutionary, change. And I'm truly sorry I can't be there in person, as I am in the Northern rivers with the Minister for emergency Management, Regional Development and Local Government, Christine McBain and amongst other things, we're about to do some announcements about major recovery work to get underway up and yes, recovery work.

You know, after three in the big years, because we know how long it takes to do. And after the recent severe weather events in New England, the mayor of Gunnedah Shire said at a meeting, it was reported to me that the mayor said there should be more money for resilience in upgrading infrastructure so we don't have to do constant repairs and that's become our refrain.

Now we know that we have to do that and why am I saying it now? It's because it highlights for me why today's so important. We have to shift the dial, as I say, on how we prepare and how we deal with disasters, and we need to invest in mitigation, in adaptation and resilience right across the state. And can I say, I'm heartened, to see the interest by those in the room.

And it's a large amount of people. I keep hearing the little bits as people keep joining online. So it's great to see that. And people are from all over the state and beyond. And we know this work has been eagerly awaiting, but I'm really, really proud of the time, effort and expertise it's been given to get these guidelines right.

The team at RA have worked really hard, really well and done deep engagement with communities, and particularly with local councils, select knowledge, mayors and councillors and joint organisations here today to get them right. I feel like I've travelled with the guidelines from the, you know, conception until now because, as local member and as parliamentary secretary and now minister, I appreciate the value that they're bringing to disaster risk reduction.

And that's what it's about. All of us pected to implement the Sendai framework. It's about risk reduction. And that's what the disaster adaptation guidelines are very, focussed on. That is the core and you'll hear more about that today. We do need to change our approach to disaster management. Some things we do well, some things we need to do better.

I said when I was appointed that I we need to have better preparation. That gives us a better response and better recovery. There's a lot of things we have to do, in that space and disaster adaptation planning, it aims to shift that, be more proactive in the planning. And it's not only fiscally responsible, but it reduces burdens on our communities and it helps saves lives and livelihoods.

Look, I if I was with you face to face where I could interact with the audience, I would want to say more. And, but because I'm coming in online, I'll leave my comments at that. I just want to thank you. Mal. You're the absolutely right person to lead the Reconstruction Authority. I want to thank everyone who worked on the disaster adaptation guidelines.

I'll do that through you, Amanda. Amanda Leck and the team and also the people who are working on the two. Disaster. Adaptation plans that are underway. You know, about the Hawkesbury nappy and Valley, which is complete and, the one in the northern rivers that is underway. There's five other projects that are underway that I wouldn't call disaster adaptation planning projects, but they're projects that can lead to that and inform that.

So, you know, there's a lot of work to be done. We'll have them across every region in the state. But today is the start. The Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley and the Northern Rivers didn't have these guidelines. So in some ways what they're doing has informed the guidelines. But everyone now will have these and will be able to work together.

It's a collaborative approach and working particularly with local councils and communities. So walking hand in hand in collaboration so that we reduce risk and we make sure our communities are safer and stronger. So with those, a few comments. I'm very happy to have the honour to launch the Disaster Adaptation Planning guidelines. Thank you Mal, and thank you everyone who's there.

Well thank you Minister Saffin. And I think it's pretty easy to hear the passion in her voice and her commitment to actually reducing risk. The community. Apologies if my back is you, Minister. I'm sure you can see me from the front. It feels strange standing with my back to you. The minister and I work very closely together. When I was the recovery coordinator in the Northern Rivers following the terrible 2022 floods, and having visited these communities more recently in my role with the RA, I've seen the long tail of recovery, which is exacerbated and compounded by successive events, but really highlights the reason why we need to focus on risk reduction, adaptation and mitigation to

reduce the impacts on communities. As Minister Saffin shared, the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority was established to lead our state's efforts to reduce disaster risk and build long term resilience. Our mission is clear to help communities prepare for, withstand and recover from natural hazards. While we can't stop nature, where we can mitigate its impacts and adapt to its challenges is where the biggest benefits can be achieved for communities now and into the future.

We are addressing gaps in programs and policies, and setting out a clear roadmap of short and medium term actions for disaster risk reduction. The structural changes are what make steps possible. They help clarify clear roles and responsibilities, allocate resources efficiently, and promote community inclusion and participation, which is essential. They align with global frameworks, as the minister pointed out, ensuring we're building resilience in a way that's integrated and sustainable and learning from the best in the world.

Facing a global challenge. We do this by working across government, industry and communities to reduce exposure, vulnerability and ultimately the costs of disasters before they happen. In my relatively short time leading the RA, we've been called upon to support communities dealing with the preparation and aftermath of tropical cyclones, floods, major storms, and coastal erosions. As I look around the room, many of you in local government, in industry, and certainly right across government, we've had numerous contacts recently.

I'd like to say those contacts haven't been because of disaster, but they really do sharpen our focus. And I think that's why today is so important to us moving forward. Our teams experience every day of the trauma and upheaval, natural hazards risk where they intersect with the communities. The depth guidelines launched today marks another significant step in how we work together to meet that mission.

New South Wales has come a long way in recent years in strengthening its approach to disaster risk reduction, and the DAP guidelines are a key part of that progress, bringing our work into sharper focus and setting a shared path forward. With climate change and population growth continuing to reshape risk right across our cities and regions, we know that disasters will not only affect more people, they'll also be more intense, last longer, and occur more frequently.

That's why a coordinated and forward thinking approach to disaster adaptation planning like this is so vital. The minister mentioned the state disaster mitigation plan or the SDMP, as we refer to it. And I'd like to give you some more context on this important plan.

The SDMP was released in February last year and is the New South Wales Government's blueprint for reducing disaster impacts and costs through 37 targeted actions grounded in hazard assessments and risk reduction options across every local government area in the state. It focuses on planning reform, critical infrastructure, resilience, social cohesion and importantly, caring for country. New South Wales is leading the way in this proactive approach, where the SDMP provides a statewide platform that guidelines provide a process to bring depth and detail to a regional scale where the impacts of natural hazards are shared and can be most effectively mitigated.

A key strength of the DAP guidelines and depths themselves is collaboration. That's why it's so important that we've got so many special partners here this morning. As the guidelines make clear, these plans are designed to bring stakeholders together in each region of New South Wales to co-design actions that reduce risk from hazards like floods, bushfires, heatwaves, storms and cyclones.

We are already delivering on this commitment in the northern rivers, in the Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley, and we are working alongside joint organisations in regions across New South Wales in preparatory works. The guidelines create a clear path to aligning local leadership with our broader approach to disaster adaptation planning in New South Wales. Together, we can drive a more integrated and consistent approach to risk reduction, one that recognises local strengths and regional needs whilst contributing to a stronger and more resilient state.

It's now my great pleasure to introduce Amanda Leck, Head of Adaptation, Mitigation and Reconstruction. To tell you more about the DAP guidelines and the work we've already underway. Welcome, Amanda.

Thanks so much, Mal, and thank you, Minister Saffin. Not sure if you're still online, but we really appreciate you joining us this morning. And also thank you to Uncle Colin for your beautiful Welcome to Country. I've been working in the emergency management and disaster resilience sector for nearly 30 years. That's a scary thought in itself. And today's launch, and showing you our work around the disaster adaptation planning guidelines and the work of the SDMP is a momentous step towards delivering real and positive change.

And I feel very privileged to be in this role and to be able to have a positive impact on how we deal with natural hazards for our communities. And I'm really excited about the potential that disaster adaptation planning, in our regions brings. Before I give you an overview of the guidelines, how they'll support disaster adaptation planning, and how will work with agencies and councils and relevant organisations to develop depths.

I'll touch on why disaster adaptation planning is so important, as the Minister shared and knows from her own personal experience, New South Wales is no stranger to natural hazards. Our communities continue to feel the impacts of floods, bushfires, storms and coastal erosion. Just this year, we've experienced flooding and destructive winds caused by Tropical Cyclone Alfred, along with widespread impacts from the more recent East Coast severe weather event.

There has never been a more urgent need for coordinated and proactive disaster planning. A community's ability to recover is also heavily dependent on the steps taken ahead of time to prepare, mitigate or limit the exposure of natural hazards. And as the minister noted, governments have traditionally spent the majority of funding on recovery and cleaning up after disasters rather than investing in mitigation beforehand.

The NEMA-led Colvin and Glasser reviews have highlighted the need for reform to ease the trauma and burden on communities, and to ensure a much better return on investment for governments and communities. The recommendations from both reviews support a strategic shift towards disaster risk reduction and resilience to reduce the impact of disasters on the Australian people. I'm pleased to say New South Wales is already leading in this approach.

The very premise of the debt process is to understand risk, develop ways to mitigate that risk, and if we can't provide the tools and solutions to help places and communities to adapt. The role and powers of the authority are buried in legislation and regulation. The New South Wales Reconstruction Authority Act and Regulation 2023. Apart from response, our functions cover the broad spectrum of disaster management, from reducing risk through adaptation and mitigation and preparedness, through to local recovery, reconstruction and disaster funding assistance.

And our key focus on reducing risk and supporting adaptation to natural hazards. Recognises the shifting balance in effort and spending from recovery to being better prepared ahead of the challenges through proactive planning that supply the State Disaster Mitigation Plan toolkit of measures to reduce our community's exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards depths take a place based approach to understanding the risk in a region, and provide a framework for how we can come together to identify appropriate solutions with all stakeholders.

The DAP guidelines we are launching today provide the documented process and support a consistent and streamlined approach for each regional plan. The TMP targets existing policy and program gaps. Implementation of the 37 actions is well underway, with actions including a statewide framework for evacuation, infrastructure capacity, a state policy for large scale multi hazard managed relocation, and development of a statewide framework for social cohesion, with a focus on natural hazard risk.

