Risk Wise

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] 22

Preparing now – international

cooperation for future resilience

Tony Pearce, Director General, Emergency Management Australia, Attorney-General’s Department, Australian Government

ustralia is a relatively isolated island continent which

experiences an extreme range of disaster-related crises.

Completely bound by oceans, the country is somewhat

less vulnerable to many diseases and migratory disturbances

suffered by the interlinked continents in the northern hemi-

sphere. Yet it suffers from some of the worst droughts, bushfires,

heatwaves and floods on Earth, is bombarded by devastating

cyclones and severe storms, and is vulnerable to much coastal

storm impact including the threat of tsunami.

On top of all this the country must accommodate climatic variation

from monsoon and desert temperatures upwards of 55 degrees

Celsius, down to icy conditions of minus 10 degrees or more. And

this is not including the country’s Antarctic territory. Australia has a

current population of around 21 million who reside mostly on the

eastern seaboard.

So it is not surprising that, as a developed western

democracy, Australia has needed to make substantial

advances in emergency management and has developed

sophisticated community safety procedures. All this has

led to a remarkably low death rate from natural disasters

in recent decades.

The nation’s premier emergency management body –

Emergency Management Australia (EMA) – was origi-

nally created as the Natural Disasters Organisation in

1974, just a few months before the northernmost city

of Darwin was completely destroyed by cyclone, forcing

the evacuation of almost its entire population of 35,000

residents. We have learned a great deal since that event

and are now envied by many countries for the extent of

public preparedness and degree of community safety.

Though Australia has an indigenous history going

back millennia, its westernized civilization is just 220

years old. Now it has the widest mix of nationalities of

any nation and continues to embrace immigration from

across the globe. We have three tiers of government –

federal, state and local. However, under the country’s

constitution it is the state governments that take the lead

responsibility for emergency response.

Towards self-reliance

Australia, like other countries, faces a raft of new chal-

lenges brought about by the impact of climate change.

It is inevitable that we will see an increase in the impact,

intensity and severity of natural disasters over the

coming decades. These challenges should be respected,

not feared. They should be seen as creating opportuni-

ties for us to test the bounds of our ability and ingenuity.

In doing so these challenges should allow us to be better

placed to ensure that by working together within our

country, and within our region, we are truly delivering

enhanced public safety outcomes towards more resilient

communities.

However, emergency managers in this country recog-

nize that there is a need for a paradigm shift in the

approach to emergency management by both govern-

ments and communities – a shift from expectation and

dependence towards self-reliance and resilience.

In recent decades, the number of people affected by

what could be called ‘climate disasters’ such as droughts,

floods, landslides and storms has been rising. Recent

natural disaster events include the Indian Ocean

State Emergency Service and ambulance officers evacuate elderly residents from a

flooded nursing home, June 2007

Image: courtesy NSW SES