The Senate Select Committee on Australia's Disaster Resilience met in Melbourne this week. Natural Hazards Research Australia provided a written submission and CEO Andrew Gissing and Chair Iain MacKenzie attended the public hearing and gave a short address before answering questions.
The Committee is inquiring into Australia’s preparedness, response and recovery workforce models, as well as alternative models to disaster recovery. The committee is considering the role of the Australian Defence Force, volunteer groups, not-for-profit organisations and state-based services, and the support required to improve Australia’s resilience and response to natural disasters.
This is an edited extract of the opening statement from Andrew Gissing:
Research highlights that there is a need to adopt a whole of community approach to disaster management. In saying this we mean that disaster management requires the knowledge, expertise and resources of government (Commonwealth, state and local), NGOs, business and civil society to ensure effective prevention, preparedness, response and recovery.
Collaboration across sectors is key to bolstering capability and capacity. For example, research has shown that the response to Hurricane Katrina in the US required 535 different organisations across different sectors. Traditionally, emergency management has been government centric and there is a need to further embrace capability from other sectors through collaboration and information sharing.
Research shows there is an appetite for community organisations and some businesses to be further involved. However, community organisations require funding to contribute and flexibility in their existing funding arrangements to reduce barriers to their participation.
Volunteers are a critical element of Australia’s disaster management workforce. Research shows that formal volunteerism is declining, and that change is required to ensure a sustainable model into the future. These changes include reducing the administration burden on volunteers and enhancing the flexibility of volunteering.
A nationwide approach is also key given that catastrophic disasters will overwhelm the capacity of any single jurisdiction. This requires a focus on interoperability; that is, having common systems, procedures, equipment and training to ensure responses are efficient and effective.
New technologies will assist to bolster future capability and will also change the nature of the future workforce.
Community members are first responders, and their capacity also needs to be embraced.
Collaboration, volunteerism, interoperability, technology and information sharing are force multipliers. There is a need for a nationwide workforce and technology roadmap to define future disaster management capability needs. This needs to define the vision of disaster management capability in coming decades. Upfront disaster mitigation and resilient urban design are essential to reduce risk, and therefore to reduce the need for response and recovery.
We already have around 40 different research projects underway across a range of priority areas as well as building the next generation of researchers through our postgraduate scholarship programs.
Natural Hazards Research Australia has earlier conducted significant research relevant to the terms of reference of this committee. We have:
Developed tools to:
- define capability targets, assess capability maturity and identify areas for further investment
- improve recruitment and retention of volunteers and consider future workforce models
- enhance the psychological resilience of young emergency service volunteers.
We have approved future research to build solutions in the areas of mitigation, response, recovery and community led resilience to:
- inform the development the of the National Volunteer Sustainability Blueprint for Emergency Management
- inform more effective partnerships between Indigenous people and the EM sector – including integration of first nations capabilities, such as ranger groups
- inform community led recovery
- inform resourcing decisions, such as investments in mitigation and aerial fire fighting.
Natural Hazards Research Australia will continue to invest in more related research that is useful, useable and used as required by our end-user participants and consistent with post event inquiries and government priorities. Ultimately, we aim that our research is used to improve the safety, resilience and sustainability of communities.