These statewide interventions unblock and remove obstacles and provide the supportive policy framework for place based disaster adaptation planning. While the SDMP sets out a programme to progress this important policy work, it's really through our place based steps that, on the ground interventions will be identified and investment priorities established to deliver community focussed risk reduction outcomes. Importantly, both the SDP and depths are given legislative weight through the Reconstruction Authority Act and the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, which require agencies and authorities to have regard to depths in the course of their duties, including in strategic planning and development, assessment and approvals.

We've been working closely with a range of stakeholders for almost two years to develop a community focussed and collaborative approach to disaster adaptation planning. This included an eight week consultation on the draft DAP guidelines in mid 2024 to make sure they were fit for purpose, and I know many online today and in the room have participated in that consultation.

Our teams engage with more than 700 stakeholders from around 250 organisations including councils, joint organisations, regional organisations of councils, government agencies, industry, private and academic organisations, infrastructure providers and community organisations. We're proud of the consultation that was undertaken and I'd like to thank everyone who contributed to this process. As the minister said, we took time to get this right and what we will read today has been deeply informed by your feedback and input to that process.

We heard that local government are key partners in disaster adaptation planning. However, they cannot carry this burden alone and this is particularly true of councils in regional areas, many of whom have been impacted over and over again by disasters in recent years. The RA must play a coordinating role in delivering hazard insights for our regions. We need to leverage and build on the existing work and plans already underway by councils.

The DAP process can identify funding pathways, particularly for betterment, and our stakeholders saw the value in the debt process to help navigate complex policy roadblocks at the state level. We listen closely to the feedback provided, and the guidelines that you read today are designed to reduce the burden on local government with the right taking a leadership role while recognising the key role councils and JOs will take in the process.

They also enable actions that may provide early wins to be identified and socialised earlier. The guidelines have been streamlined to a four stage process for developing a DAP, and there are now two key outputs a foundation DAP at the second stage and a full depth that is published at the end of the third stage. We heard clearly that we shouldn't wait to begin implementing actions when they are showing benefits early in the process, so the foundation DAP leverages existing work and early work to progress actions and protect communities sooner.

While the detailed work necessary continues to a full DAP. This process builds on the existing work of councils and other organisations to take a multi hazard, locally shaped, regionally coordinated and state facilitated approach to disaster adaptation planning. In line with feedback, the guidelines also include language around consideration of water security as a secondary hazard and how these time with draft, as well as more detail about the assurance process, governance arrangements and approvals.

So you may be asking yourself what is a DAP? They are developed through a collaborative process to facilitate a shared understanding of natural hazard risk. We want the input of First Nations, peoples, communities, industry and government. The process identifies actions that can be taken now to reduce risk and into the future. Using a robust options assessment process. These actions might include building levees, updating planning controls, upgrading evacuation routes, delivering preparedness programmes with our communities, or investing in social infrastructure and nature based measures by identifying the most effective ways to reduce risk over the shorter and longer term depths will help guide better decision making and greater investment in adaptation and mitigation.

So what does a disaster plan really look like? Well, depths will be developed and implemented through a full stage process. The first stage readiness involves the establishment of governance arrangements for effective collaboration, reaching agreement on regional boundaries, and developing project plans and community engagement plans. Stage two understanding regional risk and early actions involves compiling a regional risk profile, identifying the community's values and vision, and identifying and screening risk reduction options.

This is where the foundation depth is delivered, which includes those early actions for implementation. Stage three, the Adaptation and Mitigation Options Assessment involves developing and assessing risk reduction options and publishing a full depth. The final stage involves implementing and monitoring the actions identified in the DAP. Collaboration with relevant organisations. During DAP development, each stage will be assured and community and stakeholder engagement will continue throughout the whole process.

We know that drawing on the strengths and experiences of communities is crucial to understanding how natural hazards impact people and places in cities and towns across New South Wales, there are already community led activities happening on the ground to improve her communities, prepare for and adapt to natural hazards. The guidelines acknowledge that better outcomes are achieved when we all work together and share knowledge to address risk.

This is reinforced through the DAP governance arrangements, which include community engagement forums and a regional steering committee. Formed in the early stages of development. The DAP process will help to improve Regionwide capability, build preparedness and deepen community understanding of natural hazard risk for the development of the Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley DAP. We worked with community partners and organisations to increase awareness about the work of the DAP.

This included collaborating with a local school and its passionate principal to deliver incursions across the valley to 20 of the highest risk schools. The programme raised risk awareness amongst young people and in path to become preparedness champions, sharing what they learnt with their school communities and families. It also included Aboriginal art and storytelling sessions that blended climate science with traditional knowledge and dreaming stories.

The highlight of the programme for me with the two hackathons and you can see the photo on the screen now where teams of students learn from experts and were challenged to create a preparedness campaign for the community. Our partners for this event included New South Wales SES, the Bureau of Meteorology and our own RA flood experts. Their creativity and passion for protecting friends and families was incredible.

I had the pleasure of judging the hackathon, and I have to tell you, it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to judge and was amazed by the impactful and innovative ideas developed and presented by these bright young minds. We need to support and facilitate programs like this across our regions to build broader understanding of risk at all levels, tapping into existing networks and empowering and supporting them to work with the communities they serve is a simple, yet effective step in building awareness and preparedness from the ground up.

Alongside community engagement, robust data is vital to understand regional risk. It was in your feedback on the guidelines the councils indicated they needed assistance with doing this. The SDMP provides the state's first high level multi-hazard view of the risk profile in New South Wales now and into the future, and this intelligence is vital to prioritising resources and supporting smart decision making.

The guidelines acknowledge the data and information management and sharing of insights are critical to effective disaster adaptation planning. We are delivering on that ambition through the development of centralised disaster risk data and intelligence capability. An important initiative under section 31 of the State Disaster Mitigation Plan. Doctor Dip, as we affectionately call it, integrates hazard exposure and vulnerability data to quantify risk.

This platform combines statewide data from government research and industry stamp actions and debt processes to provide valuable risk assessment insights. Of course, understanding risk can't rest on data that reveals the potential height of a flood or likelihood of bushfire movements. Doctor Dip combines data on the likelihood and extent of natural hazards with who is exposed to the risk, and how they might be impacted by various natural hazards.

It will be an invaluable tool for future regional disaster adaptation planning. As you've heard this morning from the minister, and from now, we already have two deaths underway. While we're officially launching the guidelines now, we've been working on these, depths, the Hawkesbury Valley depth for two years and the Northern Rivers DAP for the past year.

And we're also supporting disaster adaptation planning in a further five regions. The ray recently delivered the Flood Focus Draft Foundation, Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley DAP to the Minister, and work is well underway on the multi hazard depth for the Northern Rivers, with the foundation depth due to be delivered to the Minister by the end of June. In 2026. We've been describing this as a bit like building the plane while we're flying it, but the high risks in those regions meant we couldn't delay action.

In fact, working in parallel has worked in our favour because our hands on work on those depths has helped to inform the guidelines, and our strategic thinking on process and procedure has greatly strength strengthened. The current deck development. It also positioned us to support disaster adaptation planning in the Central West, the Hunter, Central Coast, Riverina, Murray and Southeast and Tablelands regions.

And we're already collaborating with those those who have received disaster relief funding as part of round two to do that work.

The Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley DAP is a single hazard and prioritise, due to the region's significant flood risk. Covering eight local government areas, there is no single solution to reduce all flood risk in the region, so the Draft Foundation DAP assesses a range of measures to reduce or adapt to risk in line with the tools identified in the State Disaster Mitigation Plan.

This includes mitigation infrastructure such as levees, improvements to evacuation roads, different ways to manage Warragamba Dam, improved warning systems and communication, and community preparedness and awareness campaigns. We also know that insurance is a key enabler to support risk reduction, and we've heard from the community councils and other organisations in the action HNV, that insurance is a real pain point for our communities and is essential for effective recovery.

The RA recently undertook statewide household research into flood insurance, with a focus on the HNV and Northern Rivers. Having this data and increased understanding of how households make decisions about insurance and what this looks like across the state, will allow us to work collaboratively with name is Hazard Insurance Partnership Project and Industry. This includes making a case for mitigation actions to be reflected in reduced premiums, which may be an outcome of depth.

As the Minister shared earlier after almost two years of intensive work in consultation with key agencies, floodplain councils and the communities who live and work in the catchment, the DAP has reached the end of stage two of the process and I'd like to acknowledge many in this room who've contributed to that work, and to thank them for the collaborative way that that work has been progressed.

The Draft Foundation Hawkesbury and Nepean DAP includes a range of early actions that can be progressed while analysis continues on more complex mitigation and evacuation options. Once endorsed, it will be released for consultation and we look forward to hearing what you think we are working towards delivering the full DAP in 2026. In the Northern Rivers we are working on, our first multi has a debt covering seven local government areas and four water catchments.

The RA is collaborating with local councils and key community resilience stakeholders to identify strengths, challenges and opportunities across the region. We've established a DAP coordinated network of local councils and a Northern Rivers Flood Risk Management Practitioners group. By way of example, our Northern Rivers team are collaborating with business and industry to understand economic impacts, with surveys and roundtables held in April and May to help inform an economic baseline report.

And two early risk reduction projects are underway a flood risk awareness campaign with the New South Wales SES, local councils and the Australian Red Cross, and a project to deliver the first flood evacuation model for the region. We will soon be setting up a Community reference group and running a series of community Values workshops, embedding community priorities into how we identify and assess further risk reduction options.

