Estimates - Local Government - Climate Change adaption

CHAIR - Minister, Ms Rosol has raised a very good point about the issue of homelessness and cat management, but councils are always on the frontline and often leading the climate change response. How will the state government support adaptation actions for local councils facing climate change impacts right now and over the coming El Niño or marine heatwave summer.

Mr VINCENT - There is constant discussion there with various departments regarding a lot of climate change issues with storm water management and coastal areas. Opening up areas or protecting areas where they work in unison with Parks, Crown and wherever other departments are. There are various funding rounds now where most councillors have an NRE officer who works very closely on different issues because each council once again is very different. There is a fair level of communication support on most of those things; a lot of it doesn't come across my desk as the local government minister. It certainly does in other areas of various ministries, mainly with Parks and Crown, I would say from memory. On some of those climate change measures.

CHAIR - Were you talking about NRM officers?

Mr VINCENT - Yes.

CHAIR - Because I know many councils who don't have that and I think the funding has been cut for NRM anyway. Will local councils be required to either seek federal funding or resource climate change adaptation actions from their own budgets for 26-28 until the next Climate Action Plan is released in 2028, because we don't have one?

Mr VINCENT - I would like to take a little bit more advice on that, please.

Mr HEALEY - Look, certainly when you talk about the practical actions that are required for adaptation to climate change, there is support for councils across multiple fronts. For example, one of the key adaptation measures will be understanding and mitigating and managing the changes in terms of risks from fires, floods and the like. There is a significant program of work that's led by Resilience and Recovery Tasmania that's helping councils to understand that risk and to prioritise their mitigation efforts. So no, I wouldn't say it's left up to councils to fund their own adaptation efforts. There are programs across government that are targeting those sorts of issues.