Australian Journal of Public Administration • 64(2):27-30, June 2005© National Council of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing Limited

NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2004 - REGENERATION

New Levels of Government Responsiveness for‘All-Hazards’: the Management of NaturalDisasters and Emergencies

Robert CornallSecretary, Attorney-General’s DepartmentCanberra

If we think about how governments deal withcrises the first examples that come to mind arenatural disasters. This is not surprising. We havehad our fair share of these events and majoraccidents. Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin onChristmas Day in 1974, killing 65 people withanother 145 seriously injured and 8,400 homesdestroyed. The damage bill was $600 millionin 1975 prices. Then there was the Granvilletrain crash in January 1977, with a loss of 83lives and 213 people injured. The 1989Newcastle earthquake caused $4 billion damagekilled 13 people and injured 160, and theCanberra bushfires in January 2003 took fourlives and destroyed more than 500 homes.

Most of these events meet the definition of‘natural disaster’, adopted in a 2002 report tothe Council of Australian Governments, entitledNatural Disasters in Australia. The COAG reporttells us that between 1967 and 1999, Australiatypically encountered eight disasters per yearwith the total cost of each event of more than$10 million. Unfortunately, the number ofdisasters is increasing. The worst year so farwas 1988, with 17 recorded events causing morethan $10 million damage. In 2001 the recordeddisasters were caused by bushfires, flash floods,severe storms, including hail and heavy rain,lightning strikes and a landslide. Although thereport does not give explanations for thisincrease in incidence, it is most likely causedby changes in weather and weather patternsbrought on by global warming and thegreenhouse effect. If this is the case, then in thefuture natural disasters are likely to continue toincrease in number as climatic changes lead tomore extreme weather events, both in Australiaand in our region.

But if we are thinking about crises causedby any type of catastrophic event, and not justnatural disasters, we have to take a wider view.We would have to include possible healthepidemics, such as SARS and avian flu, andterrorist attacks, such as the Bali bombing andthe attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.While they do not fall squarely within the COAGdefinition of a natural disaster, they call for thesame emergency response in consequencemanagement, which is why Australia’s responseto crises of all kinds is based on an ‘all-hazards’approach.

All Australian governments have longrecognised their obligations to prevent ormitigate damage from natural disasters, butthere is now a much greater urgency, since theterrorist attacks in the United States on 11September 2001, to ensure that ourarrangements respond to and manage a crisis,however it is caused, and are capable of meetingany challenge they might have to face.

So far we have done all right. Take the Balibombing as a case study. The Australian FederalPolice and seconded state and territory policeofficers did an excellent job cooperating withIndonesian authorities in their immediateresponse to the bombing at the Sari Club andthe subsequent criminal investigations andprosecutions. The Australian Defence Forcesaved lives, evacuating victims from Bali sothey could receive top medical treatment inAustralian hospitals.

From a Commonwealth perspective, thepolice and the ADF were supported by centralagencies (DFAT, PM&C) A-G’s department,which developed urgent legislation to permittransfer of DNA data, Emergency Management

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Australia, which coordinated the airlift,AUSTRAC, which followed money trails, andCrimTac, which helped with DNA matching forvictim identification. Health, FACS andCentrelink also played important roles. Stateand territory agencies, hospitals and medicalteams made a huge coordinated effort to respondto the tragedy, including emergencymanagement staff.

That crisis underlined how many agenciesaround Australia are involved in responding toan emergency and how an effective responserequires cooperation across all levels ofgovernment. But it also reinforced therecommendations in the COAG report aboutnatural disasters – that there is more to do toensure that we have a cohesive, coordinatednational response to crises, particularly if aterrorist attack were to occur here in our owncountry.

And that could happen. Since September11, Australia’s threat level has been set atmedium and the Director-General of Security,Dennis Richardson, has warned the possibilityof a terrorist attack in Australia is real and thatthe war against terrorism will go on for years.Taken together, the COAG report, our tragicexperiences in Bali and Jakarta, and the seriouswarning from the head of ASIO, have focusedgovernments on improving our emergencymanagement arrangements so that they operatewith the speed, effectiveness andprofessionalism that Australians both expect anddeserve.