So what have we learnt? Lessons learnt in the Hawkesbury and Nepean Valley and the Northern Rivers have helped us to understand what works and how we can build a scalable model for the rest of New South Wales. We've learnt that to solve complex problems, we need to bring all the relevant stakeholders to the table. We've learned the value of cross-sector collaboration by working across state agencies and with infrastructure and industry partners.

We've been able to identify risks to critical assets and services and design initiatives that address those risks in a practical, coordinated way. We've also learned to leverage what's already there by tapping into existing governance structures and stakeholder forums. We have reduced consultation fee fatigue and built on our existing relationships. We also acknowledge the deep knowledge Aboriginal communities hold about natural hazards and country.

The guidelines call for early, culturally appropriate engagement to ensure all communities are key partners in the debt process. We have work underway to identify practices for enabling Aboriginal participation in the DAP process, building on the work of the Aboriginal Communities Emergency Management Program, and perhaps most importantly, we've seen the power of community engagement when we involve communities early and often.

We ground our plans in local knowledge and lived experience, leading to more inclusive, effective and sustainable outcomes.

The DAP guidelines provide a clear framework for implementing these learnings, and they mark a significant change in how we prepare for and respond to natural hazards. We look forward to continuing to drive this important work forward. Let's keep working together to make sure communities in new South Wales are stronger, safer and more resilient into the future. Thank you.

Thank you Amanda, and I'm sure you can see the enormous amount of work that has gone into today, and certainly the momentous day it used to be able to launch the DAP guidelines. I really want to congratulate Amanda and her team for the work they've put in to get us to where we are, and certainly for your leadership in taking this really important piece of work forward.

You can see how multifaceted it's been, how keen we have been to make sure that there has been engagement and inclusion right through the process, and why it's so important to have you here today. We're now going to move into a very exciting part of the morning, which is a panel discussion. I'm going to give Amanda two minutes to get a breath back, as she will be facilitating the session.

And in doing so, I'd like to welcome our panel members as I introduce you. If you wouldn't mind coming to the stage and take a seat and then we'll work our way through it. It's my pleasure to introduce our panellists who will bring diverse perspectives to the adaptation planning space. Please make your way to the front. I'll actually introduce you individually because it's more important that you get recognition as you come off.

Councilor Phyllis Miller. Oh, I am president of Local Government New South Wales and mayor of Forbes Local government. New South Wales has been a strong advocate for councils in the DAP guidelines process. And for those who know Phyllis, she is a very strong advocate for the community. Many of you might know that the Central West has been heavily impacted by flooding and disaster events in recent times, and Mayor Miller is a strong voice to the government for doing better.

Thanks for being here this morning, Mayor Charlotte Nicole, Acting Assistant Coordinator, General Strategy and Resilience sorry Amanda Coughlan, my apologies. Good morning. Representing the theme of this morning, the National Emergency Management Agency, Amanda is a great advocate for working together in the States, in the Commonwealth to actually do what we're doing, need to work closely together. For those that are unaware, obviously, with some of the more recent disaster events, in particular Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the partnership between the National Emergency Management Agency and the Reconstruction Authority has been essential in making sure we support communities.

We're very honoured to have Amanda here this morning and her perspective from the Commonwealth will be incredibly important. Oli Costello is a Geelong man from the Northern Rivers and is executive director of the JAG Alliance, an Aboriginal owned and directed not for profit organisation and registered charity. He has also been appointed to the Net Zero Commission. Oli has been on the front line of supporting his community, recover and is passionate advocate, an exemplar of the benefits of bringing First Nations knowledge to disaster mitigation.

Good morning Oli and thanks for joining us. Steve Hartley is executive director for resilience and urban sustainability with the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure. Steve's work focuses on the intersection of natural hazards and people, and he understands implicitly the importance of Cross-Agency collaboration. Thanks for joining us, Steve. And finally, but definitely not lost. Elizabeth Richardson is Hawkesbury City Council's GM.

Elizabeth has walked alongside her community as they battled bushfires and successive flood events. And obviously, the work that is being done in Hawkesbury in Valley is incredibly important to council. She knows better than most how difficult it is for councils to grapple with the impacts of natural hazards on people and infrastructure. Hopefully Amanda has managed to get her voice back, so I now welcome Amanda back to the stage to facilitate.

Thank you. All riding. Sorry ladies and gents, I'm working on some notes that, I did not update, so my apologies. Welcome, Penny. It's lovely to have you with us. Yeah. Amanda, if I could just have you.

Thanks so much, Mal. And I'm really pleased to be able to facilitate this panel discussion this morning where we've brought together people who work from all aspects of disaster management. Many of them are key partners of theory, and we thought it was really important for our audience to hear from that diverse range of experience and expertise around, you know, the importance of the DAP guidelines.

And to be clear about the strategic approach that they represent for New South Wales. I do have some questions for the panel, but I'd also like to have an opportunity to hear from those of you in here in the audience today. I will take some hands up later as well. If you can't work the tick, for that is online.

There's a Slido link, that's been placed into the chat as well. And you can see that on the screen here. So please feel free to vote up questions as they are asked, by others or, you know, contribute your own questions to that discussion. And we'll get to some of those questions, as the morning progresses.

But first of all, I'm going to ask, each of the panellists, the same question. And just to get their perspective, on the launch of the DAP guidelines today. So the DAP guidelines outline a new and innovative approach to disaster adaptation and mitigation in New South Wales. What are some of the challenges you are all experiencing as we see an increasing number of disasters in New South Wales, and how do you think we can shift the dial for greater investment in risk reduction?

Do you think the DAP guidelines will help us to do that? Yes. So first of all, congratulations to everybody involved in the release of the guidelines. It's a tremendous milestone. And great to be here. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the things that we really struggle with, as electricity and energy providers is actually getting access to data and information.

And for example, something that might seem quite simple, such as, flood data, you know, we can go online and access PDFs, but to be able to get, you know, that kind of information through, you know, as a GIS layer or to be able to map it, across that critical service, will be really helpful and important.

So, I'm hoping and looking forward to that as part of the DAP process. Thanks, Penny. And to you, Elizabeth. Thanks, Amanda. Absolute, my pleasure to be here today. I think in terms of what we've experienced, in the Hawkesbury Nepean Valley and at Hawkesbury City Council, what we are adjusting to, is with the increasing number of, of disasters, is it is that this is now reflective of our, our blue, and our, our new normal, so to speak.

So that has been, something that we are learning and, and will continue to be an ongoing challenge for us, simply because I think after the the 2021 and the 2022, flood events, we upscaled our organisation, enable enabling the recovery both in terms of our infrastructure, and our community. What we have have discovered through that is, is that we really now need to focus, on to that resilience piece while we are also in, in recovery, in recovery.

And what I guess we would be hopeful for is that and the foundation that, that the DAP process provides is that we are really linking here, a set of strategic drivers driven off national strategy down through, through the, the SDMP, through that process there then allows us to use these, these local and regional plans as an opportunity, to, to start to leveraging some of those, those resilience aspects that I think we haven't, we haven't really had the opportunity to do today.

Thanks, Elizabeth. And to you, Steve. Thanks, Amanda. And I reiterate the congratulation to everyone who's been involved in the development and delivery of the guidelines. I think one of your first slides, Amanda, had it really well, and that was that. At the moment, 3% of investment goes towards resilience and 97% goes into some form of recovery.

We've got different level of maturity frameworks for all sorts of hazards. From a planning perspective, we have to continue to make decisions. But we also have to recognise that climate change, as Mal has said, is increasing the intensity and frequency of the disasters our communities face. And the government's clearly signalled about the housing crisis and the priority.

Balancing those things requires taking that information, making decisions about that information for the for the best that we can do for community now and into the future. The DAP guidelines allow us to bring that information together, to have a framework that provides a voice for community, for government, for investment, and from a planning perspective, to help make better decisions into the future.

Thanks, Steve, and Oli. Firstly, jinglebugame. Halena, garama Jagun. Jagun garrambebah. So, yeah, as we give a country country case process, I want to. Thanks, uncle. For the warm welcome. I don't know, a little on speaking, a bit of bungling. And, Yeah, I guess I just. Yeah. Just so important that we reflect on, the country and the custodianship of the old people.

And as well, like, that was a bit of a hard time for us. Our home, one of our uncles passed away on the weekends. We did a lot of sorry business and that in some ways it's kind of, part of the story that we're all here for in a sense that, you know, disasters, you know, in the same way, sorry, business.

Help us reflect on, the things that we can do better and the things that we can learn from each other. And so much of the work is also, understanding what's working and what we, we need to, to, to continue to do and how we can support good practice. And so I'll that'd be the flip through the guide and, you know, and the guidelines and you know, it is it is going to be helpful.

And, I'm really grateful for the opportunity to, to be here and contribute to the panel. And, and there's just so much work that we need to do, you know, disasters, you know, natural hazards, like, they're not new things, you know, and we think of them as being bad. But they're not all bad.

And so part of the work is understanding. And that's the part of adoption is tuning in and understanding, like, something like losing someone makes us sad and disaster can have, can bring a lot of trauma. But how do we turn that into good? How do we learn and respect the legacy of the people that passed or the impacts?

You know, fire is our ancestors. You know, like we would all like these things that we get overwhelmed by. They also give us everything that we need to survive, you know, the light from the sun and that in the water and all these things. So it's about balance and relationships. So hopefully as people understand, and the guidelines I think will help to tune people in the country and community and understand, how we have to learn faster and do more than we've ever had to do before.

