E&OE TRANSCRIPT
OPENING ADDRESS
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION
2025 LOCAL GOVERNMENT CONVENTION
PERTH CONVENTION AND EXHIBITION CENTRE
23 SEPTEMBER 2025
Kaya.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
It’s fantastic to be here with you, and it’s an honour to speak first and to open this important convention.
I’d like to acknowledge the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation, the traditional custodians of this land, and thank Dylan Collard for that fantastic welcome.
I am the Federal Member for Fremantle, and so I represent Walyalup, Beeliar and Wadjemup, and it’s a privilege to do that.
I also acknowledge WALGA President Karen Chappell, Deputy President Paul Kelly, state parliamentary colleagues, including the Leader of the Opposition, Basil Zempilas and, of course, councillors, deputy mayors and mayors from across the state.
It really is an honour for me to come and address you as someone who has a local government background.
I was elected to the City of Fremantle Council in 2009 and served as Deputy Mayor in the City of Fremantle, and there are a lot of people here today, who I’ve worked with over time.
Just last week, I had the privilege of spending a few hours with folk from the Avon Regional Organisation of Councils, the mighty AROC and I relished that opportunity to engage with local government people here in Western Australia and right around the country, in my roles as the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy, which is a role I’ve held since last July and since the election in May, the role as Assistant Minister for Emergency Management.
I’ll start by observing that it wasn’t that long ago that the Ministry of an Australian Government would not have featured ministers with specific portfolio responsibility in either of those areas, in the area of climate change or emergency management.
In fact, the first Minister for Climate Change in the Federal Government was in 2010 and that was Senator Penny Wong at that stage, and the first Federal Minister for Emergency Management was Robert McClelland in 2011.
So only really 15 years ago since we’ve had those specific portfolio responsibilities at the federal level.
That tells us a fair bit about the circumstances in which in which we live and operate on behalf of our communities and where my responsibilities overlap, as the Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy and the Assistant Minister for emergency management, tells you a lot about the challenges and the circumstances that we face.
I come to my work at the federal level having had the benefit of experience as a local representative. I value that enormously. I think that’s a fantastic investment.
At the outset, I’d just say to all of you that the contribution you make as problem solvers and the facilitators of decision making and as community representatives is really enormous.
I serve to support my two lead ministers, both of whom also have local government experience.
Chris Bowen, the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, served as the Mayor of Fairfield Council New South Wales and Kristy McBain, who’s the Minister for Emergency Management, served as the Shire President of Bega.
It’s appropriate that I only have a rose to the rank of Deputy Mayor, I guess, as their assistant.
But you know, I think deputy mayors make a really vital contribution, so shout out to all the deputy mayors in the room.
I’d start by observing that the perception that some people have that local government predominantly is limited to a small set of responsibility in operations has never been true and isn’t true today.
There’s lots of cliches in life, and there’s a cliche that local government should stick to its knitting, rates, rubbish and roads.
That has never been the case, and it’s not the case now.
The areas that I’m responsible for and involved in – climate change, energy and emergency management – local government have made an enormous contribution, and the contribution and responsibility that local government will have in future will be central to our ability as a national community to be the best form of ourselves as the Australian community in the 21st Century, as we respond to these challenges.
There was a period between 2013 and 2022 when Australia at the federal level didn’t have a climate change minister.
In that period, a lot of the of the heavy lifting in the area of decarbonisation, embracing energy efficiency, embracing renewable energy technology, was done by local government.
The City of Freo, in my time there, decided that we’d make our leisure center powered by solar panels and a gas cogen and shallow geothermal plant.
I know that the City of Cockburn in Beeliar at one point had the largest roof mounted solar array of any public building in Australia.
One megawatt of solar capacity on the Cockburn Arc, 3,800 separate panels, a deep geothermal bore that supported the power needs and the heating of that facility.
And the City of Freo and lots of other local governments throughout the South West partnered with the RAC and that electric highway, which was sort of showing how we could distribute charging infrastructure to support the shift to electric vehicles.
More recently, the City of Cockburn deployed an engineered fringing reef at CY O’Connor beach to address coastal erosion.
I mention that because part of our focus now includes not just decarbonisation and the shift towards the opportunities that renewable energy and energy efficiency presents but also being mindful of the fact that there are aspects of climate change that we’re experiencing now and that we need to adapt to.
That project, the engineered fringing reef has been remarkably effective.