That is not as straightforward as it maysound. In our federal system, the states andterritories provide police, fire and emergencyservices, as well as hospitals and other peopleand resources necessary to respond to a crisis.The Australian government distributesintelligence information and buildsinternational relationships and cooperation, aswell as providing a range of operational andcoordination services. So in any age when wehave to think globally and act nationally, therequired level of response can only be achievedby the cooperative action of all Australiangovernments.

Experience shows a federal system has anin-built capacity to cause frustration whennational action is required. But even when thereare occasional irritations in our relationships, I

always think how much worse it would be to bein the United States. The FBI deals with about18,000 law enforcement agencies, ranging fromthe Chicago, LA and New York policedepartments to one and two-person sheriffoffices, comprising a total of 625,000 lawenforcement officers, and fights for turf with theCIA and the Department of Homeland Security.

In Australia first-rate national cooperationhas been achieved over recent years throughthe National Counter-Terrorism Committee andthe Protective Security Coordination Centre.Now we are establishing the same sort ofcooperation and national outcomes inemergency management.

One of the major recommendations andoutcomes of the COAG report on naturaldisasters was the establishment of a high-levelAustralian emergency management committeeto oversee the implementation of the 12commitments by all levels of government toreform Australia’s natural disaster management.The people appointed to this committee arehigh-ranking public servants capable of makingsignificant decisions about their jurisdiction’sparticipation in national initiatives orinfluencing their governments to do so. Thatcommittee, in turn, reports to a new ministerialcouncil made up of the Australian PoliceMinisters Council plus other ministersresponsible for emergency management andnatural disaster relief where they are differentministers. The establishment of these twocommittees at those levels highlights COAG’sdetermination to get the 12 reform commitmentsimplemented.

Listing just three of the commitments willprovide some idea of the ambitious scope ofthe task we have been given:1. to develop and implement a five-year

national program of systematic and rigorousdisaster risk assessments;

2. to establish a nationally-consistent systemof data collection, research and analysis toensure a sound knowledge base on naturaldisasters and disaster mitigation;

3. to develop for each level of government anatural disaster mitigation strategy.One exercise we are currently undertaking

is to ask each jurisdiction to tell us how theywould respond to a catastrophe which caused,say, 30 deaths and 200 serious injuries,

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New Levels of Government Responsiveness

particularly burns. Obviously effective financialand resource management means that we cannothave people and resources sitting around to dealwith a catastrophic event like this, against thepossibility that they might one day be needed.But we certainly can be expected to havethought through the issues and have plans inplace to deal with such a situation should itarise, and people trained and ready to take part.

The difference this can make can be seenby the contrasting responses to the two recenttragic terrorist attacks in Beslan and in Madrid.At Beslan the siege was well planned inadvance. Weapons had been stored under theschool floor beforehand. Given theimprobability that the terrorists claims couldbe met, the numbers of terrorists and hostagesinvolved and the huge store of weaponsavailable to both sides, it was always likely thatthis attack was going to result in some level oftragedy. And it did, with up to 600 peoplekilled, most of them children. But there weremany shortcomings in the response to this attackthat have been the subject of a great deal ofofficial and public criticism. There was noevidence of coordination or integration betweendifferent authorities. There was no indicationof an agreed plan directing the response. Thesite was not secured, so members of familiesand media representatives were allowed to roamall over the place, adding to mass confusionand hysteria. Russian armed forces decided tostorm the school in an all-out attempt to capturethe terrorists who had by then already startedthe mass slaughter.