Because the changes are happening. Much, much faster and bigger. And so I guess, I lost me track there. I probably should start with I could keep going and going and going, but, the, the, I guess the main thing is I wanted to get to sorry, is, that part of the challenge is, is that investment, is understanding.

And so much of my work is about like, we have to, you know, be doing all the things we can do before the bad things happen. And then when they happen, we have to, do the best we can with what we have. So we need more investment. But it's not just about other money or new ideas and stuff.

It's also like doing things with what we have and being able to change our practice. And I think the work that we've been doing around fire, and particularly in our river work, is an example of that. So, you know, like people always want us to use fire to reduce risk and, you know, and that, yeah, when you burn things, you reduce risk.

But that's not why we burn culturally. We burn culturally because fire, belongs, you know, to country. And there's parts where we burn and we make the country healthier. So not only do we reduce risk, we actually increase biodiversity through production. You know, we're doing all these other things. And so when we think about adoption, disaster adoption, it's about health, education, justice, it's about understanding.

We have to redistribute our effort in community. And that'll help us solve these other problems. So we can't box ourselves into dealing with a disaster. It's about community resilience and being able to adapt our practice, you know, in practising our knowledge and turning our knowledge into to action. And so that's what I hope the guidelines will help us do, is get more community perspectives into caring for country and learning from country, and being able to apply that into, our economies and our communities.

It's one. Thanks so much to Phyllis. Thank you. I'm representing local government now. A an Aldi in local government. For 30 years we've been trying to get some betterment, but before us anymore, very excited about having Amanda doing the work that she's doing with her experience. And of course, now has been fantastic to us adding the Central West.

We've had our fair share of disasters at the these disaster adaptation plans is something that we have lobbied for for a long time. You can call it whatever you like, but it's about planning for the risk of flooding and doing those better things. We have been put in the same road back for 30 years and it's been washing away, and then we've had people that have been isolated for six months.

This is the greatest thing that I have ever seen in relation to flooding. One thing about this, and I just want to give you an example of you have a disaster. Everyone's trying to help everyone out. There's people that have lost homes. They're living in high flood areas. For instance, recently I went up to Northern Rivers. Now I keep in contact with all of those.

Me so I, I actually get their wings and I get the really good things that they're happy with. When I walked around with our CEO, David Reynolds, and we had a look at the homes that have been purchased, they've got fences in front of, they've got squatters inside of them. That was something that was done without thinking where the lives people go.

And we will like, build and and we don't want the same thing to happen out in the Central West, as you know, out in Eugowra. That's a real focus that we get that right out there. I think having disaster adaptation plans is going to stop those decisions that can be made politically, very quickly, without thinking of the consequences.

My view is those all of those lovely people, those squatting up there give them a licence because then they've got a timeframe where you can end that licence and you can get them out, but do something with that. So I am here today very excited about disaster adaptation plans, and I want to thank the government, for bringing them forward.

And I can't wait to get asked. Finished. Thanks so much. And Amanda, thank you so much, Amanda. So congratulations to, New South Wales. All right. Everyone involved in what is a fantastic set of guidelines from the Commonwealth perspective, this most recent hire is where the citizens both been the most significantly active season since 20 1819. And I think we're seeing repeatedly now, communities hit with a cycle of response and recovery and the number of communities experiencing that is growing.

I think we talked a little bit about where the emphasis of investment is around recovery. I also just wanted to share that, Amanda mentioned this morning the independent review of Commonwealth Disaster Funding done by Andrew Colvin. Those that review identified that the disaster costs are estimated to grow to 40.3 billion by 2050. That doesn't actually include any consideration of climate impacts on those disasters.

So it's quite a conservative estimate. That review and this conversation, the disaster adaptation guidelines, the experiences of communities. Also we need to do things differently. And I think looking at different ways to manage disasters because our environment has changed so significantly. The disaster adaptation guidelines are being launched today at the forefront of this. And I think they do some things incredibly well.

They recognise that solving the complex considerations around disaster management is a whole of nation problem, and really put partnerships at the centre of that, clearly identifying the roles that everyone can play and providing the tools to enable communities all the way up to state government to deliver on that. They also provide a clear framework for risk and evidence to drive better decision making.

So actually understanding where that investment in risk reduction and adaptation needs to go, and having evidence inform decisions that build a link between government decision making and community and power plays based decision making in a really clear framework. I think the other thing that really struck me about the guidelines is a focussed around looking not just at current disaster risk, but future risk.

So actually incorporating climate adaptation into the guidelines, I think is really powerful. And the Australian government has really recognised the link between disaster risk reduction, disaster adaptation and climate adaptation. So for the National Emergency Management Agency, we have an assistant minister appointed for the first time. That assistant minister is also the assistant minister for Climate Adaptation. So really recognising the link between those two agendas.

So I think this is a fantastic body of work. Congratulations to everybody involved. It's a real pleasure to be here today. Thanks so much, Amanda. I have some, specific questions. For all the panellists. Now and then we will go to the audience questions. So please keep those questions coming on Slido. Or if you're in the audience and I want to use The tick, please get ready with the hands up.

So I'll go to you first. Steve. We know that land use planning is a vital tool to reduce future natural hazard risk, but we also know the government is faced with demand for more housing. And in fact, it is, you know, the New South Wales government key policy priority. How can we support growth in appropriate locations and enable more housing supply?

That doesn't put more people in harm's way? Thanks, Amanda. A really good question. Question? We get asked all the time, and I know that you and your staff also get asked all the time. I think one of the really interesting aspects of that question is, there is no black and white answer. I think long ago, government stops solving really simple problems.

And you know, there's not many left. And if there are, please give them to me. I'd like to have a go. The complexity of what we're talking about, is, is the thing that underpins, I think, that question. I don't think anyone is saying don't build any more houses. I don't think anyone is saying you can stop natural disasters if you do X.

It is not a simple black and white answer to me. At the heart of this question is really one of the actions that's outlined in the state disaster mitigation plan, and that's around tolerable risk, tolerable risk. We've talked about it in different guises. Even in the introductory comments. It's around recognising that complexity. It's about having the information to underpin a detailed and proper discussion about how you balance those those things.

I mean, I was thinking you could almost do a poll around the audience and I put your hand up. Anyone who's walked don't, but we make decisions about tolerable risk in our daily lives all the time. And every decision we make in our professional capacities, we bring that judgement to the debate. And I think that, to me, is the critical part of of being able to meet those dual objectives, of providing more housing whilst also reducing the risk that people face.

I've got kids, I want my kids to be able to stay in Sydney. I'd love that. Housing is really, really expensive. I don't know where they could go. I also don't want them to face a future that is beset with continual disaster, where they have to respond every time and their resilience dips and dips and dips.

To me, that's the concept of tolerable risk writ large. I think the guidelines provide us, as I said in my opening comments, the guidelines actually provide us the ability to have that conversation with community across government, with industry about the balance between recognising past development patterns, risk based on all of the natural hazards that we face, what we want for a region, for the future, what mitigation infrastructure is needed, ultimately where you can put more people, how you can put people there, how you can put them safely, and how you can put them in a way that actually builds community.

And so it is not a simple answer. It is a complex problem. It's a problem I think, that we can face together. And for me, it's based on that concept of what is tolerable risk and had to bring all of these different perspectives together so that you can get to the outcome of more housing, better housing in the right place at a lower level of risk and a higher level of resilience.

Thanks, Stephen. Look, having worked in this sector for a long time, if the answers were simple, we would have found that by now there's enough. Clever people have turned their minds to this problem. And I think, you know, as you say, the guidelines help us to deal with that complexity and that sort of balancing those competing, policy priorities.

So thanks for your reflections there. I'm going to get back to you now, Phyllis. So, you know, in your capacity here as president of the local government, New South Wales, we do know councils have been hit particularly hard by natural disaster events, with more than 110 declared natural disasters in the last five years, affecting 65 local council areas in the last financial year alone.

So that's communities impacted over and over again. How do you see the approach outlined in the guidelines helping councils across regions to reduce risk? Thanks, Amanda, and that's a great question. I think we've always the councils, as much as we get bagged about the things we do, most of us have inherited anything that's built on a floodplain.

I can categorically say it was there long before I was born. And where we're coping with that and we're trying to deal with that. I think this is something that local government has been asking for. We haven't called it depths, but we've said, can we do some long term planning? Can we start to, you know, lower our risk when we when we're having a flood?

So we've been having this conversation with governments, and I can honestly say this is the first time we've been heard. And, I know in 2022, when we had our biggest flood ever out in the central West in Forbes, we had Minister DIb and Minster Scully out there, and my first thing to them was like, can we start to do some planning so that we can start to get some betterment and we can start to lower our risk when we're flooding?

And this is exactly what depths are doing. Local government is excited about being part of this process. It's very important that we let this process grow because they will be things that's not quite right. So we need to keep listening to each other and making sure that over time we get these plans. Absolutely fantastic. So I'm excited.

Amanda, I think there's a great opportunity. We are the we are the plan is for communities. We're very, very reliant on our on our planning staff, in guiding us to make good decisions. And we certainly want to do the right thing by our communities. Thanks so much. I want to go to someone who's got lived experience.

So Elizabeth has been involved in the development of that first state disaster adaptation plan for the Hawkesbury Nepean Valley. So can you reflect, Elizabeth, on how you have found the experience, and do you believe the resulting debt will reflect your community's priorities? Thanks very much, Amanda. You touched on earlier. We where you mentioned that we were building the plane while trying to fly out at the same time.

And, I think for the context, of this thing, RA was formed like 2022 that enabled that provided the enabling legislation, for the DAPs. And then obviously the 2022 flood events meant that in 2023, when we commenced work on this will very much still be in recovery mode at that particular point in time.

