South Australia, Victoria bushfires a reminder for Government to address climate change: Milne

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Greens leader Christine Milne has pointed to the fires in South Australia and Victoria to argue the Federal Government should do more to prepare for climate change.

As firefighters battle blazes in the two states - and fears mount that dozens of homes have been lost - Senator Milne said the Government was failing to recognise the costs of global warming.

"Every year we are going to face these extreme weather events, which are going to cost lives and infrastructure, and enough is enough," she said.

"The Abbott Government has to stop climate denial and help to get the country prepared to adapt to the more extreme conditions."

Ms Milne said now was the time to talk about Australia's preparedness for extreme weather events.

"Look at what is happening to people, communities, our environment, loss of infrastructure and for goodness sake abandon your nonsense about climate variability," she said.

"Accept global warming is real and let's get on with working together to plan for resilience in the face of extreme weather events."

States to fund disaster prevention: Government

Minister for Justice Michael Keenan said the Federal Government needed to have a conversation with state governments to review how money was spent before disasters happen, rather than in recovery.

"We need to look at how we are looking at the money spent on disasters in the most effective way," he said.

"At the moment we spend most of the money in relation to disasters in Australia in response and recovery."

Mr Keenan said the Productivity Commission should look into the proportion of money being spent by the states before and after bushfires.

"We have a small amount of money being spent on mitigating the threat of a disaster and the vast majority of the money spent on dealing with the after effects," he said.

"Clearly we need to have a conversation with the states [about] whether we can spend that money more effectively to mitigate the effects of a disaster before they occur."

Topics: disasters-and-accidents, fires, bushfire, federal---state-issues, christine-milne, greens, australia