It’s reduced wave energy at that bit of the coast which had already experienced 50 meters of coastal erosion.
It’s reduced wave energy by 20% and supported an increase in local biodiversity with a doubling of observed fish species.
There were 29 observed fish species before the fringing reef was put in place, and now there are 57 fish species that are part of that bit of our coast, and it’s become a snorkellers paradise.
I mentioned that project because it’s in my backyard or my front yard, and it was funded with $600,000 through the Federal Government’s Coastal and Estuarine Risk Mitigation Program.
It’s named for one of WA’s most notable and visionary problem solvers in CY O’Connor and that’s part of our legacy.
You know, legacy obviously being the theme of your convention.
And because that project, that engineered fringing reef, is cited aptly in the very impressive Adapting Together Report that ALGA launched at the National General Assembly in June.
I think that’s a really significant piece of work, Adapting Together, and it sums up, really, in that title, one of the key focuses of our shared endeavor as an Australian community and as representatives in one of the levels of government in Australia that will define our existence through the 21st Century.
The report shows what needs to happen and what needs to happen in terms of adaptation is focused, concerted, coordinated work across all levels of government and by all levels of government in a way that engages the private sector and our broader community.
Last week was a big week for climate and energy for the Federal Government.
On Monday, with Chris Bowen, we launched the National Climate Risk Assessment and the National Adaptation Plan.
The National Climate Risk Assessment is the first comprehensive, detailed science backed assessment of climate risk under the three different temperature scenarios contemplated by the IPCC, looking at 10 different hazards, 12 regions down to the granular level of an SA2, four kilometer kind of radius, level of detail, giving us a much clearer picture of the way that we will experience some of the climate effects that we can’t avoid.
And then the National Adaptation Plan, this framework that outlines a vision for adaptation, sets out the principles of good adaptation, provides a stock take of all the work that’s happening across the sort of eight systems that it covers, health, environment, the economy, defence, community, infrastructure and so on.
The delivery of those two resources does mark an important step forward in our capacity to understand climate risk and in our ability to adapt to the climate impacts that we can’t avoid.
Together, they reinforce the necessity of our work to reduce emissions in Australia as a contribution to effective, cooperative global action.
But more significantly, they provide the Australian community with better tools to understand risk and to undertake smart adaptation work.
More than anything, they show the enormous value of taking a serious and timely approach to dangerous climate change.
They show that delay and denial would be enormously costly and harmful to our social, economic and environmental wellbeing.
Now, the risks presented in the NCRA, which is a resource that we expect local government will have regard to and have the benefit of, the risks are sobering, but the good news is that work is underway.
I know that work is underway at the local government level in Western Australia and around the country.
I’ve just cited that example in Cockburn.
It’s right that there is a focus at the national and state level when it comes to enabling local government.
And it’s important that while those two new resources, the National Climate Risk Assessment and the National Adaptation Plan, will put us in a stronger position, the Australian community shouldn’t believe that the delivery of those two resources last week marks the start of our work.
It doesn’t mark the start of our work.
That work’s been underway for a considerable period of time.
At the Commonwealth level, there’s the $1 billion Disaster Ready Fund, two rounds already delivered, the third one not far away.
Lots of those projects being delivered in partnership with local government.
There’s the $200 million Urban Rivers and Catchments program.
Noting that a lot of the work that’s done in that space around our waterways involves addressing legacy drainage problems and challenges which impact on flood resilience.
The $100 million dollars for the local government focused Community Energy Upgrade Fund.
And again, I’m aware of projects around Western Australia that have benefited from that support for councils to improve their use and access to renewable energy resources and storage.
As part of the release of the net zero plan last week that accompanied the setting of Australia’s 2035 target under the Paris Climate Agreement, we’ve announced $50 million in new grant funding specifically for sports clubs.
So sports clubs can consider how putting renewable energy into their operations makes a contribution to emission reduction, makes a contribution to the strength and health of the broader energy system, but importantly, reduces operational costs to those clubs.
On Saturday in Boorloo, up at King’s Park, we announced $40 million for additional support to accelerate the deployment of fast charging, and for the first time to see the development of kerbside charging, which we need.
We’ve tripled the number of charging points in Australia in the last three years, but there’s only 8000 charging points now.
That $40 million will deliver an additional 10,000 charging points, and we need to see that further support for people and councils and businesses that want to move towards electric vehicles and decarbonised transport.
