NTARC launch Speech Notes

Mayor Mick Tucker - Break O’Day Council

I am honored to be here today to launch, on behalf of our eight northeastern councils, the Northern Tasmanian Alliance for Resilient Councils –– NTARC now that is an interesting acronym I can see I am going to become very familiar with! And a lovely looking logo!

This is a unique three-year Partnership, developed and led by the executive arms of our councils. Collectively the 8 Northern Councils have invested almost five hundred thousand over 3 years into this program.

No other Tasmanian region has come together in such a collegiate way and committed to tackling such a complex and challenging issue which has impacts and consequences for all of us, our families, friends, and communities, in both our work and private lives.

This is very much a program led by councils for councils. It recognises the need for evidence-based action across the programs, services and assets we are responsible for – we can’t ask our communities to act if we aren’t. This program allows us to step up and ensure the effectiveness and stickiness of our actions.

It starts by increasing our climate governance and literacy across our strategic corporate functions, our assets and the services and programs we deliver.

It reaches deep into each of our organisation’s, to strengthen what we do and increase our preparedness and responses to novel and emerging climates.

It looks to ensure efficient resource use and avoid duplication.

It takes the best of our councils, many of whom are already acting, including my own, and shares this at a regional scale building our capacity and capability.

Importantly it harmonises and standardises our responses to provide equitable and resilient outcomes for our communities. Nothing scares me more than 29 councils with 29 responses – we need to use the climate and resilience systems that we are developing through the program and, as councils, to create local solutions. This is what we are best at.

I commend the General Managers and CEO’s for having the foresight and initiative to invest and deliver in such an endeavor to overcome the challenges experienced by local government in delivering climate and resilient outcomes. This is an issue that we need to work cooperatively on, led from both the top and the bottom of our councils.

I am confident that you agree with me that in an emergency we need the right people with the right tools to act.

In a bushfire we need the fireman with a hose and not a surgeon with a scalpel trying to put out the fire, and in surgery I want a surgeon and a scalpel, and not a fireman with a fire hose (unless of course the surgery is on fire!)

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July was the hottest month recorded globally and I am sure you followed the news reports on the heat bomb in the Northern Hemisphere and the unprecedented heatwave in South America’s Chile where temperatures were almost 40 degrees in the middle of winter, more than double what they should be.

Here in Australia, our climate has already warmed by almost 1.5 degrees and this summer we are staring at heightened bushfire risk due to a lower spring rainfalls and increased growth from several wet years. I hear the chatter already from my community discussing the upcoming bushfire season amongst themselves, this is off the back of the challenges of increased flooding due to La Nina years that has directly impacted our region and our communities and councils.

It is not only the physical impacts we are exposed to, from an economic perspective the increase in these natural disasters: bushfire, flooding and droughts, are currently costing the Australian economy 34 billion dollars per year. It is estimated that by 2060 that these natural disasters will cost the between 74 to 94 billion dollars per annum.

Just this Thursday another report stated that Australia’s productivity will fall because of the hotter conditions, sapping the economy of between $135bn and $423bn in today’s dollars if temperatures exceed 2 degrees.

In this context as councils, in our role as the third tier of government, and are proximity to our communities, means that we are at the front line of responding.

We need to look at what tools are in our shed – what are we responsible for and ensuring who our professionals, the officers in our councils, know how to use those tools and have the right resources and settings to act – And NTARC is the key that we are using to unlock the shed.

We don’t exist in a vacuum, and these challenges are complex. We need others such as the Tasmanian Government and community organisations to unlock their sheds to pull out their tools to work towards find meaningful solutions. This program provides a platform to work alongside other stakeholders and cooperatively where our respective roles pull levers in the right order.

We already have runs on the board to help us to do this, in addition to our Partnership Agreement we have received Disaster Ready Funding that will help us to develop local and regional resilience plans, and resources that map community lifelines to prepare and respond to increased hazards and a changing climate. This is valued at five hundred thousand and effectively doubles our investment in the program over its three years.

We have a Healthy Focus Grant from the Tasmanian government that will deliver a series of workshops, state-wide across the three regions to identify gaps and opportunities for our sector in delivering healthy outcomes in changing climates.

And we have already been instrumental in a State – wide proposal for local government climate action which is the basis for the action in the Tasmanian Climate Change Action Plan to co-design mitigation and adaptation responses for councils over the next two years with an investment of five hundred thousand to do so – but I am going to hand over to Katrina who will share with you more about the program.