Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2023

Presentation abstracts and speaker profiles

Explore the people and presentations coming to the 2023 Australian Disaster Resilience Conference.

You will be redirected to the AFAC23 powered by INTERSCHUTZ portal to register.

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Key information for 2023.

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Nazir Afzal OBE

Former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England and London Fire Brigade Culture Review Author

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC23

During a 30-year career, Nazir Afzal has prosecuted some of England's most high-profile cases and advised on many others. He has led several legal discussions of national significance, including Violence against Women and Girls, child sexual abuse, and honour-based violence. Most recently, Nazir Chaired the Independent Culture Review of the London Fire Brigade.

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Jerry Greyson

Rescue Pilot, Keynote Speaker, Drone Educator, Creator of Virtual and 3D Models and Cryptocurrency, art NFT and Web3 Teacher

Lessons from the past, opportunities for the future

Keynote speakers – shared with AFAC23

Jerry Grayson is a search and rescue pilot internationally recognised as an expert in manned and unmanned flight. With an accumulated 2500 hours of flying with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, Jerry is the most decorated peacetime naval pilot in history, including being awarded the Air Force Cross. He has been involved in some of the world's most challenging and dangerous missions, from Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait to the infamous Fastnet Yacht Race. In 2015, after three decades of flying, Jerry's career was superseded by the advent of drones. Jerry has since adapted and evolved, becoming a drone educator, virtual and 3D model developer and cryptocurrency, art NFT, and Web3 teacher.

Chief Tonya Hoover

Deputy Administrator, US Fire Administration, FEMA

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC23

Chief Tonya Hoover is Deputy Fire Administrator at the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and former State Fire Marshal of California. An accomplished executive with more than 20 years of management experience in both local and state government, Chief Hoover has successfully worked at high levels of government in developing and implementing fire protection, fire prevention, fire training and community risk reduction programs.

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Paul Illmer
Volvo Group Australia

Martin Merrick
Volvo Group Australia

Dr Bree Talbot
Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital

Brendan Moon AM, ASM
National Emergency Management Agency

Dr Dia Smith
The University of Queensland's Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation and the School of Civil Engineering

Creating a sustainable future - Challenges and Opportunities

Keynote panel – shared with AFAC23

The journey toward achieving net-zero emissions is challenging but offers immense opportunities. By acknowledging the reality of the climate crisis, addressing the challenges involved, and embracing the available opportunities, we can create a sustainable future that balances environmental stewardship, social equity, and economic prosperity. Collaboration between governments, businesses, communities, and individuals is crucial in fostering the necessary changes and shaping a more sustainable world for present and future generations. Ultimately leaving the word in a better place for the next generation is our responsibility. Volvo Group Australia’s President and CEO, Mr. Martin Merrick will open the session and join an esteemed panel of experts from government, academia and industry to discuss how we approach and lead this transformation together.

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Speaker bio's

Paul Illmer

Paul Illmer started his career in the heavy transport industry in 1997.

Today Paul is responsible for Emerging Technology at Volvo Group Australia and holds the position of Vice President with responsibility for electric, hydrogen, and automated truck commercialization.

Paul is a member of the Australian Logistics Council, Australian Trucking Association, and Volvo Group Australia Dealer Council. He is also a board director of the Electric Vehicle Council.

Martin Merrick

Martin Merrick is President and CEO of Volvo Group Australia. Before starting his current position, Martin was Senior Vice President, Retail Development, and a member of the Volvo Trucks Executive Management Team, living in Sweden.

Dia Smith

Dr Smith’s research focusses on advancing the performance, economics, and uptake of E-Mobility globally, with a particular focus on the decarbonisation of both on-road and non-road heavy vehicles used in transport, construction, and mining sectors.

Brendan Moon

Brendan was appointed as the first Coordinator-General of the National Emergency Management Agency
(NEMA) in October 2022. Brendan has extensive expertise and experience in disaster response, recovery, preparedness and risk reduction.

He spent 10 years with the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA), starting as the General Manager, Operations in 2011 until his appointment as Chief Executive Officer on 2016. While with QRA, Brendan led operations for Tropical Cyclones Oswald and Marcia, and state-wide reconstruction and recovery efforts from all significant natural disasters in Queensland since late 2015, including Sever Tropical cyclone Debbie in 2017, the Central Queensland Bushfires in 2018, the North and Far-North Queensland Monsoon Trough in early 2019, and the Queensland Bushfires of late 2019.

He was previously General Manager, Environment, Biodiversity and Sustainability of Wyaralong Dam Alliance, where he contributed to and coordinated the delivery of major water infrastructure and community projects in Queensland. Brendan’s primary focus as Coordinator-General of NEMA is leading the delivery of national programs that reduce disaster risk and limit the impacts of disasters on communities and economies.

He is a firm believer that for NEMA to be successful, collaboration must be at its core. He is
championing efforts nationally and internationally to learn from best practice and build Australia’s collective capacity to secure a more disaster resilient future. Brendan is a regular contributor to national and international dialogue on disaster risk and resilience and has addressed the United Nations Office of Disaster Risk Reductions’ Asian Ministerial Conferences on multiple occasions.

Brendan is a graduate of the University of Queensland.

Bree Talbot

Dr Bree is the foundation veterinarian at the Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital. Bree has contributed to many government related veterinary documents on the initial treatment and care of rescued wildlife in Australia as well as participated in disease risk analysis for threatened species such as the Koala. Dr Bree is passionate about Australia’s wildlife and giving them the best chance of survival in the wild and has a particular soft spot for koalas.

Russell Wise

CSIRO

What does it take to build resilience investment capabilities in Australia – reflections and lessons from the Enabling Resilience Investment initiative

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Speaker bio

Russ Wise is a Principal Sustainability Economist at CSIRO in Canberra. Russ is passionate about working with diverse groups of people across industry, government, research, and community to collectively mitigate and manage the disruptive effects of rapidly changing climate, economies, populations, technology and ecosystems. Over the last 15 years Russ has followed this passion by building transdisciplinary teams and leading the delivery of large R&D projects in Australia, PNG, Indonesia, and South Africa. Examples of these include the Strategic Pathways to Resilience Investment projects under the Enabling Resilience Investment initiative and the development of conceptual and analytical frameworks to support transformative adaptation under the Enabling Adaptation Pathways programme. In doing so, Russ has become a leading authority in climate adaptation, resilience, and disaster risk reduction, particularly to overcome systemic challenges to planning and investment decision-making under uncertainty. More information is available at: Enabling Resilience Investment approach and Enabling Adaption Pathways.

Presentation outline

Funding for climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and resilience cannot be met by Governments alone. There are growing demands from the private sector to allocate private capital to major projects (hard, soft and green) that deliver financial returns to investors and create community and economic resilience. There has been limited success, however, translating this market demand into fundable projects that reduce risks and build resilience in place. Efforts to do so in Australia have revealed limitations in the prevailing systems of values, rules, and knowledge (vrk) which are constraining the identification, evaluation, and delivery of projects that meet investor requirements AND deliver benefits across community, governments, and private groups. The Enabling Resilience Investment (ERI) approach was initiated in 2019 to contribute to systematically addressing these fundamental (vrk) challenges and catalyse scalable place-based investments in adaptation and resilience. The ERI approach provides the planning and analytical capabilities – comprising concepts, guidance, and participatory assessment processes, tools and methods – and the strategic agenda to support the shift/innovation in thinking, policies and practices required to generate novel options and build resilience investment cases that create new value, enhance community benefits, and mitigate climate and disaster risks. Since 2019, the ERI approach has been applied in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts to support disaster recovery for long-term resilience, disaster resilient micro-energy grid development, and regional coastal adaptation (i.e., pre-emptive DRR). This talk will briefly introduce the ERI approach and case studies before reflecting on the progress made and lessons learned. These reflections will draw upon the ERI monitoring, evaluation and learning framework and will cover: the feedback from project participants, the progress made in addressing data issues and building the authoritative tools and processes, and the ongoing challenges and opportunities to catalysing the funding required to build disaster resilient communities and regions.