By contrast, the train bombings in Madridon 11 March 2004 killed 191 people andresulted in over 2,000 people needingoperations or medical treatment. Madrid haswell-established and practised emergencyresponse plans, backed up by a strong emphasison coordination between the variousresponding authorities and maximising the useof available resources. Such planning resultsfrom the fact that Spain has been on a constantalert for a long while due to fears about Basqueseparatists and the ETA threat. Irrespective ofthe reasons, look at the difference inperformance. From the first call to the emergencyline, seconds after the first explosion at 7.30am, emergency recovery teams swung intoaction. The declaration of an emergency ‘level

three’ set off the formation of four differentaction groups. First there were the search andrescue groups – firemen and officers to removethe dead and injured and check and clearadjacent buildings seriously damaged by theblasts. This group got to the scene in just over15 minutes from the first explosion in peak hourtraffic in a city much the size of Sydney. Secondthere were security teams, made up of policeand special investigators. Then came specialistlegal officers who authorised the removal ofcorpses. Finally, there was the medical group.All these action groups were operating underthe Spanish Catastrophic Emergency Plan.Combined, they activated 5,300 emergencyservices people, 3,500 police officers, 250ambulances, 385 other emergency or supportvehicles, 38 hospitals and medical centres and317 psychological support staff in a city of justover five million people.

How did they perform? All the injured wereoff the scene within 1½ hours. One hundred andtwenty significant operations were performedthat day – that is, within 13 hours of the bombblasts. Only 12 people died in hospitals ormedical centres. Railway traffic was completelyrestored, including the lines where the fourtrains were bombed, by 6.30 pm the same day,within 11 hours. The emergency responsetelephone line took over 20,000 calls in a 12-hour period from family members and friends,even though the number of calls put such a loadon the city’s mobile network that it collapsed.In summary, despite the huge scale of this attack,the city of Madrid had returned to normaloperation in less than 24 hours.

In Australia, because of the constitutionalsplit in responsibilities between theCommonwealth, the states and the importantrole played by local government at ground level,emergency management necessarily relies onthe sound and effective formation ofpartnerships at all levels of government. Theexamples I referred to earlier provide examplesof that mutual assistance and cooperation seenmost recently in relation to the devastating firesthat have occurred over the last three years.

At a national level, the Australiangovernment seeks to enhance and improve ouremergency responsiveness through EmergencyManagement Australia. EMA and its state andterritory counterparts have spent a lot of time

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and effort recently in identifying critical gapsin our national capability, including anassessment of our equipment and training needsto improve our national capacity to respond toany sort of catastrophe. Here are three examplesof what is being done:1. EMA’s management training and education

is developed around all hazards, but withan emphasis on the current environment. Asa result, EMA has significantly increasedits training in chemical, biological andradiological first response. Its course hasprovided an accredited competency, whichgives emergency organisations confidencein the level of skills and accountability ofstaff who have undertaken this training.

2. EMA proposed to the National Counter-Terrorism Committee that because differentjurisdictions had different levels of urbansearch and rescue equipment, we needed tolift our national response capacity.Improving capacity is particularlyimportant, say in the case of a major buildingcollapse, in that rescue teams will only have36 hours at most to save survivors. TheAustralian government has contribution $18million towards new equipment andtraining, so that there is a good level of bothequipment and trained officers aroundAustralia.

3. The Australian government also recogniseshow much valuable work is done byvolunteers in emergency response,providing community self-reliance at agrassroots level. Australian receives great

service from 500,000 emergencymanagement volunteers, but the sheernumber of volunteers and their dispersalacross the country means that there aredisparities in their training, basic equipment,protection and recognition. The Australiangovernment has committed $49 million toa grants program to be managed by EMA incollaboration with other governments toaddress key needs for volunteers.So to sum up, the new environment created

by terrorism and an increasing rate of naturaldisasters creates a need for new levels ofemergency responsiveness. Australiangovernments are regenerating their thinkingabout our national capacity to respond tocatastrophic emergencies and the level andrange of emergency services we will need infuture. This means a significant problem hasbeen recognised and much is now being doneto address it. While we are clearly betterorganised than the Russian authorities inBeslan, there is some distance to go before wecan be confident we can match theextraordinary responsiveness of the Spanishafter the Madrid bombings.

Endnotes1 The COAG report adopted the definition of a

natural disaster as ‘a serious disruption to acommunity or region caused by the impact of anaturally-occurring, rapid-onset event thatthreatens or causes death, injury or damage toproperty or the environment, and which requiressignificant and coordinated multi-agency andcommunity response’. It did not include drought,frost or heatwaves.

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