As floods, fires, and heatwaves intensify, a new alliance of unions, faith groups, and community organisations has launched The Climate Safety Plan – a roadmap calling on the Australian Government to make climate readiness a national priority.
Across Australia, people are calling for urgent action on climate safety. From union halls to faith congregations, from farms to frontline health services, the message is the same: we must prepare for the climate impacts already unfolding around us. Prepare now, act fairly, and ensure no one is left behind.
The plan sets out an ambitious roadmap for how government can help communities prepare, adapt, and respond to the climate breakdown – a plan built on fairness and practical action.
A call for national readiness
The plan comes from Renew Australia for All, a broad alliance of unions, faith groups, climate activists, and community organisations. Together they are urging the Albanese Government to treat climate safety as an urgent national priority, in line with the government’s own recent Climate Risk Assessment report.
For many Australians, the impacts of climate change are no longer distant. They are personal. A heatwave that made a workplace unbearable. A flood that washed through a neighbourhood. A storm that broke supply chains and pushed up prices at the checkout. These experiences are now part of everyday life.
From prevention to preparation
For decades, the focus of the climate movement has rightly been on prevention – on cutting emissions to slow global heating. But as the alliance stresses, it is no longer enough to campaign against future damage. We must also get ready for the impacts that are already here.
The Climate Safety Plan lays out what that readiness looks like in real terms: safer homes, resilient communities, stronger workplaces, and health systems prepared for climate shocks. It links justice and resilience, ensuring that vulnerable groups – renters, migrants, farmers, frontline workers – are supported rather than left behind.
Voices from the frontline
At the launch webinar, speakers shared perspectives from across the country:
• Madeline Cooper, Program Manager and volunteer advocate with Better Renting, spoke on Healthy Homes – creating a fair, secure, and affordable housing system that can withstand extreme heat.
• Sohair Elbagir, Community Connector at the Queensland African Communities Council, focused on Resilient Communities – supporting migrant and diaspora communities to thrive despite climate impacts.
• Niki Gill, Operations Manager at Uniting North Coast NSW, outlined how community services must be properly resourced for housing and disaster recovery.
• Rikki Hendon, Secretary of UnionWA, highlighted the need for Safe Work – stronger workplace safety as the foundation for community resilience.
• Sigrid Pitkin, Nurse Practitioner and lecturer at the Australian Catholic University, described the urgent need for a Resilient Health System – embedding climate literacy in nursing and preparing for health emergencies.
• Peter Holding, from Farmers for Climate Action, drew on his experience as a third-generation farmer in south-east NSW to show how Farmers and Communities can adapt agriculture to a drier, hotter world.
• Elise Ganley, Senior Community Organiser with the Queensland Community Alliance, spoke of the power of Community Mobilisation – building collective capacity for justice and resilience.
A roadmap for action
The Climate Safety Plan is a call for leadership and long-term vision. It recognises that communities are already doing much of the heavy lifting. What is needed now is federal coordination and investment to make climate safety a pillar of national policy.
The plan’s message is clear: preparing for the impacts of climate change is not a luxury or an afterthought. It is a matter of fairness, safety, and common sense. And it begins with listening to the people who are already living the reality of a changing climate.
A call to join
Renew Australia for All invites everyone – from individuals to community organisations – to take part in shaping a safer future. The Climate Safety Plan is both a warning and a promise: that with cooperation, care, and foresight, Australia can protect its people from the worst of what’s coming and renew itself for the generations ahead.
→ Read more on Renew Australia for All’s website:
www.renewaustraliaforall.org
Summary of the Climate Safety Plan
The Climate Safety Plan sets out a national roadmap to make every community in Australia safer and more resilient in the face of escalating climate impacts. It calls for a coordinated government response built around fairness, prevention, and preparedness – ensuring that no one is left to face climate change alone.
For every dollar invested in resilience and preparedness, Australia saves ten dollars in response and recovery costs. The plan argues that prevention is not only moral but economically sound, and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leadership must be central to all planning and implementation.
Key actions proposed
• Make insurance affordable: Introduce federal intervention to curb price gouging and expand public insurance schemes, with subsidies and resilience upgrades for low-income households.
• Climate-proof homes, schools and workplaces: Strengthen the National Construction Code and retrofit existing buildings to ensure all are energy-efficient, liveable and heat-resilient.
• Build a resilient healthcare system: Fully fund the long-delayed National Climate and Health Strategy, invest in climate-ready infrastructure, and support healthcare workers with training and fair pay.
• Boost the emergency workforce: Establish a $600 million National Emergency Response Brigade and provide annual grants of $150 million for fire and rescue services.
• Fund community services and local governments: Create two long-term funds – a reformed Disaster Ready Fund and a new LGA Adaptation Fund – each with $2 billion over five years to resource local resilience projects.
• Secure farming and food supply: Invest $500 million over three years in agricultural research, drought preparedness, and water storage to protect rural livelihoods and national food security.
• Deliver climate-ready social support: Reform the social safety net so it protects, rather than penalises, people during disasters; suspend obligations and raise recovery payments when crises strike.
• Centre community voices and leadership: Empower local communities through fair volunteer payments, streamlined recovery grants, and principles for inclusive consultation and decision-making.
How to pay for it
The plan identifies climate resilience as a matter of national fiscal responsibility. By reforming outdated fossil fuel subsidies such as the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax and Fuel Tax Credit Scheme, the government could redirect over $10 billion annually to fund adaptation and preparedness. Treasury is urged to account for the long-term savings of prevention – recognising, for example, that a $1 million seawall that avoids $100 million in future damage is a sound investment, not a cost.
The Climate Safety Plan calls for leadership, coordination and foresight. It envisions a future where communities, workers, and governments act together to safeguard lives, livelihoods, and the land itself – guided by the principle that climate safety is everyone’s right, and that resilience is the foundation of a fair society.