Kerry Jones

Australian Centre for Social Innovation

The Now-Future-How Model for strengthening community resilience

As Australia experiences more frequent disasters, communities are experiencing the limitations of traditional government and agency-led responses. In conversations with fire-affected communities, they told us about the need for an approach that addresses challenges getting in the way of community-led recovery and resilience. To support community-led resilience, new models are needed. ‘Now-Future-How’, developed by The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) in collaboration with fire-affected communities and others, enables this.

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Speaker bio

Kerry is a Director at The Australian Centre for Social Innovation and lives on Permanagk Lands. She leads a portfolio of work in Regenerative Communities, with a focus on the power of communities to lead transformational change. She brings a background in behavioural science and the social services sector to the work of social innovation.

Over the last 10 years Kerry has worked with communities and philanthropy to put into practice innovative approaches that enable community-led resilience building, most recently through Fire to Flourish and Our Town, South Australia. Through this work she has learnt deeply about being in allyship with Aboriginal leaders and communities; the principles, practices and partnerships core to localised approaches and how community-led innovation can shape change in systems and policy.

Presentation outline

As Australia experiences more frequent disasters, communities are experiencing the limitations of traditional government and agency led responses. In conversations with fire-affected communities, they told us about the need for an approach that address challenges getting in the way of community-led recovery and resilience, including:

Structural inequality: systemic racism, dependency building, top-down support.
Compounding trauma: cultural, intergenerational, historical, collective.
Limited local opportunities to strengthen adaptive learning capabilities.

To support community-led resilience, new models are needed for processes that prioritise local knowledge and practices, foreground Aboriginal wisdom, engage unheard voices, and support community to lead change in networked ways. ‘Now-Future-How’ is a model that aims to strengthen community resilience by hearing from and being led by communities themselves. ‘Now-Future-How’ centres on strengthening capabilities for having more holistic conversations about resilience and catalysing a movement for community-led change.

‘Now-Future-How’ enables this by bringing together capability strengthening, network learning, and participatory granting in a process that supports communities to build local governance, engage in collaborative learning, visioning, project development, and collective decision making. We developed a combination of principles as foundations including Foregrounding Aboriginal Wisdom, Community-led, Healing, Holistic, and Imagination & Hope. These principles create experiences within the process that strengthen social cohesion and inspire creativity.

‘Now-Future-How’ was developed by The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) in collaboration with fire-affected communities, and in consultation with TACSI’s Aboriginal Lead Aunty Vickey Charles, experts in collective trauma and collaborative learning as well as resilience system stakeholders. In 2021 the Now-Future-How model was tested (as a partner within the Fire to Flourish program) in Clarence Valley with 7 community co-designers and a pool of $100k.

We would like to share our learnings from this test at the AIDR conference alongside some of the community co-designers and propose ways the work can contribute to reimagining resilience.

Nina O’Brien

Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal

Rethinking investment: people and processes, not products and things

The overlaid disasters of 2022 have also shown us that a small handful of state and federal agencies, lone departments of local government, and under-resourced community organisations can manage the response, recovery and mitigation required to be prepared for the future. By designing new processes and shifting the powerbase of investment, we can reimagine local systems; and better support people in grassroots community-based organisations to generate effective and practical ways of working to meet these challenges head-on across rural, regional and remote Australia. Delivered by FRRR, with voices from specific localities, this presentation will utilise case studies from community-led work in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

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Speaker bio

Nina O’Brien leads the Disaster Resilience and Recovery team at the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) in Australia; a portfolio of granting and place-based development programs across remote, rural, and regional Australia. During 2021-22, FRRR supported nearly 1,000 community projects across Australia, of which more than 60 percent were related to climate or disaster related impacts or preparedness. Based in regional New South Wales on Yorta Yorta Country (Moama) on the Dhungala River and having experienced floods last October in her local community, Nina works both at a strategic national and practical local level to build capability in communities in meeting the challenges of managing future climates.

Presentation outline

Rural, regional and remote people and communities are leading the way in rethinking how best we can invest in people and processes, not just products and things to create systems that work together that strengthen resilience across Australia.

Gone are the days where short term programs and hard infrastructure alone will prepare us well for the future climatic challenges that lay ahead.

By designing new processes and shifting the powerbase of investment, we can start to reimagine local systems; and better support people in grassroots community based organisations to generate effective and practical ways of working to meet these challenges head on, across rural, regional and remote Australia.

Delivered by FRRR, with voices from specific localities, this presentation will utilise case studies from community led work in NSW, Victoria and Queensland to demonstrate what is required to effectively support local resilience building through on the ground investment in people and processes not just products and things that will yield dividends in future disruptions and disasters. Informed by 21 years of investment, and drawing on the extensive body of in-community work and specific research observations over 6 years in 6 diverse communities, we will share key learnings, question the status quo, and pose possibilities for the future that include alternatives to a top down, and program based approach, demonstrate what a genuine sharing of roles and responsibilities might look like, and highlight the outcomes of local capacity and capability building where local people and communities are informed, and active participants in their future.

Carol Hopkins

Mallacoota and District Recovery Committee
and Australian Red Cross

Community led recovery – three years on in Mallacoota and District

Hit by a firestorm in the middle of the Black Summer Bushfires, the remote town of Mallacoota was driven to the water. 123 homes were lost, trapped for 39 days, roads closed, and fires burning all around; the people of Mallacoota decided they needed to lead themselves out of the big mess their town found itself in. Three Years on, this is a presentation about community-led recovery from the grassroots of a community.

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Speaker bio

Few people in Australia or around the world will ever forget the nightmarish images that were beamed from the coastal holiday town of Mallacoota on New Years Eve during the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20. Carol Hopkins, long-time Mallacoota resident and Chair of MADRA, the town’s recovery association describes it as 'armageddon'.

Carol has had a 35-year career as a teacher, and she is a mother and grandmother. She and her husband Greg are also lighthouse keepers on Gabo Island – a remote island off the coast of Victoria where they may be the only inhabitants for up to a month at a time.

Community led recovery – and all its trials and tribulation - have become an intrinsic part of Mallacoota and a passion of Carol’s as the town negotiates its third year post the fires. Carol says the journey has been long and difficult, but has also seen the town advocating very successfully for their recovery needs and shared priorities.

Presentation outline

Hit by a firestorm in the middle of the Black Summer Bushfires, the remote town of Mallacoota was driven to the water. 123 homes were lost, trapped for 39 days, roads closed and fires burning all around, the people of Mallacoota decided they needed to lead themselves out of the big mess their town found itself in. Self determination the preferred solution.

By June, in the midst of COVID lockdowns, MADRA had been born and had commenced the enormous task of getting the town back on its feet and its people back into homes. How successful have they been and would they recommend community led recovery to others who might find themselves with a monumental recovery journey ahead?

