Disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation policy in Australia

Disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change (CC) are pressing fields of action for scholars, practitioners and policy-makers to promote a sustainable level of wellbeing for local communities and to increase the resilience of communities coping with multi-origin hazards. Unfortunately, in the case of Australia, there is evidence to suggest that disaster risk reduction and climate-change policy is highly fragmented and politicised (von Meding et al., 2013). The main focus of this paper is, therefore, to develop a deep understanding of the underpinning factors of local, regional and national policies in Australia. In terms of policy and multilevel integration of policies, we will particularly focus on the risk of failure to adapt to climate change in Australia. The national and local Australian context will be analysed in terms of its recent past experiences in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation policies, stressing on the changes through the years, investigating key terminology, frameworks and goals. These will be described and critically analysed in a multilevel context, beginning with national government objectives and working through to the local dimension of these policies. A clear and comprehensive analysis of the evolution of local, regional and national policy in Australia, as well as a critique on the past and current effectiveness of implementation, will pave the way for further research to take place towards DRR and CCA action.