And and I think it's probably fair to say the RA, were you were still in a storming, forming kind of a norming environment at that point to, I will say that our staff have very much, enjoyed collaborating with other levels of government, sharing data, expertise, lived experience, with their, with their peers. In, in that space as a real opportunity now to be yeah, we were piloting I think it's fair to say we were in a pilot type environment where we're right at that, at that bleeding edge of trying to understand, how we can bring about meaningful investment in risk reduction in, in New South Wales.

So, very, very excited, and working with both community, and, and our staff on that, in terms of will reflect our priorities. I wouldn't see any reason why it shouldn't. Obviously, we're very kindly, kind of get our eyes on it. Amanda. But, we're certainly cautiously optimistic. There's no reason why our staff have had had, considerable, input, certainly early on in the in the process, myself and the mayor sit on a community leaders forum where we've had, opportunities to review, aspects of, of the, of the plan.

And we are very much hopeful that that foundation map, when that is sent out for the community consultation, has the ability to address, not only regional based priorities. But we're also keen to see how that will we'll look at our more local and, and nations also. Thanks, Elizabeth. I'm going to go to you now, Oli.

So we know that First Nations consultation is vital to the success of disaster adaptation planning, not just because there is such rich cultural knowledge to draw on, but also because we know Aboriginal communities are disproportionately impacted by disaster events. Based on the work you've been doing in the Northern Rivers with the RA, we've been working really closely with the Jagun Alliance, and thank you for that.

How should we approach First Nations consultation in disaster adaptation planning? Thanks, Amanda. Yes, and yeah, very grateful for the opportunities we've had to work with. All right. Was, I guess it was kind of imposed on us a bit. You know, why initially. And so but yeah, it's been, it's been great. I think, building that relationship, we sort of grown up together a little bit in a way, with, these disasters and I think, you know, like, you know, these things can be super tokenistic or they can be very authentic.

And that's kind of the the challenge and the opportunity of sort of joking around someone about you need a token to make the machine work. But, you know, in all truth, you know, First Nations communities, you know, are now more vulnerable. But that's not out like this. That's not the way our culture works. That's that's us adapting and and drawing on data resilience to survive colonisation.

And so we're used to systems failing. But we also, you know, systems work, you know, we're all here breathing the air. The ancestors, the trees make for us. And that system's been working for us for a long time. That we've been going up in systems that keep filing us. You know, that's been my lived experience.

And so, you know, the only, only way we can deal with a failing system is leadership. You know, people have to step up. And and that's kind of the disaster resilience story for most communities, is that people step up because the system is failing. And then we draw from that leadership that comes at a high cost, you know, and, and so that's part of the work is, is understanding that there's leadership in the community.

Sometimes that needs to be developed and supported, but we actually need to build the systems around people to support them, where the guidelines will be a part of that. That story, and understand that, you know, what we see is a vulnerable community and, you know, that's, you know, really and, parts of government are forced to engage Aboriginal communities because they're most impacted and often because they're dependent on these systems, like public and community housing and different, different sort of legacies of colonisation and dependencies that are created.

But then how do we understand how do we unlock that inherent knowledge and power and resilience through understanding, you know, shifting from a vulnerability to a strength? You know, like I said before, like disasters can be bad things. They can also be good. They can teach us, you know, the Rainbow Serpent, you know, bite me. Like, whatever.

Like all these sort of, you know, like the landscape has been shaped by fire and water. I hope people have got stories about it. You know, we can go to Cabbage Tree Island, you know, and see the community that's been displaced for three years or more now. And we can walk up the hill to where the sea used to be.

Nagunya Jagun the IPA where we've been applying, you know, looking after cans that come so we can talk about the, you know, what's what's happening in the landscape. So being on a call to make sure that we've got, authentic engagement, you know, the work we've been doing together, you know, like the good fire gathering project, fire the Hill Healer Rivers project, you know, with the came for country, sort of the, the connected country framework.

So we're building out these pieces of work that is relying on leadership, you know, and we need to make sure that we're supporting communities across the state, and beyond, to to become those leaders in their communities and provide the solutions that are going to be what they need to draw on when the system fails us, and we have to be able to step up.

Thanks, Oli. And I think that's a really great point you make about leadership. And I think it's critical to have leadership at every level, at community scale, you know, within governments, within local councils, you know, that is what is going to deal with what is to come for all of us. And I'll go to you, Amanda, you did touch on it before, but you know, there was two, pretty major independent reviews last year.

You the glass two review into sort of governance and then the Colvin review that looked at, you know, the changing risk landscape and what we need to do to sustainably go forward. How do you say the state disaster mitigation plan and our eyes work on disaster adaptation planning, working in concert with those, you know, key recommendations?

Do you think that we are on the right track to deliver the reforms supported by these inquiries? Thanks so much for that question, Amanda. So just to provide a little bit of context, I think the systems that we've used to manage disasters in Australia have served as well for a long time, but they were really many components of them, designed to manage one severe event a season.

That's clearly not the environment in which we're currently in. And so the reviews have can then explore that and try and identify what is the roadmap that we need going forward. Both the Colvin and the Glasser review one focussed on funding and one focussed on government recognised that changes to how we get together and make decisions and how we fund recovery risk reduction, both at the Commonwealth level and nationally.

Changes to those systems is not enough. So there actually requires the the, the both reviews recommend fundamental system change to actually make sure that we're clear about the outcomes that we're setting to really help us understand where that prioritised investment needs to go, that we're really strengthening the evidence and the data underneath it. So we understand the risk exposure, the vulnerability, the impact of disasters on communities, but also the capacity across the country to respond and recover to those communities.

They also clearly highlighted the need to shift how we manage disaster is from what an approach that is largely reactive to one that really looks at investment in risk reduction both before and after an event, and providing clear link between those two things. So at the moment we invest in risk reduction, particularly through things like the disaster ready funds, which we've heard some references to today.

We have disaster recovery funding arrangements that with impacted jurisdictions, support recovery. They also support elements of what we call betterment or a post-event risk reduction. But there's no relationship between those two things. So one is very event driven and one is driven under a different set of guidelines. They also clearly identified the need to have a really good monitoring and evaluation framework around our investments.

So how do we know we're doing things right and the right things, and how are we looking at the benefits of that investment and then evolving what we do over time? So alongside clear kind of recommendations about reducing risk, setting clear outcomes, building that data and evidence base and rethinking how we fund and invest in disasters with a greater focus on risk reduction.

They also called out the need for clear roles and responsibilities, and to change the way we make national decisions. So I think the the guidelines are really closely aligned with all of those recommendations, including how we actually look at risk at the local level, risk at the state level, risk at the national level, and build a much clearer picture about how we're making those decisions around investment.

And I think the Glasser review also really emphasised the need to change the way we think about partnerships and the way we change the national conversation. So because the Glasser Review was commissioned by the National Emergency Management Ministers meeting, we've implemented a number of those recommendations that includes bringing people like Mel in our recovery leads to the table.

It also includes reshaping a ministerial forums to bring ministers like Minister Saffin, the Minister Leahy in Queensland who lead on recovery. That's really changing the nature of the national conversation and how we make decisions as well, because as we've talked about addressing those complex part, those problems, really quite clear partnership reviews also called out the real importance of understanding that everybody is part of that system, not for profits who deliver really critical services, communities, First Nations, communities and thinking differently about how we partner and engage.

This one is to give you a little bit of a sense of where those reviews are at, if I may. So the Australian government and, the National Emergency Management ministers meeting publicly released both reviews in October last year. Since that point, they've been doing a lot of consultations. It's talking with states, with territories, with the Australian local government Association and it's association members, with First Nations people, working also through youth, having funds to engage with the youth community as well and people living with disability.

All of that information is really informing the thinking of the Australian government about how we tackle these complex reforms. So they're taking a very considered approach to how we consider those. What the right things are to do is as we go forward and so we are still kind of in that space where the Australian government is really considering those reforms.

But I would just highlight that doesn't mean that we're not continuing to evolve what we do. So we're continuing to work collaboratively to change the way we look at the disaster recovery funding arrangements to continue to evolve the disaster relief fund, including through community consultation and feedback, and continuing to work with insurers through the Hazard Insurance Partnership to look at good ways to actually identify the risk reduction investment individuals can make and how they can actually be taken into consideration around premiums.

So we're continuing to advance reforms while we consider what this major system reform might look like in the future. Thanks so much. Thanks, Amanda. We've got quite a few questions have come through on Slido. I think there's a couple that I will need to answer, and it is the highest voted questions, so I will turn my mind to that.

So, We've been asked, what are the proposed timelines for each debt stage and when will these commence in each region? We were reluctant to put a time frame into the guidelines, because the critical thing is we work with those local regions at their pace. So some regions and Joe's, you know, willing and able to engage with us on disaster adaptation planning.

And in fact, five JO's, applied for disaster relief funding to do that work in advance of the guidelines they had being released. They knew that there was going to be guidelines, and they wanted to be front footed about it. And they have, you know, actively started to work with the RA. We think it will take around about two years to deliver, that foundation debt piece of work.

So that's, you know, establishing the regional governance. The community engagement, the community panels that will inform that really important values piece around what communities values, and therefore that will inform what those mitigation options may be. So we didn't want to time bound it because we don't want it to be sort of a, you know, mark you scorecard.

Yes. You achieve that in two years. No you didn't that we think that, you know, around two years for that that first foundation DAP and then maybe another year or so to do that really detailed auctioneering, you know, flood risk modelling, bushfire risk modelling and a lot to inform, that, final debt that those are indicative timeframes in terms of when we'll commence with each region as and when those regions really are able to work with the right.