The short answer - they wouldn’t have had it any other way – but there’s more to that story. There are big issues, big signposts and red flags, and important considerations for those that might seek to walk this path. After three years of lived experience in the creation and operation of community led recovery the MADRA team have had a wealth of lessons in what this concept really encompasses and what it can (and can’t) deliver.

How far have they come in three years? What have their results been? Is self determination a desirable solution for others – as we face unprecedented levels of weather emergencies across the country.

From grassroots perspective and the heart of the work on the ground, what are the traps for the unwary and what have MADRA learned along the way that may provide signposts for others. Current Chairperson Carol Hopkins in collaboration with Australian Red Cross aims to share some priorities, philosophy and rhetoric surrounding community led recovery.

Kate Retzki

Queensland Reconstruction Authority

Building a habit – reframing disaster preparedness in Queensland

Research shows Queenslanders on the peripheries of preparedness avoid taking action either due to anxiety and fatigue or apathy and complacency towards the risks and impacts of extreme weather. Get Ready Queensland's approach moves away from thunder, lightning and flames towards promoting constructive behaviours that are achievable and can be incorporated into day-to-day routines.

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Speaker bio

Kate Retzki is an engagement and communications specialist, with international experience in public participation and behaviour change. Kate has worked across infrastructure, health and biosecurity and now brings her expertise to the Queensland Reconstruction Authority. Kate manages Get Ready Queensland (GRQ), the State Government’s lead community disaster resilience initiative, aimed at helping make Queensland the most disaster resilient state in Australia.

The program integrates a research-driven behaviour change campaign, co-designed accessible resources and a grassroots grants program for all local governments to provide credible and inclusive disaster preparedness education and activities. Building a flourishing resilience network across our large and diverse state is at the heart of what GRQ does – enabling locally-led preparedness with impact.

Presentation outline

At Get Ready Queensland (GRQ), we imagine a future where disaster preparedness is as habitual and quintessential to the Queensland lifestyle such as Slip, Slop, Slap or cheering on the Maroons.

Research shows Queenslanders on the peripheries of preparedness avoid taking action either due to anxiety and fatigue or apathy and complacency towards the risks and impacts of extreme weather. At GRQ we believe normalising positive preparedness behaviours and building an environment where habits formed are the key to strengthening household-level resilience.

GRQ’s approach moves away from thunder, lightning and flames, towards promoting constructive behaviours that are achievable and can be incorporated into day-to-day routines. To do this we are:

Being creative – with the development of the GRQ behaviour change chain of influence campaign framework
Getting inspired – with relatable calls to action
Making friends – by partnering with those who can help build an enabling environment
Collaborating – to co-design new resources to make preparedness more inclusive and accessible
Continuing to put locals first – by supporting local governments to deliver tailored preparedness projects that are right for their communities.

Twelve months in and initial outcomes suggest the fresh approach to communicating resilience is hitting the mark with Queenslanders. People seeking information on the GRQ website has surged 40 percent compared to previous campaign periods. Redesigned materials were downloaded almost 10,000 times in just two months and key social media content recorded more than 2.27M impressions in six weeks.

Clearly, Queenslanders are responding to a new resilience narrative that takes bad news and repositions it in the community’s psyche as routine and cost effective, yet important. With promising initial results, and evaluation research underway, GRQ will now explore ways this approach can go from strength to strength.

Barbara Rix
Australian Red Cross

Jordan Nye
Muladha Gamara

Dr Claire Leppold
University of Melbourne

That which connects us: First Nations leadership in bushfire recovery on Yuin Country, Mogo, NSW

There is a rich abundance of First Nations traditional knowledges and cultural healing practices that are directly relevant to disaster recovery. However, mainstream organisations can be unsure of how to engage with First Nations communities to work together before, during and after disasters. This presentation directly responds to this gap by highlighting the case of First Nations leadership in disaster recovery on Yuin Country, Mogo, NSW, following the 2019-20 bushfires.

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Speaker bios

Barbara Rix

Barbara Rix is a First Nations Recovery and Resilience Officer at the Australian Red Cross. Barbara works on the Far South Coast of New South Wales, where she supports community recovery from the 2019-20 bushfires. Barbara is passionate about community-led approaches to disaster recovery and works to identify ways to transform mainstream recovery concepts and practices to be more meaningful and relevant to First Nations communities. Recent examples of this work have included supporting community cultural practitioners, co-organising community healing days, facilitating advocacy work for community members to speak to disaster organisations and government officials, supporting the River of Art Festival on Yuin Country, and leading the planning committee for the Mogo NAIDOC Big Day Out events which have been recognised in Parliament for their significance in bushfire recovery.

Jordan Nye

Jordan Nye is a Walbunja man from Mogo, he also has connections to the Brindja-Yuin, Djirringandj and Yawalaray people. Jordan is a co-founder and CEO of Muladha Gamara PTY LTD. Muladha Gamara is an indigenous owned business on the far south coast of NSW running cultural tours, cultural youth programs, cultural consultancy services and traditional dance. He is very passionate about culture, working with young people and healing community. Jordan has worked in Aboriginal Health, Community Services, Youth Services, Cultural Consultancy, Local Government, Federal Government, Non-Government Organisations, Finance and Education. He is also the lead song-man for a traditional dance group and holds that responsibility close to his heart.

Dr Claire Leppold

Claire is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where she currently leads the national evaluation of the Australian Red Cross Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Program. This evaluation has followed community recovery from the 2019-20 bushfires in case study communities across four states and territories, including in Mogo as a First Nations case study community in New South Wales. Claire previously lived and worked in Fukushima, Japan, following the 3.11 ‘triple disaster’ before moving to Australia in late 2020. Her research interests include the social determinants of health, social and health equity in disaster settings, and recovery from multiple disasters.

Presentation outline

There is a rich abundance of First Nations traditional knowledges and cultural healing practices that are directly relevant to disaster recovery. However, mainstream organisations can be unsure of how to engage with First Nations communities to work together before, during and after disasters. First Nations-led disaster recovery initiatives often happen on the ground, embedded in community contexts, and may be undocumented and unnoticed by external organisations. Without seeing such examples, it can be difficult to imagine the possibilities for meaningful collaboration and First Nations-led disaster recovery.

This presentation directly responds to this gap by highlighting the case of First Nations leadership in disaster recovery on Yuin Country, Mogo, NSW, following the 2019-20 bushfires. We present from three perspectives: as a practitioner in the role of Australian Red Cross First Nations Recovery Officer (Barbara Rix), as a community member leading cultural healing activities (Jordan Nye), and as a researcher tracking the impacts of First Nations-led recovery work (Claire Leppold). In three parts, we present examples from a series of cultural events as key disaster recovery activities. We underscore the importance of understanding connection to Country and ancient practices through which community can recover and heal self and Country, and we show how culture can help to rebuild relationships with fire following a bushfire for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members. Mogo is a case study in the national evaluation of the Australian Red Cross Bushfire Recovery Program, and this presentation draws on evaluation data on the impact of First Nations-led disaster recovery activities in the community. We overall make the case for coordination, collaboration, creativity and adaptability in the sector to embrace First Nations knowledges and respect First Nations self-determination in disaster recovery. We reimagine the future through ancient resilience and recovery practices to show the way forward.

Liam Walter

Insurance Council of Australia

Insuring a resilient Australia

Climate change is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, with implications for the affordability and availability of insurance in Australia. The Insurance Council of Australia is advocating for a new state-based policy framework that will prevent the development of new homes in high-risk areas by reviewing land use planning arrangements based on water catchments, considering both the likelihood and consequence of flooding now and into the future.

