SUBJECT/S: Severe weather, Victorian bushfires

MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, KRISTY MCBAIN: Welcome to the National Situation Room. I've just received a briefing on the severe weather that's impacting large parts of Australia this week, and in particular those bushfire situations in Victoria. I'll shortly hand over to our NEMA Coordinator-General, Brendan Moon, who will provide an operational overview and to Jessica Roussel from the Bureau of Meteorology for a more detailed update on weather and the fires in particular. But firstly, I want to thank significantly those thousands of firefighters, many of whom are volunteers, who have been battling bushfires for weeks now. The conditions have been terrifying at times, and every Australian has your gratitude. We thank you. You are nothing short of heroic. We know severe to extreme heat wave conditions continue to affect large parts of Australia. In some inland areas, we've seen temperatures exceed 48 degrees. These conditions pose not only significant health risks, they pose significant risk for our bushfire-impacted communities. It is really important to stay hydrated, to avoid excessive heat exposure and to check on vulnerable members of your community. As we said, heatwave conditions, combined with those dry and gusty winds, continue to create a significant risk across multiple states. There are a number of very dangerous bushfires continuing to burn in Victoria at the moment, particularly in the Otways region. The conditions we saw yesterday in Victoria were incredibly challenging. There are currently around 22,000 homes without power in Victoria due to that extreme heat, high winds and fires, and my thoughts are with those who lost homes yesterday, but also earlier in this month. Today is another dangerous day, and residents should continue to enact their Bushfire Survival Plan immediately, make decisions and leave early. And it's really critical that community members follow the direction and advice of emergency services when they are asked to evacuate. I've been in contact with my Victorian counterpart, the Victorian minister for emergency services, Vicki Ward, on multiple occasions, offering the assistance and support of the Commonwealth Government. We have multiple aerial assets deployed to support Victoria, including an Australian Government-owned Black Hawk that has been deployed to that region. The Australian Defence Force is providing food ration packs to support Victorian emergency service personnel. More than 400 firefighting personnel are deployed to support Victoria's bushfire emergency from around the country. We've now received over 70 firefighters from Canada and 22 firefighters from across the ditch in New Zealand to assist with our firefighting response. NEMA is coordinating with Victorian agencies and authorities to ensure support is available as quickly as possible. And of course, our Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements are already in place across 23 local government areas in Victoria, as well as one Alpine Resort - all areas that have been impacted by fire earlier this month. The Albanese and Allen governments have so far committed $171 million through our Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements to assist communities that have been directly impacted. This includes the establishment of recovery hubs, financial assistance for prolonged power outages, a range of supports for our primary producers and individuals, businesses and in particular, councils. Additionally, Services Australia have now paid out more than $1.3 million in our Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment and our Disaster Recovery Allowance to support individuals who have been directly impacted by those bushfires. As I said, we will continue to work closely with the Allan Labor government in Victoria to ensure that supports are put in place when necessary. I've spent time in Victoria over the last couple of weeks, both in the wider Bendigo region, in Harcourt and Castlemaine, as well as in Alexandra, in Strathbogie Shire, as well as Euroa and a range of other small communities, including Ruffy speaking with communities firsthand about the impacts that are affecting them, but also the support that they may need, not only in the immediate sense, but on the long tail of recovery to come. And I remain committed to standing with those communities and making sure that the three levels of government work closely together to support communities into recovery. I'm now going to ask Jessica from the Bureau of Meteorology to give an overview of those weather conditions that we see play out.

JESS ROUSSEL: Good morning everyone. My name is Jess Roussel from the Bureau of Meteorology. We are seeing a number of concurrent weather events occurring across the country. I am going to focus on the southeast, but I'll start by working my way north to south. In Queensland at the moment, we are seeing widespread showers and storms across the northern part of the state, and there have been some particularly heavy falls overnight in a number of locations. This has led to flash flooding and riverine flooding at a number of spots in Western Australia. We are seeing ex Tropical Cyclone Luana gradually make its way down south in the state. As it's moving through the southern interior, we're seeing heavy rainfall in a number of locations, and today, the focus area will be in the south of the state, where we will see those heavy rainfalls and the possibility of a flash flooding. Now turning our attention to the southeast of the country, we have seen record breaking heatwave, and elevated fire danger conditions at many locations over the past few days. The highest temperature record for Victoria was set yesterday, where we saw 48.9 degrees Celsius recorded at Walpeup and Hopetoun airport. Cooler conditions have started to return to coastal areas in Victoria. However, we are seeing the heat remaining inland, where a number of locations are still remaining at 40 degrees or above, and this will continue for a number of days into the weekend. In terms of the fire danger, we are seeing a continuation of extreme fire danger on the ground in a number of districts in South Australia and Victoria today, and also in New South Wales over the coming days, with the prolonged heatwave in those locations. Now, this risk will start to ease on the weekend, as we see the temperatures start to decrease and the heatwave contract to the north in Victoria. Today smoke will be visible across Melbourne and a number of locations with reduced air quality. As we move into the weekend, the fire danger ratings will begin to ease as we see the easing of heat across many fire grounds, but it will be important to remain vigilant to changing conditions. There is the chance of light showers across some of the grounds over the weekend. However, unfortunately, this is unlikely to be significant enough to make a difference to the firefighting effort. I will now pass to the Coordinator-General.