And as we have the capacity, to do so. I think you reflected, Elizabeth, we're a fairly new organisation. I'm nearly two years into my role here. And we are already working with seven regions across the state, which I think is a pretty, powerful reflection of, the New South Wales government's commitment to this work.

So, you know, we we think it'll be more likely a sort of a ten year rolling program as we get to every region in the state. We've also had a question around the risk data hub, or Doctor Dip, as we like to call it, the disaster Risk and Data Insights platform. We have a team of very, keen minds working on delivering, that doc to, toward the end of this year.

Our plan is to be able to provide access to those who need it to make those risk informed decisions. That, is one of the key priorities in the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework. Which response to the Sendai Framework, which the minister, spoke to people can't make risk informed decisions if they don't have the risk information to hand.

So we want to make sure that it's in the hands of those who need it. Does that mean every community member will get it now? But we want to make sure that councils and those who are starting to make these decisions in regions have access to the information they need to make those decisions. So that's the first couple of, most highly voted questions online.

I might now go to the audience. We have a question over here. Oh, sorry. First one I have here. You'll be next. Gary. Thanks, Amanda. Sam Kearnahan from the committee for Sydney. Firstly, congratulations on the launch of the guidelines there. Really, phenomenal piece of work. And congratulations to you and your team for for putting this, putting it all together.

And, and to those who are already testing them, on the ground, I guess my question sort of building on, on the comments from, from Phyllis and others about, investment and particularly around, betterment. But also the guidelines speak to benefit management and the relationship with New South Wales Treasury. Could you just talk to both Amanda and but also others how how you might see these guidelines unlocking, investment from, from Treasury both at New South Wales and federal level potentially, but also from others from from the private sector, from, from insurers and and others.

And utilities of course. Thanks, Sam. I'm keen to hear from our panellists. So I think, Phyllis, you might have a view on how government investment could be unlocked for local councils. Yeah. Thank you. That's a that is a great question. I think by having a plan and having a way forward a lot of times and I mean local government and I know our faults and on our good points will often go and say we want money for this.

And we've got no idea what that's going to do for us. By having a disaster adaptation plan has to put some science and rigour behind any that asks to Treasury at either the federal or the state level. And I think that we now need to be very accountable on how we get our money for our disaster recovery, because, let's face it, what I've watched over the last three years, the federal government, state government and local government, none of us have got the money to fix it all up, and not so unless there's some rigour behind what our costs are when we go to Treasury, I believe that we're just going to just be falling flat

on our pace. So this is giving us an opportunity to have that rigour. Thanks, Phyllis. Would anyone else like to respond? I've got a few comments. Yeah. I think it's so critical that we, we, we get some of this stuff in a better position. And I think, like before us, until we at the co-benefits and understanding, you know, look, we need to better prioritise our, you know, adoption investments but understand the the other benefits they bring and and and also how do we then leverage other investments in other areas that support disaster adoption as well.

So we don't always have to be focusing on disaster. We can be focusing on the multiple benefits of different ways of investing in infrastructure and community. Obviously going to be focus on nature based solutions, but that's some of the work that we'll be doing at Jagun. And with RA and others. And we've got to drive funding.

Good for our gathering and previous, recovery funding, looking at building a cultural fire economy because the current sort of economy around fire, you know, isn't working, you know, and so how do we create? Because once again, it's there's other ways that people might want to invest and support that. And that's also, that's at the net zero commission, you know, like our objective is to, you know, support the state to get to net zero by 2050.

But also climate adoption is a big is. And that's my my particular interest. So how do we understand the intersections between climate adoption and disaster other other parts and being able to build the evidence base. You know, because we know we need more investment, but we also need to build the business case to Treasury and insurance and other private sector.

And there are other markets, you know, emerging like nature repair market and carbon markets that might become, you know, places that we can get other investment, you know, nature based solutions that help reduce risk and, and vice versa. So being that understanding that holistic landscape and being able to then use the guidelines and local, you know, like local stories, local knowledge, local landscapes, what is the solution that they need locally that's going to help drive that investment?

Going forward. You know, I think that's a really critical pathway that we need to be really ensuring is clear because it's it's going to get harder and harder. And, you know, there's always less money and there's more risk coming. So we have to work out how are we going to be able to support that growth. Thanks solely.

And I think, Penny, you wanted to answer that. Yes. So this, regulatory period has been the first time, where upgrade has been investing, particularly for climate change resilience. And so one of the things that we've done very early on is set up an assurance, framework, and it has sort of different stages. And we did that, you know, deliberately because we wanted to build trust, with the regulator to get us permission to do more.

So what we are doing is, with an assurance program that says, you know, did we actually do what we said we would do? And then the second step of that, did these solutions work if, if, if, if, if we did put them in, and every time we deviate from that principle, we actually have a customer consultative committee and we actually have, deliberately we go to them and we explain in a transparent way why we've changed course.

So an example would be, in our bushfire program where we've decided to move away from, you know, composite balls to bushfire traps because, you know, we could deliver more, we could do it more efficiently, in our operating area. And so we just be transparent about that. Just to the second part of your question, which was how will that help you do more?

I think back to my earlier comment about the importance of defining roles is really important. The reason for that with us is that, you know, this sort of, you know, when we go to our through our regulatory framework, we sort of applying postage stamp pricing, to the changes, the difference between being able to, you know, work through that process, and work through like a government process where you have progressive, tax systems actually means sort of different people pay and for different roles.

I think it's appropriate that different people play, and sorry, pay. And and so I think defining the roles very clearly is very important. Thanks very much. I'm now going to take us back to housing because you only need to, read the telly every day or turn on the news to know it's all about housing. I'm going to first go to Elizabeth, because, you know, councils, you know, there's a lot of pressure on councils to increase housing stock.

How do you see the debt crisis helping councils manage the tension between approving more housing development and not building in higher risk areas? So I'll go to you first, Elizabeth, and then to you, Steve. Thank you very much, Amanda. Look, certainly, Hawkesbury Nepean Valley is a particularly vulnerable, vulnerable area. And what, we think the key is, you know, all of of this tension between risk and, and, and housing is actually that deep community engagement that says, as Phil said, we didn't put them there.

People long before us, established those communities on, on, terribly, flood prone pieces of land. And what we think the key to that is, is having those deep conversations with that community about what is what is their tolerable risk, what is their appetite, their in particular, in particular, all of that social fabric that comes with supporting the existing housing.

So it's not so much, about establishing, new housing necessarily in our most flood prone areas. But really it's about how do we maintain social cohesion, how do we maintain social fabric? How do we keep our local economies, still moving. And how do we enable these communities to be liveable, into the long, into the future, whilst, while still managing those, those highest risk?

I think that that would be the key for us. I think thanks to you, Steve. Thanks, Amanda. And I think that question again speaks to complexity. There is no easy answer. I think recognising existing communities and the existing risk of those risk profiles faced by those communities, but also looking at what, society and, and communities needs moving forward.

Housing supply is just one part of that investment. We've had investment in mitigation measures, infrastructure, resilience measures etc. is definitely another part of it. From a planning perspective, you know, we make decisions all the time from strategic planning all the way down to, to site specific, development decisions. A big part of that process is, is an informed decision about what is occurring, a place the department's already leading a you know, a heap of strategic planning processes.

Transport oriented development is a good example where we're considering what those risks, in a different framing from probably that was done, you know, 15, 20, 50, 30 years ago. For example, with the Tod program, flood is a critical, input into deciding where the new housing would be. So if you look across the Hawkesbury in a pan and we've got a a heap of information about the risk profile associated with flooding, I mean, we all know Hawkesbury is a bathtub.

We all know about that risk. Government's been working on this problem since at least 2011. That's been really good information. And so feeding that information into the planning decision process. So it's not a binary decision just about more house here, less house there. But it's a decision about do we want more houses. What's the risk profile of those houses.

What's the infrastructure that is needed to support those houses. What is the you know, the status of that community? What do they need to maintain amenity of that community? Where have they taken their hits in terms of previous disasters? All of that is really critical to being able to answer that question about how do you you know, as you said at the statement, how do you deliver against those dual objectives of making sure we can meet that housing crisis bit in a way that doesn't put more people in a worse position, the cost community and government more and more over time.

Thanks. So I think that's a really good point, because, people have referenced the buyback program in the Northern Rivers, and we know the trauma that communities experienced where they accept they need to be relocated from those very high risk floodplains. But we don't want to create that risk any more. We don't want to put our communities in that position of having to make those really, really difficult choices.

I think, Oli, you wanted to. Yeah, I just want to say a couple things because at was my, my hometown and, and you know, so this is the lived experience. You know, we have office in, you know, and then I could have a big yawn about it, but the specific I just want to talk about is, this reactionary kind of we can't have people living there.

And, you know, like least most are meeting place. Old people will be camping there forever, but they mainly camp up on the hill. So there's this kind of understanding of we actually are drawn, you know, like first settlers came to that place, you know, because of the way the two rivers make their the ships come in there, the old people, same sort of story.

So the point is really about I think we need to be talking more about, like typology and the type of, you know, like changing the way we build and not just the housing but community. Because, you know, like it's really hard being in Lismore, like, it's a city, you know, a bit like Parramatta. You know, I look at Parramatta now, I'm not saying we should turn Lismore into Parramatta, but there are ways that we can better plan and engineer so people aren't at the interface of risk.