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Speaker bio

With 20 years’ experience leading insurance claims teams and disaster response I am all too familiar with the life-changing consequences of extreme weather. My work at the Insurance Council of Australia aspires to significantly contribute to improvement in wellbeing and economic recovery within communities and the economy at large caused by extreme weather events and disasters.

Presentation outline

Climate change is driving an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, with implications for the affordability and availability of insurance in Australia. The devastating back-to-back disasters in recent years, from more severe bushfires to intense flooding, have highlighted the need for policy settings that more precisely, consistently, and deliberately consider the relationship between land use planning and extreme weather risk, to prevent new homes being built in harm’s way.

The Insurance Council of Australia is advocating for a new state-based policy framework that will prevent the development of new homes in high-risk areas by reviewing land use planning arrangements based on water catchments, considering both the likelihood and consequence of flooding now and into the future. Whilst this framework has been developed for NSW specifically, there are valuable lessons for all policy makers. This presentation will provide an overview of the growing climate risk from an insurers perspective, the importance of improved land use planning arrangements to reduce this risk and how these policies can improve the affordability of insurance for Australians.

Jo Hutchinson

National Emergency Management Agency

Dr Rhys Bollen

Australian Securities and Investments

Dr Sean Carmody

Australian Prudential Regulation Authority

Dr Christopher Wallace

Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation

Rob Preston

CBR Banking, Insurance and Credit Branch

Panel: The Australian Government’s role in putting downward pressure on hazard insurance premiums

Natural hazard risk is increasing across Australia, exposing people to complex and changing climate and disaster risks. Insurance plays a key role in community resilience and vulnerability to these risks, particularly through issues of un-insurance and underinsurance, driven by affordability and/or availability factors. This panel presentation will provide an overview of the National Emergency Management Agency-led Hazards Insurance Partnership and open a national dialogue on reducing disaster risk and putting downward pressure on insurance premiums.

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Speaker bio

Jo Hutchinson

Jo Hutchinson commenced as the Assistant Coordinator General of the Policy and Design Branch in May 2023 after joining the National Emergency Management Agency in 2022.

With more than 14 years in the Australian Public Service and a deep background in leadership across all areas of policy development and community engagement, Jo has dedicated her career to driving positive change and delivering system-wide reform that creates lasting impact. This was exemplified in her previous positions in the Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, where she was responsible for providing national climate adaptation policy advice and supported Australia’s international cooperation efforts through the UNFCCC COP26, and through the Department of Agriculture and Water where she worked in national biosecurity policy.

Jo is passionate about ensuring the wellbeing and safety of Australians facing disasters and has most recently led the development of the Second National Action Plan to implement the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

Dr Rhys Bollen

Rhys leads ASIC’s Credit, Banking and General Insurance team, which has primary responsibility for the supervision of general insurance providers, retail banking, credit intermediaries (including mortgage brokers), consumer and small business credit, and electronic payments. He also oversees ASIC’s Indigenous Outreach Program.

Rhys was previously the Senior Executive Leader of ASIC’s Insurers team and, before that, the Investment Managers team. He has also held senior leadership roles in ASIC’s international strategy, consumer and strategic policy teams.

Rhys has more than 20 years’ experience as a regulator, academic and public policy practitioner. Before joining ASIC, he was an Executive Director at the NSW State Insurance Regulatory Authority, and Assistant Commissioner for Policy and Strategy at NSW Fair Trading. He has also worked in private legal practice. Rhys has a PhD in financial services regulation and Masters degrees in both law and business.

Dr Sean Carmody

Dr Sean Carmody is the Executive Director for the Insurance Division of APRA. The division is responsible for the prudential supervision of the insurance industry, including general insurance, life insurance and friendly societies and private health insurance. Sean joined APRA in December 2017 as the Executive General Manager, Risk and Analytics Division.

Sean has over 20 years experience across banking, financial markets and funds management. Prior to joining APRA he was General Manager, Risk Analytics and Insights at Westpac where he had responsibility across risk modelling and reporting, market risk and liquidity risk. He has also held roles at Westpac as Head of Credit Risk, Head of Market Risk and the Head of Credit Portfolio Management in WIB. His previous experience includes working in funds management (Barclays Global Investors) and investment banking (Deutsche Bank) and his qualifications include a PhD in Pure Mathematics from St John's College, Cambridge.

Dr Christopher Wallace

Bec (Hons), PhD (Econ), AMP (INSEAD), ANZIIF Fellow CIP, GAICD

Chris Wallace is an insurance executive with experience in general insurance, workers compensation, health insurance, medical indemnity, and reinsurance. He has worked extensively in insurance leadership roles within insurers and as a consultant to the insurance industry.

Chris has leadership experience in most aspects of the insurance sector including small, specialised insurers and large insurers.

Chris is also a non-executive director and Chair of MIPS Insurance Pty Ltd, a medical indemnity insurer. Through his role with ARPC, Chris is also a member of the OECD High Level Advisory Board for the Financial Management of Large-Scale Catastrophe Risks.

Previous professional roles include being General Manager Workers Compensation at GIO, Executive Director at Ernst & Young, and General Manager Benefits Management at HCF.

ARPC is a member of the International Forum for Terrorism Risk (Re) Insurance Pools, where Chris is also President.

Chris has a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, specialising in general insurance pricing and strategy. He is a fellow of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance, a Certified Insurance Professional, and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Rob Preston

Robb leads Treasury’s Banking, Insurance and Credit Branch, which is responsible for policy development in these areas.

Robb has over 20 years experience in public policy in areas including superannuation, tax, housing and budget policy. Robb rejoined Treasury from leading Economic Policy Branch at Prime Minister and Cabinet. Robb’s previous Treasury experience includes leading the secretariat of the Retirement Income Review and working on the Henry Tax Review. Robb has worked internationally as a consultant to the World Bank Group in Myanmar and as an advisor to the Government of the Solomon Islands.

Robb holds a masters in Finance, and degrees in economics and science.

Presentation outline

Natural hazard risk is increasing across Australia, exposing people to complex and changing climate and disaster risks. Insurance plays a key role in community resilience and vulnerability to these risks, particularly through issues of un-insurance and underinsurance, driven by affordability and/or availability factors. More needs to be done to better understand insurance coverage and affordability across the nation, and how this intersects with a changing risk interface, so that we can better understand how to reduce risk and support community resilience.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is managing an ambitious program of work relating to hazard insurance affordability and availability, working alongside the Australian Climate Service (ACS) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury). This work includes establishing the Hazards Insurance Partnership (HIP) which is a collaborative forum to engage with industry on key issues of hazard insurance, including data sharing. Led by NEMA, the HIP will support a number of work streams which include:

Establishing a national data asset on insurance coverage and affordability, to give an understanding of where communities are most vulnerable (ACS led).
Creating a national private mitigation measure knowledge base, of actions households can take to improve their disaster resilience (NEMA led).
Reviewing the standard definitions and standard cover regime, for improved consumer outcomes (Treasury led).
Scoping options for public-private partnerships, to enhance public investments through private sector co-financing (NEMA led).

This panel presentation will provide an overview of work to date and open a national dialogue on this critical issue, including how other stakeholders like local government and other sector organisations can get involved in reducing disaster risk and putting downward pressure on premiums.

