At the three-year anniversary of the 2022 flood events in the Northern Rivers, Tamara Smith MP, Member for Ballina, speaks to fostering community-driven disaster resilience as we adapt to global warming.

" On the three-year anniversary, we remember those that lost their lives in 2022, the thousands of families and people who lost their homes, and the hundreds of small businesses across the region that were impacted."

"We also remember the thousands of volunteers from across the region, state, and country who assisted our communities in the worst flood disaster in Australia in living memory." 

Ms Smith said, " Despite early missteps and bureaucratic bungles, what the NSW Reconstruction Authority has started to implement in terms of buying back homes, supporting house raises, and retrofitting homes is the vital adaptation work that we must continue rapidly if we are to survive and thrive on a heating planet."

"Key to our success in fostering greater resilience to life on planet earth as it warms is a co-partnership between communities and government sharing in the planning and governance of disaster recovery, preparation, and adaptation. We now have a clear sense of the work that must continue, and of the vital role that people in each town and village must play in planning for future climate-fueled extreme weather events, including heat," said Ms Smith.

Many people are still not whole after the floods, and many people have been displaced, and the work of recovery continues. But we must turn our attention to what is coming down the barrel for EVERY community in EVERY country in the world because we know that climate fuelled fires, floods, storms, and heat are now our collective legacy as a species."