They may be inconvenienced at times, you know, when it floods, which it will never to do. But this, sort of this, you know, in this places that people build, they're building in the river and they should move. So there is work that needs to be done. There's definitely places people shouldn't leave, but there's definitely places that people could be living with different typology, different infrastructure.

That would support a different type of community and would unlock, you know, the potential, you know, places like Lismore, you know, it's a regional city. It's got all these infrastructure, you know, we're dealing with bigger global challenges. You know, I think that we really need to understand, some different ways of planning and doing, housing.

That will help us to, you know, we can't just anyway, we'll get carried away. But, yeah, there's there's definitely work that that needs to be done there. So we change this black and white, good and bad. Can't leave, you know, because we rush off the floodplain into the hills where the fires are coming, you know, like so there is place.

It's purely safe. It's just accept tolerable risk understanding, you know, how we have to change practice and re re orientate ourselves in the landscape. Thanks so late. Now we've got a question here that they waiting some time. Good morning everybody. My name is Gary Sanderfield I'm with Fordham Australia. We're a not for profit that is partially funded by NEMA.

We do mental health and wellbeing specifically around first responders, their family members and then volunteers such as DRA, SES and such. First of all, thank you to Mal and Amanda and team for putting this together. I think this is a huge step for the states disaster preparedness, response and recovery stage. Also, thank you. Because of a grant that from you guys, we just completed a study with gold plated medical research on the impact that our services have on risk reduction from mental health and well-being perspective.

So I, want to talk about the in the DAP. It talks about vulnerability, but it falls a bit shy specifically of talking about mental health and well-being. And what are we going to do to map out the impact of that mental health and wellbeing? And is there going to be specific funding associated with development of resilience and recovery?

Who would like to respond to a mental health and wellbeing question? I've had a lot to say, but I have a quick little go on it. But so and then in a lot of the work that we do juggle and a lot of my work, it's actually wellbeing and healing work and so, you know, I let that's part of that co-benefits.

It's like people saying reduce risk. We're like, you know, trying to get Aboriginal communities on country, applying fire, which is very healing for them. And country. Yeah. And so juggling like same time we've been, you know, trying to get good fire in and do river restoration and, and these kind of very practical things. We've also got a youth engagement program looking at youth at risk.

We've also got research project programs with the Rural Centre for health and other looking at particularly Aboriginal wellbeing. But that's like everybody connecting the country, being out of, you know, like fire trauma, flood trauma, bleeding on the like, use kind of like how do we, you know, people that are scared of fire and, you know, don't I don't want Foreign Lands gave me, because they're saying bad for us.

So we get them out doing cultural burning and talking about good fire and, you know, and being out to sort of help connect people in. And so I think, you know, that's one of the biggest challenges we have in disaster adoption is that people are coming from a trauma response generally, the lived experience. And so we need to be able to harness that, that, trauma and turn it into good practice and being out a process that, that wellbeing.

So we think these things are intrinsically linked. And that's what I saying before about those efficiencies, along with trying to solve a mental health problem, we're using that as a pathway for people to change the way that they and not just the way that they do things in the backyard or the neighbourhood, you know, you know, the things that they buy and the think the interests, you know, in the community because that's having an impact, like what's driving a lot of the extreme events, is, is climate change and that's, that's linked to, you know, how we consume and, you know, and that's there's a feedback loop there, like, that's one of the most traumatising

things for me when I think about, you know, as the first person in my, parents in law's house in North Lismore and we're pulling everything out. We spent days pulling everything out. Everyone's pulling out. There's hundreds and hundred tons of people's lives on the streets, you know, and into dumps. And then the mean responses to come get more stuff, you know, and and not really process the trauma of what we've lost.

And then what do we really need? You know, because the more that we consume, the more communities are going to be impacted by the extreme events. So something to think about. And us. Yeah, I've, I've got to say, the ROI for us at in the central West, we've had a, senior leaders group from day dot. I think we were maybe the first one that was set up now, or the second one, you know, the reverse.

We were both set up and found that the RA, in conjunction with Forbes Shire Council, we have been able to make sure that we have enough, opportunities for people that are struggling mentally, with, with the flood disaster recovery that we on a very, very open basis with the right and on our own as a council, we make sure we have contact with those people.

But I've got to say, one of the people and I can't speak highly enough of Sharon, the pod lady, I'm not going to say any more, but she's brilliant. And her her care and concern for all of those people. And you can imagine anyone that had to live in a pod for the last 2 or 3 years. It's been pretty tough on them.

She has been extraordinary in her care of those people and her relaying of whether they need extra help or not, so that as a community and I'm very connected to my community. So it doesn't take me long to know that someone's in Baba and we can get help to them. So we seriously take, mental health. Not just in flood recovery, but totally across Asia very, very seriously.

And we've got a lot of forums that can help those people. We've got, talk to me, bro. That gives people and it's women and men. They've got an opportunity every month to come together and be able to get rid of some of those concerns of Mars that they've got. So I think as a council, we do have a responsibility as well.

I will just add to that as well. And trying to be, you know, more on the front foot around mental health and wellbeing and vulnerability of communities. Our doctor deep will be the first hazard risk data platform that will also bring in data across the four domains. So I built economic, social and natural. So we will be bringing in data sets around social vulnerability.

We'll be drawing on the Australian Disaster Resilience Index to that has just been launched. That will bring in those coping and adaptive capacities around the capacity for resilience. So that data will be available to councils to say, you know, where are your more vulnerable communities, where do we need to be delivering preparedness campaigns? Where do we need to be supporting communities more?

And the disaster planning? So I think at a systems level at the data won't just be about, you know, the physical or built environment, which is so often the case, it will be about the people. I do want to go to a question that, we've been asked about community because I think really this is ultimately all about community.

So, you know, there's a question you're asking, how will we bring communities on this journey with us, which is really the critical part of this work. Communities experienced risk in place, and they build their resilience in their adaptive capacities in place. So I'm keen to hear from the panellists about how we bring community with us.

Would you like to go first, Elizabeth, on that one? Thank you. And as you highlighted in your earlier presentation, Amanda, the right has done some wonderful work, out in communities, talking to them about, about risk, educating them, and also, you know, for instance, it's just about what is living and working on a floodplain really, really mean, we often get nervous somewhat, about an underappreciated of the risks.

We talk about our community being very good at affording made a flood. But my goodness. When an actual really big one comes that we perhaps don't have that, that level of of appreciation. So we've got, a lot of, a lot of work, ahead of us, certainly with our, with our AI and the work that you've done building on that platform, I will say, the benefit of the, the Hawkesbury City Council experience is that on the back of, that the black Summer bushfires and then those repeated, those repeated flood events, we have very good connections into our outlying and most vulnerable communities, and building those relationships with

the community and those community leaders to help them, build their own resilience and help them help themselves. Has been has been critical for us as we start to to tail off that level of support through things like community hubs and community recovery offices. Has been has been probably the biggest take out for us in terms of our, our community resilience.

We we spoke a little bit, about mental health. That is, absolutely, a critical concern for our, for our community and in many areas, as I said, our most, flood prone communities are also, some of those are our most, most bushfire prone communities as well. And so we've got to do that too, that deep engagement at our at a really personal one on one level often, adding at in those communities to help them, help them help themselves is our narrative.

Thanks. And I think Ali wants to answer that, to say, yeah, I get, like making space for community, you know, and like, most of the, like, stuff we do, which is, is about community, not just the Aboriginal community. Like a lot of the work that we do is with an Aboriginal community, land holders and people that have been impacted are crying out for connection and help to solve things that, you know, a lot of people don't trust the government, don't trust the right, you know, so being able to work through partnerships, you know, that's kind of, you know, juggling, you know, when we care for a country, you know, we're not the

government. But we at the interface of building relationships. So and I in the same way I look, I don't have at times a lot of trust with the government, but I trust the people that I know and the parts of, policy and legislation that I know is working and people are committed to. So I have faith in that, but I don't I still have concerns.

And but that across the community varies a lot. So making space, things like, you know, the Noida, the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience Gathering, my, my brother before me and asking to hatch this plan, to just get people mob and people in the sector to come and be on country and, you know, show them some fire and show them a community that's been impacted and show First Nations leadership.

So building trust in those spaces. So, you know, like Amanda was there and other people were there. And people get to get to build connection. So yes, make space, build connection, and resource that, community capacity, which is a, the other other challenging thing. But there's like I said, there's so many challenges, but all these amazing opportunities that are coming for these relationships to better understand communities.

And I guess I should also just say, you know, some of the work we were doing at Natural Resource Research Australia, Andrew's here looking at, you know, the disaster index and resilience in communities and sort of how do we build those, you know, foundations. The you know, we built these sort of some research project looking at how do you build those foundations for research that understands what community needs, how do we, you know, because so much of what, you know, natural has being asked is what is all right or, you know, role for service.

But how do what are the community, you know, how do we make sure that there's a that that relationships are being built and we're strengthening that into informing policy and investment in practice. And I'll go to Penny. Yeah. So I think, it's really good comments that you make, for, for us in the energy sector, the community engagement is also really important.

One of the things that we're starting to experience is some of the communities that we're trying to engage are starting to become really quite fatigued. So lots of people coming to them with the same questions. And for community members, it's really hard to differentiate between a car wash, the distributor and what's a transmitter. And, you know, those types of questions.

So I think it's actually an aspect where it's really important that we work together. And so that the community sees us as being, you know, sort of one entity that or trying to work with them. And, I think a little bit of thought is needed to go into that because one of the challenges that we have is the community engagement that we do needs to meet the requirements of our regulator, which has particular needs.