Michelle Moss
Queenslanders with Disability Network

Donna Best
Queenslanders with Disability Network

Paul O'Dea
Queenslanders with Disability Network

What if people with disability were leading inclusive DRR?

Historically, people with disability have been overlooked and excluded from disaster preparedness and planning. But more recently, people with disability are emerging as leaders in inclusive disaster risk reduction. In this presentation, Queenslanders with Disability Network’s Peer Leaders will share the case study of their journey over the last four years from learners to leading voices on the inclusion of people with disability in risk reduction before, during, and after disaster.

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Speaker bios

Michelle Moss

Michelle Moss CEO of Queenslanders with Disability Network has worked in the human services sectors for almost 30 years, across disability, health, and women’s services including sexual assault and domestic violence services. Michelle has worked in direct support work, counselling, behaviour support, consumer and community engagement, and social policy. Michelle is a strong advocate with a commitment to the voice of people with disability who use services driving and influencing public policy and being active players in the planning, design, delivery and evaluation of services. Michelle has experience of working across the key advocate areas of transport, housing and health that impact people with disability in Queensland.

Donna Best

Donna Best has been an active leader in Queensland’s self-advocacy movement for the last four decades, participating in the first ever Queensland self-advocacy meeting in 1984. Donna has championed the rights of people with intellectual and dual disability, and supported others to have a voice, a say and be listened to. She has been a strong advocate, and standing alongside others. She has had a leading role in establishing and maintaining Queenslanders with Disability Network (QDN) Hot Topics groups as a welcoming meeting place, peer support and learning exchange for people with intellectual and dual disability. Donna has also held governance roles over the past decades with Queensland Advocacy Incorporated (QAI) and contributed to the formation of organisations and groups such as SUFY.

Paul O'Dea

Paul O’Dea has been leading change and self-advocating since the mid 1990’s with a keen interest in helping others with intellectual disability around important issues like housing, bullying, roles in the governance of organisations and more recently the NDIS. Paul has been part of Community Living Association for twenty years and been involved in various allied groups including Independent Youth Housing Group, shaking things up to ensure the rights of people with disability. He is now Treasurer of both CLA and IYHG, and is also the first person with intellectual disability on the National Board of Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability (ASID). Paul has worked with HELP enterprises for the last 18 years.

Presentation outline

In this presentation, Queenslanders with Disability Network’s Peer Leaders will share the case study of their journey over the last four years from learners to leading voices on the inclusion of people with disability in risk reduction before, during, and after disaster.

QDN’s Peer Leaders are all people living with disability who have:

Co-designed the Person-Centred Emergency Preparedness (P-CEP) framework and toolkit with the University of Sydney, service providers, and emergency services.
Taught hundreds of other people with disability how to develop their own emergency plans using the P-CEP.
Coached 40 other people with disability to be P-CEP Peer Leaders in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory.
Connected with carers, service providers, and emergency managers in disability inclusive emergency planning forums throughout Queensland and nationally.
Shared their voices and perspectives with emergency managers, such as being involved in workshopping warnings templates with the Australian Warning System Queensland Working Group.

The University of Sydney remains a critical partner in this work, evaluating the Peer Leadership program and guiding project work. People with disability can play a valuable role in helping to reduce disaster risk for other people with disability, and their voices and lived experience are increasingly valued by emergency managers. Further work is required to ensure disability inclusion does not become tokenistic but leads to the removal of barriers that perpetuate increased disaster risks for people with disability.

Courtney Jones

Carers NSW

Improving inclusion of people with disability, older people and their family friend carers in disaster planning and response

People living with disability, people who are ageing and the family members and friends who support them experience disproportionately poorer outcomes during and after a natural disaster. This presentation will highlight the information and support needs of people with disability, older people and carers when planning and preparing for natural disasters and identify opportunities to improve the inclusiveness of natural disaster responses based on the findings of a pilot project based in NSW, Care2Prepare.

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Speaker bio

Before joining Carers NSW in 2022, Courtney led disaster welfare operations in the Hunter region. She was deployed for over three months during the 2019-2020 bushfire emergency and was embedded at the Regional Emergency Operations Centre during the 2021 mid-North Coast floods.

By focussing on preparedness, she was successful in deploying highly trained, multi-skilled teams to impacted areas. Her strengths as an effective decision maker led to recognition and inclusion in local emergency planning panels. In 2020 she received the NSW Premier's Bushfire Emergency Citation for service and in 2021 she was integral to the disaster welfare response to the pandemic in the Hunter region.

Courtney now focuses her expertise on increasing the inclusion of family and friend carers and the people they support in emergency response protocols. As the Care2Prepare Program Lead, she drives strategies to reduce the impact of flood and bushfire on identified groups and contributes to an enhanced and more integrated national evidence base on best practice for supporting people with disability, older people, people living with a health condition or mental illness, and their family and friend carers in the event of disasters.

Presentation outline

People living with disability, people who are ageing and the family members and friends who support them experience disproportionately poorer outcomes during and after a natural disaster. Communication and mobility challenges, reliance on essential medication, services and assistive technology and lower overall social connectedness and financial well being are just some of the many factors that impede a person’s ability to act quickly to protect themselves and their property when natural disasters occur.

Carers NSW experience supporting carers in flood affected regions of regional NSW combined with findings from the Carers NSW 2022 National Carer Survey highlight the need for a tailored service response and improved disaster preparedness for carers and the people with disability and older people for whom they care. Better responding to the needs of these groups, who combined are estimated to represent at least 1 in 4 Australians (ABS 2018), will both reduce risk and support resilience in communities across NSW as the frequency and severity of floods and bushfires increase.

This presentation will highlight the information and support needs of people with disability, older people and carers when planning and preparing for natural disasters and identify opportunities to improve the inclusiveness of natural disaster responses, based on the findings of a pilot project based in NSW: Care2Prepare. In partnership with disability peak body, the Physical Disability Council of NSW (PDCN), and local aged care service provider GoCo, Carers NSW is leading a phased, three-year project that identifies household and community level risks for people receiving and providing care, and improves local awareness and capacity to address these risks using evidence-based, expert-informed tools. This pilot will enable more effective support during times of crisis, and improve overall recovery and resilience of individuals and the communities in which they live.

Leyla Craig

Fire and Rescue NSW

Having a seat at the table: disability and disasters

What if we can reimagine drawing on the lived experiences of people with disabilities to change how emergency services approach disability and resilience in emergencies?

In the last three years, Australia has faced more than its fair share of natural disasters. Knowledge is critical and groups that do not understand fire safety risks and prevention can’t plan for or react to emergencies, including people with disabilities. This has heightened disaster risks faced by people with disabilities, not because of the disability itself but the lack of access to information, support and services. Emergency services responders lack knowledge and training on what people with disabilities need, leading to disconnects and misunderstandings. This poses challenges for emergency services and people with disabilities.

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Speaker bio

As a Disability Inclusion and Engagement Officer for Fire and Rescue NSW, Leyla Craig brings in more than 10 years of experience as a local and international disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction (DiDRR) practitioner, focussing on the inclusion and resilience of people with disabilities and disasters. Her work with FRNSW includes expanding high-level discussions with disability peak organisations to engage with and identify best practices for working with people with disabilities and their access needs in emergencies. She also represents as an FRNSW lead for the Fire Proofing Vulnerable Communities project, a statewide initiative led by the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations and funded under the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (DRRF), which is jointly funded by the Australian and New South Wales governments, on co-designing resources used for increasing the capabilities of firefighters to interact and provide tailored fire safety information and messages that suit people from different disability groups.