I want to wrap up, really on an optimistic note, because while the NCRA and the experiences that we’ve had in recent times around the country show us that natural disasters through the influence of climate change, are becoming more frequent and intense, we have in Australia, in our communities, through our three levels of government and through, frankly, the application of our character as Australians, we have a very significant comparative advantage.
We have an advantage when it comes to wind and solar resources.
I met with some representatives of an Italian wind power company the other day that were that were saying that they look at investment opportunities around the world, and from their point of view, there is just no question that wind resources in Australia and in Western Australia are the best in the world.
We have a comparative advantage in terms of our appetite for ingenuity and innovation, and that goes back, really, to our First Nations heritage.
I’m responsible for the Australian Carbon Credit Unit Scheme, the ACCU Scheme and the flagship method under the ACCU scheme is the Savanna Fire Burning method in Northern Australia, where we have rediscovered something that we scandalously ignored for a long time.
We’ve rediscovered science-based practices that First Nations people in Northern Australia applied for tens of thousands of years.
Cool season pattern burning that avoids large scale hot fires, avoids the emissions involved in those fires and fixes carbon into the landscape in a remarkable way.
The CSIRO did some work earlier this year that found that our initial estimates of the value of those projects didn’t attribute to them the carbon credit that they are actually delivering.
But we also have ingenuity and innovation that dates back to CY O’Connor, Fremantle Port, the Kalgoorlie Pipeline and all of those things, that is something that we can and should draw on.
We have comparative advantage in terms of our continental scale, in terms of our critical minerals, in terms of the fact that this is a well-regulated stable investment environment that compares excellently with any other country on Earth.
And so, we should have confidence.
We should have optimism for our communities, for our children and for their children, about the opportunity that Australia has to achieve its potential, and its potential is to be a renewable energy superpower.
But not just a renewable energy superpower, but also a clean industry powerhouse, and we’re starting to see that manifest in Australia, including through our future made in Australia agenda.
That’s something that younger people in particular should take heart from.
It’s a challenging time, but there are incredible opportunities.
We also have the capacity to show that leadership when it comes to adaptation.
We know that with adaptation, every $1 that is sensibly invested now saves up to $10 in future, avoided costs, and importantly, that adaptation in every instance, has significant co-benefits.
We don’t need to think about adaptation as something that becomes entirely new, that becomes an additional burden to all of you with the 16 million things that you’ve already got on your plate.
Adaptation is a mindset that we bring to things that we’re already doing.
That fringing reef that that I gave an example of before, points to exactly what I’m talking about.
You put in some infrastructure like that, and it does deal with coastal erosion, it does suddenly deliver significantly increased biodiversity and then you get this new local attraction for community members to come and enjoy in the form of snorkelling.
That is the case with almost every kind of smart adaptation.
One of the programs I’m proudest of is the Social Housing Energy Performance Initiative.
We know that social housing around the country tends to be older housing.
It tends to be less well constructed with respect to the environmental conditions that lots of Australians face.
And so we’re putting $1.3 billion into upgrading 100,000 social housing dwellings.
In many cases, they get insulation for the first time.
In some cases, they get solar, they get glazing improvements, they get batteries.
The primary focus of that is to make those houses more livable.
I went to a dwelling in the suburbs of Adelaide owned by the Social Housing Trust of South Australia.
The tenant, Janet, had lived in that house and raised her family in that house for 49 years.
She was getting rooftop insulation in a weatherboard and tin house in the suburbs of Adelaide for the first time.
Now this summer, that house is going to be much more comfortable for Janet, and if Janet needs to put on her air conditioning, she’ll get much better value out of the air conditioning, and she’ll use much less electricity in order to make her house cooler, as it should be.
But it’s also reducing emissions, and it’s also reducing peak energy demand.
All the things that we are doing in these spaces are delivering multiple benefits, and one of them is adaptation to climate change.
In the end, that’s only going to be achieved by working together.
I’ll come back to that fantastic piece of work, Adapting Together, the ALGA report that I know lots of WALGA people contributed to, and lots of councils here contributed to.
Working together all three levels of government, supporting and enabling our communities, supporting the private sector and the broader community to be part of that shared endeavor.
To face up to the challenges, to make sure that we take the opportunities and through that create a stronger Australia, an Australia in which we advance shared environmental, social and economic wellbeing.
Thanks for having me as your guest this morning.
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