So long as we can build some of that in, along the way. And then later on, when we're working with communities again, you know, we sort of need to be able to define our role and play a role. And so, you know, in some of our communities, the most vulnerable communities where we're socially the people of vulnerable, they're more likely to experience outages.

You know, we've been trying to set up the energy component of community resilience hubs. And that's, you know, one of the roles that we would like to, you know, be able to play where it's appropriate. So I think being able to work together in terms of how we work with communities is, something that hopefully the depths will, will really enable.

Thanks, Penny. I think we have time for one more audience question. If anyone has a burning question to ask. I will hand to going up. Oh, there is one back there.

So I'm Strauss from, Australia, and I'm active in services. I've worked with orange to set canopy targets and LGAs, so I've kind of bee targets. We've worked on disaster response and recovery in a number of LGAs around Australia. Steve, your group have got a fantastic innovation around green infrastructure evaluation, and we're trying to improve green infrastructure.

One of the challenges, though, for example, in Victoria, was that energy Safe Victoria rejected their own expert committee, which basically cost the community about $1 billion in canopy, where trees could have grown more into low bushfire or non bushfire areas. How do we balance all of these bits and pieces and make sure that we don't override the risk decision, when in fact there are huge benefits and really the on country bit reflects that.

You know, because there are benefits, not necessarily from disaster, but some of the risk factors around disaster certainly provide incredibly strong community benefits and particularly in the wellbeing space. So it is complex. How do we do all of this stuff? I think it's a great question. You ask that canopy cover where we sitting here in Greater Western Sydney, and last year, I collaborated, on the development of the city, heat smart plan.

And so, you know, we know that canopy cover is critical for heat wave as well. So I will turn to my colleagues. How do we balance? I might start with you, Amanda, at the end, how do we balance competing? And it really is that competing priorities between, you know, cooling and bushfire risk between housing and flood risk.

So interesting. You comments broadly around balancing competing priorities and agendas. Thanks so much. I mean, look, I mean, I think the commentary, from the panel today around tolerable risk, is really critical in this space. And to do that, I think it circles back to we need good evidence and data around risk but multifaceted Rousseau across the domains, including the social dimensions to be able to make good decisions around those trade offs.

And then I think really good pathways to bring the community along that journey and make sure they're community informed discussions like from a neighbour perspective, community resilience is at the heart of everything we do, but we recognise that we don't do that on the ground. So we may have ellos and others that work in that space, but we're clearly working through partners.

So our relationship with New South Wales, New South Wales, all right, with the Australian local government Association and their closest to their communities, the information through these guidelines, that's what informs the decisions at the federal level. That's how we engage with communities also recognising the fatigue factor there. So I think it needs to be a multifaceted approach. And then there are some difficult conversations that need to be had.

Some difficult decisions that need to be made. I think the other piece around evidence and data that's, really important and touches on the Treasury conversation, a little bit as well, is that that comes at the end of that investment. So what are the benefits that are being delivered by investment in risk reduction, not just the costs that we've avoided through subsequent disasters, but the broader economic and social benefits, including around social capital and social cohesion.

How can we tell that story? How can we tell that story in context and with numbers to really make that case about the choices we're making, but also the need for investment in the right places? Thanks, Amanda. I think that's a great point you make around social cohesion. So the IRA is developing a social cohesion measurement tool that we will use as part of our debt planning.

As well. Phyllis, do you want to talk about that? Yeah. I think I've got your question right. Just from a Australian local government Association viewpoint. We did some research demonstrating that councils investment in climate change adaptation measures are estimated to deliver 4.7 billion in the next five years. So as an as an organisations across Australia, we're very mindful about what you're saying.

With our disaster recovery and also about, you know, having those climate change, initiatives that will assist us with, with our disaster planning. So I think that's a really good start for local government across Australia. And I think that's getting bigger and better, you know, every year. And we'll continue to do that research so that we can keep tracking that it's it's on an upward, balance, you know, instead of going backwards.

So, local government on the whole is very, very, mindful of, not only disaster recovery and doing the right things, but also having climate change adaptation along the way. Thanks very much. Safe. Thanks, Amanda. It's almost the answer to the question. So most of the discussion that we've had throughout this morning, one of the critical things that I think, Simon, I think he's, that we're getting better at listening.

We obviously need to get better, but I think we are. And I think the, the discussion around, canopy for me is a really interesting insight into the ability to learn from your listening. So anyone who's worked on a large scale development infrastructure project, whatever it might be, you'll know you've got your line items, you've got the things you've got to deliver.

And probably somewhere at the end of that, it's going to be a a line item about landscaping, or it'll be the last thing that gets delivered. It'll be a little bit of green at the end. It's an important part. We recognise that as an important part of building amenity, building climate resilience, a whole raft of benefits. But what often happened in the past is that line on

It's the last thing the budget plays out, it gets pushed. That was the lived experience and people come along. I hate having some green, having some green infrastructure, having that urban amenities really important and would almost be dismissed as this, you know, 1970s style hippy argument. Yeah. Include the trees. We listened. The listening came from multiple perspectives.

Community was suffering in some areas from Low Canopy because of the impact of heat. We know that in western Sydney we do a lot of work with, the diabetes area up the Western Sydney Health Service. We know that people can't get out and be active, and that's a direct result of their urban form. We know that Treasury make decisions around what infrastructure that gets invested in by listening to all those different perspectives, we're actually able to generate change in the way that green infrastructure was is considered costed, valued and delivered across the planning spectrum.

I think the DAP guidelines is actually a really good example of government listening to what is the things that community and government and industry are saying are needed in place to make that place less risky, more resilient, whatever it might be? And I think part of the DAP guidelines, from a planning perspective, when the depths are done will deliver.

Is that information bias? But in a way that means something to to decision makers means something to those who, you know, basically holding the purse strings but also reflect community, industry and government desires about what it is that's needed. So, look, I think that, that snapshot about the massive work that we've done across Greater Sydney and that's now been expanded out, up and down the coast in terms of looking at canopy, working with partners, investing in urban greening is just a snapshot of what I'm hopeful that will come out from the application, the DAP guidelines.

Thanks, Dave. Look, sadly, conversation time has come to an end. I think you'll agree with me. It's been a really reaching, insightful discussion and our panellists have really contributed to it, so please join me in thanking them.

Before we wrap up, I just wanted to share a few reflections. I think you can tell I'm pretty passionate about disaster risk reduction. I've been banging on about this for 30 years, long before anyone else was listening. There was a few of us, you know, early adopters in fire services, talking about community preparedness. And it's great to see it's now mainstreamed and everyone is thinking about it.

So thank you all for contributing your expertise to what is somewhat a wicked problem. But I think we have a way forward working together and working collaboratively. We're extremely proud that we've been able to launch the DAP guidelines, today. And I just like to thank, all my team, all my colleagues for their hard work to get us to this point, and also to those who worked hard on this launch event.

It's been a great event. And and I hope you've enjoyed listening to, to our panellists and to to Mal and to Minister Saffin as well. We have a long way to go. You know, I, I would describe this says, you know, crawl, walk, run. People are saying to me, oh, could we use that to do x, y, z?

Said, look, we've got to, you know, laying the foundations. We're doing that early work. But I also think success begets success. You know, we will have the first foundation that to point to when, you know, it's released by government, you know, in the coming months. For those of you who think it's a bit of a sort of conceptual thing over there, you'll be able to read it.

And I have to tell you, in a while, at the time when I read it for the first time, I said, it's a great read. It is a really, really good piece of work. And I commend the HMV team for that work. We've got a lot of lessons that we've gathered along the way, and we'll be drawing on those lessons as we work with other charities across the state, to implement deps and, you know, hopefully we'll get better at it and we'll get a bit quicker at it over time.

And we'll use those lessons and, you know, set up a community of practice across all of those jobs so everyone can learn from each other. And we will all rise together. That's the whole point of this. We're building capability and capacity into the system as we go forward. It is a team sport. You can see that up there on the slide now.

Disaster adaptation, planning and adaptation and mitigation is a team sport. We all need to come to the table together to work on these problems and what the solutions look forward as we as we go into the future. We know we are facing a difficult climate future, for ourselves, our children, and in my case, our grandchildren. So we want to get this right.

And I think New South Wales is taking those first early steps to systematically address the risk that our communities are going to experience and to make a difference for, you know, future generations. And I'm really encouraged by the work that RA is able to lead with all of our partners here in the room to do just that. So what's next?

We going to continue to develop, implement at depths for HNV, for the Northern Rivers and for the joys we're working with. We'll continue listening to you all and to sharing the lessons as we go forward. As the minister mentioned, we've made good progress on the Hawkesbury Neapean Valley DAP, and I think it's a powerful example of how we can work together to deliver a really meaningful piece of work.

And we hope, Elizabeth, when you get to read it, you will, you will agree with that. The depth to explore these complex options and trade offs, there are no easy solutions here. I think everyone in the room acknowledges that, but it's only through cross-government Cross-Agency Cross Council discussions that we will creatively develop and deliver those solutions together.

So I encourage you to have a rate of the guidelines. You all will be able to take a hard copy home. Not that you get many things in hard copy now, but it is sometimes nice to have that document in your hands. Please reach out to me or to any of the team if you have any questions.

After today, there will be some fact sheets up on our website or in the team of little that and you know, some Q and A's and the like. If you're not sort of sure how to take this work forward. So thanks so much for joining us here today. I think we are bang on time, maybe a minute late.

Sorry for those online. For those in the room, please stay and enjoy morning tea with us and a bit of networking time. Thanks very much for this morning. Thank you too, I say. I'm now in for his leadership of this work. And two minutes to seven and good morning.