At present, Leyla is also a PhD candidate in the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney where her research studies focus on the capacity of organisations in responding to and supporting Deaf Communities affected by disasters within Australia and overseas.

Presentation outline

What if we can reimagine drawing on the lived experiences of people with disabilities to change how emergency services approach disability and resilience in emergencies?

Without working relationships with disability organisations, emergency service agencies will continually fall short of meeting the needs and resilience of people with disabilities during emergencies. Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) acknowledges the disconnect between people with disabilities and firefighters. To redress this, a collaborative effort between FRNSW and the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations (AFDO) was initiated. The first initiative was developing an internal Disability Awareness training piece showcasing four people with disabilities sharing their experiences on misconceptions faced, perceptions of firefighters, and how they would like to be supported in emergencies. Lessons from this initial collaboration involve expanding high-level discussions with appropriate peak organisations to engage with, addressing knowledge gaps on both sides, and identifying best practices for working with people with disabilities and their access needs.

These lessons are now being applied to a larger project where AFDO and FRNSW will further collaborate to centre people with lived experiences of disability to lead, voice, and participate in all fire safety conversations on increasing their resilience to future fire risks and fatalities within their communities and local emergency services.

Anna Kennedy-Borissow

University of Melbourne

Creativity, recovery and resilience: creative processes that empower individuals and communities to participate in their own recovery

There is a lack of research in the field of ‘creative recovery’. This limits the efficacy of post-disaster arts projects due to poor planning and under-resourcing, despite recognition across the emergency management, community wellbeing, and arts and cultural sectors that creative projects have contributed to positive psychosocial outcomes in disaster-affected communities in Australia for over a decade. This presentation highlights best practice case studies of ‘creative recovery’.

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Speaker bio

Anna Kennedy-Borissow is a PhD candidate and teaching fellow at the University of Melbourne. Her research projects investigate the aspects of arts and cultural participation that contribute to recovery and resilience in disaster-affected communities. Anna’s work draws on interdisciplinary literature, interrogating the complex interplay between community wellbeing, emergency management, and creative practice. Through analysis of creative recovery project documentation, interviews with practitioners, and focus groups with community members, Anna aims to present a cohesive picture of creative recovery in Australia. Prior to commencing this research, Anna was the Connecting Places Manager at Regional Arts Victoria, where she coordinated tours for performing artists and delivered professional development programs for community presenters throughout regional Victoria. She was also Company Manager of Rollercoaster Theatre, an ensemble of neurodiverse actors, and Creative Producer of She Said Theatre, aiming to create more active roles for women and other under-represented theatre artists. She holds a Master of Arts & Cultural Management (2020) and Bachelor of Fine Arts – Theatre Practice (2014) from the University of Melbourne.

Presentation outline

This presentation highlights best practice case studies of ‘creative recovery,’ including examples following the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires; 2011 Queensland floods; 2018 Hobart floods; and 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires. By identifying the aspects of these projects that contributed to recovery and resilience for participants, this presentation will demonstrate that creative activities can respond in a nuanced way to the needs of communities by offering a range of entry points aligned to individuals.

Following disasters, community members have reported feeling empowered through the creative or administrative leadership of an arts project; others have explained that creative expression through drawing, singing, or dancing has enabled catharsis; many have experienced increased feelings of belonging by participating in group activities; some have benefited from simply ‘keeping their hands busy’, which helps with emotional regulation. These varied modes of engagement invite participation from a wide range of people, especially marginalised and/or vulnerable community members, which promotes inclusivity in disaster recovery.

Policy makers and practitioners can improve approaches to community development after disasters by incorporating the principles of successful 'creative recovery' projects identified in this presentation. These case studies demonstrate that an investment in creative individuals and processes encourages disaster-affected communities to participate in their own recovery, which strengthens resilience. Ultimately, ‘creative recovery’ has the potential to address the compounding impacts of climate-driven disasters on community wellbeing and social cohesion by equipping communities with more and better ways to cope in the wake of the climate crisis.

Linda Snell
Yarra Ranges Council

Willow Swaneveld
Yarra Ranges Council

Hard Place/ Good Place – Enabling recovery for young people

Hard Place/Good Place is a creative research project focusing on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’ through a collection of personal and community stories told through Augmented Reality experiences.

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Speaker bios

Linda Snell

Linda is a passionate and highly experienced community development and engagement professional with a wide array of roles under her belt. She has dedicated many years to aiding in the recovery efforts of various emergency events, including the Hazelwood Mine Fire, Yinnar South Bushfire, and most recently her lived experience with the Mallacoota bushfire. Her personal connection to these disasters has only inspired her further, pushing Linda to offer support for those effected by such traumatic occurrences. Most recently she was appointed Team Leader – Relief and Recovery for Yarra Ranges Council Emergency Management Team just before the catastrophic June 2021 storm. She now leads their Community Recovery Team as its coordinator, providing tireless commitment to aid those affected by nature's fury.

Willow Swaneveld

Willow Swaneveld, awarded 2023 Yarra Ranges Council Young Citizen of the Year, describes herself as someone who is driven by family, and strives to turn lived tragedy into positive opportunities, in that hopes that the stories that she shares can make an impact on the communities around her and shed light on the effects of trauma to young people’s mental health.

Presentation outline

Hard Place/Good Place is a creative research project, focusing on lived experiences of being in a ‘hard place’ or a ‘good place’, through a collection of personal and community stories, told through Augmented Reality [AR] experiences.

The Hard Place/Good Place: Yarra Ranges exhibition showcased AR stories developed by a diverse range of young people from the Yarra Ranges community who were impacted by the catastrophic June 2021 storms. Seventy-nine properties were deemed non-habitable, and 50 homes were badly damaged.

In these stories, we explored connection to and lived experiences of place, and the ongoing felt impacts of events such as storms and the Covid pandemic.

In consultation with adolescent and disaster recovery psychologists, Yarra Ranges Museum curators, Recovery Team and the University of NSW team, the Hard Place/Good Place Digital storytelling program design was adapted from the original proposal to provide greater depth and focus on a smaller group of young people. Seven storm impacted young people, aged 14-25 years, were engaged to work 1:1 with an appropriately qualified therapist connected to the Lilydale Youth Hub as well as the University of NSW creative team to develop and record their story of being in a Hard Place/Good Place as a result of the storm. Young people were highly motivated to share their stories, have a voice and act as ‘ambassadors’ for their storm impacted communities.

The exhibition invites the viewer into an immersive experience of places and objects that these young people identified as the focus of their stories. Exhibited at Yarra Ranges Regional Museum, 28 Sept – 27 Nov 2022.

“I didn’t realise how much I needed my story to be heard. That’s when I started to accept this had happened,” she said. “It took away the storm’s power.” Willow Swaneveld told The Age newspaper on 5 October 2022.

Jamie Loyd
Minderoo Foundation

Andrea Vis
Gingin District High School

Owen Ziebell
AFAC

Neil Munro
Country Fire Authority

Panel: Building disaster resilience into the school curriculum: effective how-to approaches from educational practitioners

As natural disasters become more common, the importance of educating and empowering the next generation becomes ever greater. The evidence is clear that young Australians are more concerned about climate change than ever. Minderoo Foundation's Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative will provide a panel presentation on the importance of disaster resilience teaching.