NEMA COORDINATOR-GENERAL BREANDAN MOON: Brendan Moon, the Coordinator-General of the National Emergency Management Agency. Right now, we are in the middle of our high-risk weather season. Our operational focus is very much around the bushfires in Victoria and also the flooding in North Queensland. We have been in an operational posture now for three weeks, dealing not only with the flooding in North Queensland, but also those Victorian fires and the cyclones in Western Australia. The agency has activated the Commonwealth Disaster Assistance Plan three weeks ago. This enables us to facilitate support to states and territories who require immediate assistance. And we've seen, as you've heard from the Minister, that support has been standing up. The National Emergency Management stockpile, accommodation for emergency management services, and also the provision of support to those firefighters who are at the forefront of this fight in Victoria. Our crisis coordination teams have been operating both here in Canberra and also embedded in the state emergency operations centres. This enables prompt support to be given to those states who require that, and you're seeing the sharing of firefighting resources from not only interstate, but also internationally. This underlines the importance of a coordinated, cohesive approach to emergency management that we now follow here in Australia. These events, sadly, have led to the loss of life and also to enormous damage to people's homes, to their businesses, to their farms, to their livestock. NEMA is also working very, very closely with the recovery and the reconstruction organisations in each of those states, as well as local governments and also those communities to understand the support that they actually need now and into the future. And we've activated support for that, as the Minister has touched on, in over 79 council areas, both in Queensland and also in Victoria. But if I go back to my initial message, we are right in the middle of our high-risk weather season. We still have two months to go. Our highest fire risk usually occurs during February and March. Can I please ask people to listen to your emergency management organisations for all those warnings. Prepare yourself for whatever may come. For those communities that are experiencing living through the heatwave at this particular point in time, my message is very much around staying hydrated, managing your program so that whatever you do during the course of the day, you do it during the cooler part of the day, look after your mates and those most vulnerable in your community, and also access the Department of Health websites for any assistance that they may provide during this particularly difficult time. Also, local government operates refuge areas that will also be available in air-conditioned venues to support those community members that might need to seek to alleviate the impacts of this heat wave. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: There's still two months to go with this high-risk weather that we're seeing. Are we anticipating this to get worse? The bush fires?

MCBAIN: Look we have a number of campaign fires across Victoria at the moment. We've got bushfire risk in the landscape in WA and South Australia and New South Wales and Tasmania as well. I think we are all prepared as best as we can be. From a national perspective, that's one of the reasons we've implemented our National Aerial Firefighting Fleet. We now help by providing additional assets to what we have across the country, and provide them strategically across the country where needed. We've stood up our national emergency stockpile, as the Coordinator-General just said, and we've got a range of assets that we help the states and territories with when they need them. We're really focused on what we can do to help coordinate. But it's clear that risk will not end until the end of this season.

JOURNALIST: Do we have any figures about the number of house losses?

MCBAIN: We have a number of unconfirmed reports that there are at least three homes that have been lost in the great Otway fire yesterday, but those assessments are continuing. But the impact across Victoria is significant, and that can't be underestimated. Over 400,000 hectares of land has been burnt in Victoria to date, and it is really important that communities continue to heed the advice of emergency services. But the losses already in Victoria, there are over 1300 structures that have been lost, and that includes more than 400 homes.

JOURNALIST: Is that disaster recovery funding being rolled out quickly, and is there, are there numbers on how?

MCBAIN: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I made it clear in my statement, it's over $171 million worth of Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangement packages, which is a joint Commonwealth and State funding arrangement. At this point in time, we know that these things may change, and we stand ready to continue to support Victoria on whatever other assistance may be required. But in regards to standing up that plan, as the Coordinator-General said, it's much more than financial support. We provide a range of operational supports, which is incredibly important when you've got campaign fires impacting a larger part of Victoria as a state so that COMDIS plan, you know, includes emergency accommodation support. It includes operational support within the State Control Centre. There are a range of supports that we are providing under that which is much more than just financial.

JOURNALIST: We did record record-breaking heat in Victoria, 48.9 degrees, which is what I've got here. Is this a sign of climate change getting worse?

MCBAIN: Look, I think everyone's aware that climate change is having a significant impact across our country. We are seeing more intense, more frequent natural disasters. Now, not every natural disaster we can put down to climate change, but we are seeing prolonged heatwaves impact a huge part of our country. And as you just heard from the BOM, that will continue into the weekend, in most parts of northern Victoria in particular, where that high record was recorded. So no one should be under any illusion that climate change plays no role in this. I think we all understand and our job is to make sure that we are supporting communities that have been directly impacted. But more broadly, our job is going to be around how we can make our communities more resilient, how we can make our infrastructure more resilient, and how we can mitigate against the worst of natural disasters. And as you've just heard, the Coordinator-General say, local councils are alive to this, and they are already providing places of refuge in local communities for vulnerable community members to go to. Places like libraries, which are now providing heat refuge for community members, to come to community halls, which are now places of last resort for communities evacuating from bushfires.