A federal Labor government would spend $200 million a year on natural disaster prevention and readiness.
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Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has promised a Disaster Ready Fund will be established to finance disaster prevention projects such as flood levees, evacuation shelters, fire breaks and improving telecommunications.
Annual disaster prevention funding would be matched by state, territory and local governments under the proposal.
The opposition also promised to cut red tape to ensure funding can be delivered more quickly, along with speeding up payments to disaster victims.
"You shouldn't need a degree in bureaucracy to be able to make a claim and to get compensated," Mr Albanese told the ABC.
Under the plan, Labor would also overhaul the government's emergency response fund which was set up by the government in late 2019 during the Black Summer bushfires.
Mr Albanese criticised the government for not spending some of the $4 billion fund on resilience projects.
"Three years after it was announced, the emergency response fund has not spent a cent on disaster recovery and has not completed a single disaster prevention project," he said.
"The only thing it has done is earn the government over $750 million in investment returns."
Labor's changes to the fund would see $200 million spent annually on disaster preparation initiatives.
It has also pledged to help with insurance premiums, which are increasing in regions more prone to events like bushfires and floods.
"We need to give our emergency service personnel, who do such a magnificent job in dire circumstances ... a bit of a head start and take some pressure off them as well, by making sure that we invest in good practice," Mr Albanese said.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaigner Martin Zavan welcomed the announcement but said governments should focus on reducing fossil fuels which cause climate change and related disasters.
"The real preventative measure we need is to address the root cause of disasters by rapidly transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy like wind, solar and batteries," he said.
Australian Associated Press