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Speaker bios

Jamie Loyd is the Resilient Community Engagement Lead at Minderoo Foundation's Fire & Flood Resilience initiative, a philanthropic organisation that aims to tackle some of the world's most pressing issues. As Community Engagement Lead, Jamie has overseen the initiative’s Disaster Resilience Education project that has created 50 online lesson plans and 2 teacher professional development modules through Cool Australia to date. These lesson plans map disaster resilience to subject areas within the curriculum such as English, Geography, Art, Design and Tech, HPE and Primary - giving teachers ready-made resources to start teaching and building learning outcomes around disaster resilience, which in turn will help change mind sets among the next generation of leaders.

Prior to his role at Minderoo Foundation, was a teacher for five years in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and for most of his adult life has been working with children and teenagers through sports coaching. Jamie is a strong believer that community resilience should be community driven and seeks to simplify and allow access to any member of a community who is passionate about supporting their own community’s preparedness for future disasters.

Andrea Vis

Deputy Principal at Gingin District High School (Gingin WA)

Shire Councillor and Deputy Shire President for Shire of Gingin (WA)

Andrea has developed and implemented a unique Emergency Services Program at Gingin District High School where Year 10 students do the same DFES course that any adult volunteer would do. This ensures students leave year 10 qualified to join a volunteer bush-fire brigade as an active crew member, or at the very least, being bushfire aware and able to share that knowledge at home, and with friends and neighbours. That course has now grown to include Disaster Resilience Education and other aspects of Emergency Services.

As a result of developing the program, Gingin DHS has seen many benefits, as well as the need and appetite for Disaster Resilience Education throughout the school. This has led to them implementing Disaster Resilience Education throughout their curriculum.

Owen Ziebell is the Australian Fire Danger Rating System Manager at AFAC and previously ran AIDR’s Education for Young People program. As a former teacher and police officer, Owen has lived and worked across rural and metropolitan communities impacted by disasters. These experiences have developed his understanding of the dynamic nature of emergency situations and disasters and the importance of preparation, support networks, and community engagement to develop children and young people’s resilience.

Owen has written professional development courses for teachers on disaster resilience education, designed teaching resources, authored the EM sector submission to the Australian Curriculum Review calling for greater inclusion of disaster resilience education content in the curriculum 9.0, and most recently was an advisor to the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority for it’s revised Geography curriculum.

Neil Munro is employed by the Country Fire Authority and works for the Safer Together Community First program as the Project Lead - Bushfire Education. He has over 10 years’ experience in the Emergency Services and Community Engagement field and is passionate about developing programs and services that build relationships and empower communities.

Presentation outline

As natural disasters become more common the importance of educating and empowering the next generation becomes ever greater. The evidence is clear that young Australians are more concerned about climate change than ever, highlighted by the response to the Our World, Our Say survey in 2020.

Minderoo Foundation’s Fire and Flood Resilience Initiative proposes a discussion panel and Q&A talking about the range and importance of disaster resilience teaching resources. The panel will cover the use of disaster resilience lesson plans mapped to the curriculum, school programs that have been stood up around the country and ways to ingrain disaster resilience into the curriculum. The discussion will focus on how we can teach everyday subjects through the prism of disaster resilience.

With a panel of educators from around the country (WA, NSW, QLD), all of whom have implemented disaster resilience education programs into their schools, we will discuss and break down individual case studies behind some of the leading ideas on disaster resilience and how teachers can implement them in their schools.

Resilience is everyone’s responsibility. Even our youngest Australians. By providing children and young adults with the tools and resources required to manage their community risks – we can enact generational change that will have a larger flow on effect to how we combat disasters in the future.

Crucially, we will address the key question for educators faced with the prospect of more and more of their students suffering the effects of natural hazards: How can I teach disaster resilience in my classroom?

Shanti Ramasundram

Australian Red Cross

Mary Hajistassi

Australian Red Cross

CALD community-led disaster resilience project

There is an imperative to consider culturally and linguistically diverse community (CALD) voices before, during and after emergencies and disasters. Whereby CALD voices are placed at the centre of the decision-making about emergency management arrangements involving their communities. This presentation will discuss an 18-month pilot project facilitated by the Australian Red Cross and funded by SAFECOM to engage established, new and emerging CALD communities to ideate, design and implement locally-led and culturally appropriate actions to strengthen emergency resilience.

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Speaker bio

Shanti Ramasundram

Shanti is an experienced professional with a background in electrical engineering. She has contributed to the planning and design of cellular networks for leading telecommunications companies worldwide. Her career took a significant turn during a consulting project in New York when she found herself in the midst of the 9/11 Twin Towers disaster. Within hours, her team was deployed to design an emergency stand up network, enabling a vital communication infrastructure for emergency responders operating in ground zero. This experience served as a catalyst for Shanti to transition into operations and project management.

On migrating to Australia with her family a couple of years ago, she joined the Emergency Services department at Australian Red Cross and is now involved in strengthening disaster resilience capacity across communities, businesses and organisations. Collaborating closely with emergency services and local governments, Shanti champions a whole-of-community approach that empowers communities to plan, implement, and lead their own disaster risk reduction action plans. She currently leads the coordination of the Red Cross RediCommunities, a community-led disaster resilience program, which has now expanded across 33 communities in South Australia including several CALD communities in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.

Mary Hajistassi

Since commencing at Red Cross in 2019, Mary has worked across the emergency services department coordinating both the Red Cross Recovery Program in the aftermath of the Black Summer fires, leading the coordination of the Red Cross Community Resilience Program across South Australia and in her current role as State Manager, Emergency Services.

As Coordinator, Community Resilience, Mary has designed and developed the Community-Led Emergency Resilience Project. The project design takes a whole of community approach to disaster planning, drawing on community strengths, leadership and the mobilisation of community members to realise their own community-led disaster reduction action plans. Piloted in Kangarilla and Gumeracha the project has now expanded to include 33 locations across South Australia. As state Manager, Mary leads a team of staff and volunteers who are based both in metropolitan Adelaide and Regional areas to ensure that Red Cross can support communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters when and if they should happen.

Prior to working for Red Cross, Mary worked at Together SA, using the framework of Collective Impact to deliver positive outcomes for children in the Southern Suburbs of Adelaide.

Presentation outline

This 18-month pilot project facilitated by Australian Red Cross and funded by SAFECOM, engaged established, new and emerging CALD communities to ideate, design and implement locally-led and culturally appropriate actions through a series of workshops to strengthen their emergency resilience. The tenet of the project is pitched around the imperative to consider CALD community voices before, during and after emergencies and disasters whereby they are placed at the centre of the decision making around existing emergency management arrangements involving their communities, and to seek a better understanding of how to work with CALD communities to achieve this. Recognising that these communities may experience lack of established family networks and support systems, unfamiliarity and challenges accessing mainstream services, limited or no English proficiency and education, financial vulnerability, thus placing them at considerable risk. Equally, it acknowledges that CALD communities also hold skills, knowledge and lived experiences which can be harnessed by emergency services to inform local emergency management plans.

The participants in this pilot project represented diverse CALD communities from Afghanistan, Africa, Papua New Guinea, Latin America, Sri Lanka, China, and Pakistan. A total of 47 initiatives were formulated at the end of the workshops, whereby 6 actions were prioritised by community members for immediate implementation within their communities to build community emergency resilience, improve multi-cultural social cohesion, increase understanding of risk and vulnerability, strengthen connections with local emergency services and councils, and build self-efficacy within their communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. This presentation will share our methodology and approach, the project outcomes including objectives and indicators, community initiatives and action plans, as well as sustainability strategies. We will also explore what are some of the key learnings and recommendations on how might we engage with all levels of CALD community that is culturally appropriate.

Phoebe Quinn
The University of Melbourne

Bhiamie Williamson
The University of Melbourne

Indigenous healing and disaster recovery: dialogue with cascading benefits for resilience

With the increasing frequency and severity of disasters, many more communities, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are experiencing the impacts of cascading and compounding trauma events. These challenges clearly demand dramatic shifts in disaster resilience and recovery approaches. This presentation will present the findings of a recent collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers exploring how the disasters sector may engage with and learn from Indigenous healing knowledges and practices.

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Speaker bios

Phoebe Quinn is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health and holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Melbourne. Her disaster recovery and climate resilience research includes attention to social justice, young people’s wellbeing, and democratic innovations to support communities to find consensus on contentious issues.

Bhiamie Williamson is a Euahlayi man from north-west New South Wales with familial ties to north-west Queensland. Bhiamie has led research into the impacts of disasters on Indigenous communities including examining the impacts of the 2019-20 bushfires and 2022 northern rivers floods. He is a graduate of the Australian National University and the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Bhiamie leads the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience Project within the Fire to Flourish program at Monash University.

Presentation outline

Disasters in recent years have highlighted the urgent need for more culturally responsive practices in working with Indigenous peoples before, during and after disasters. Meanwhile, with increasing frequency and severity of disasters, many more communities, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are experiencing the impacts of cascading and compounding trauma events. These challenges clearly demand dramatic shifts in disaster resilience and recovery approaches. To contribute to this reimagining, we present the findings of a recent collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers exploring how the disasters sector may engage with and learn from Indigenous healing knowledges and practices. As a diverse international field, Indigenous healing is unified by consistent features including attention to: holistic approaches to wellbeing; social rather than solo processes; identifying and treating the roots of trauma; strengths-based and community-led processes; the need for socially and culturally safe spaces; and Indigenous notions of responsibility, justice and forgiveness. The many implications for disaster resilience and recovery approaches include: prioritisation of culturally safe and inclusive community spaces; support for spiritual, cultural and social recovery strategies (e.g., artistic expression and storytelling); enhanced attention to the role of intergenerational trauma and community contexts; more inclusive and culturally relevant frameworks and resources; and openness to systemic change (e.g. for decolonisation and climate justice) as legitimate and necessary parts of recovery processes. There are inherent risks in such knowledge exchange endeavours, and we will discuss our efforts to mitigate these. In terms of benefits, we argue that the central focus of any applications of Indigenous healing knowledges must be on the provision of more appropriate support for Indigenous communities. We also suggest that secondary benefits of Indigenous healing-informed approaches are likely to flow more broadly to other communities, illustrating that collaborative, respectful and safe cultural and intellectual spaces can have cascading benefits for resilience.

Kathy Mickan
South Australian Council of Social Service

Vikki Booth
South Australian Council of Social Service

People at risk in emergencies: a collaborative approach

The People at Risk in Emergencies Framework commenced in 2018 with the vision of South Australians working together to improve the well-being, knowledge, connection and security of people who are most at risk during emergencies. The Framework was a collaboration between the South Australian Council of Social Service (SACOSS) and the Australian Red Cross. This presentation will discuss some of the team’s important learnings towards addressing the numerous issues for practitioners, including what does collaboration in the disaster risk resilience space mean and what does it look like?

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Speaker bios

Kathy Mickan

Kathy Mickan joined SACOSS in 2019 to lead their work in disaster, including her current collaboration with Red Cross on the People at Risk in Emergencies Framework. With experience in the youth, local government and health sectors, she has supported the development of understanding and commitment across the community service sector that they have a role to play in addressing climate and disaster risk and impacts for their organisations, and the people/communities they work with.

She is passionate about building authentic collaboration to support community resilience and ensure that climate change and disasters do not further entrench disadvantage and poverty.

Vikki Booth

Vikki Booth has extensive experience in State Government policy development, program design, implementation and evaluation, and social science research. Her work has largely involved cross-sector and interagency collaboration on significant public issues – crime prevention, health promotion, and community services – including on collaboratives aiming to reduce Aboriginal overrepresentation in the youth justice system and improve safety and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal people around Ceduna. She has worked as a Ministerial Adviser and is currently Coordinator, Strategy and Influence, in Australian Red Cross’s SA Emergency Services team, overseeing the People at Risk in Emergencies Framework for SA, in partnership with SACOSS.

Presentation outline

The People at Risk in Emergencies Framework commenced in 2018, with the vision of South Australians working together to improve the wellbeing, knowledge, connection and security of people who are most at risk during emergencies. The Framework applies an ‘all hazards’ approach to strengthen the resilience of communities and individuals that are more at risk of adverse outcomes from increasing cascading and compounding disasters. Four threads of shared action drive the work: adopt a whole of community approach, build on strengths, tailor approaches to individual capabilities and lead action together.

This collaboration between the South Australian Council of Social Service (SACOSS) and the Australian Red Cross has been forged to enable diverse voices to converge towards improving outcomes for people at risk. It builds on the strong relationships of SACOSS with the community and health services sector and of Red Cross with the emergency management sector. During 2022, with Disaster Risk Reduction Grant funding, the project team reinvigorated the Framework through the development of a Second Implementation Plan 2023-2025.

The project team has been confronted by many challenges while collaborating to implement the Framework including: governance and stakeholder engagement, scope definition, systemic barriers, leveraging existing and new funding/resources towards project objectives, and monitoring and evaluation. This presentation will discuss some of our team’s important learnings towards addressing the numerous issues for practitioners, including what does collaboration in the disaster risk resilience space mean and what does it look like? We will also explore what our learning can contribute to the significant question: how might we engage all levels of society in disaster resilience strengthening to achieve mutually beneficial systemic change, while balancing the agendas, systems and processes of government and other agencies with the diverse voices and needs of communities and individuals?

Rhonda Ayliffe

University of Canberra

Resilience reimagined: the creation of Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre

A story of the Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre: its initial inspiration, goals, aspirations, and emergent projects, including the Badja Forest Rd Fire oral history project being undertaken in partnership with the National Library of Australia. The difficulties faced undertaking high-stakes competitive grant applications and how grants successes (and failures) impact community recovery.

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Speaker bio

Rhonda Ayliffe is a creative practitioner and multi-generational resident from Cobargo, on the far south coast of NSW. Her hometown and region were severely impacted by the 2019-20 Black Summer fires. Rhonda became involved in multiple local recovery efforts in the aftermath. She is Vice-Chairperson of Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre – the primary recovery project for the destroyed main street of the Cobargo village. Ms Ayliffe is the architect of the Badja Forest Rd Fire Oral History project, undertaken in partnership with the National Library of Australia, she is a Research Associate at the National Museum of Australia, and is a co-creator of the emerging DisasterWISE platform created in conjunction with Monash University’s Fire to Flourish program. Rhonda is also a PhD Candidate at the University of Canberra.

Presentation outline

On New Year's Eve 2019, Cobargo, on Yuin Country - far south coast of NSW, was devastated by the Badja Forest Rd firestorm. The fire destroyed over 300 homes, 300,000 hectares and razed half of the village main street buildings/businesses. It also claimed the lives of four valued community members. In the aftermath, numerous community-led relief and recovery initiatives emerged: from the creation of the innovative community evacuation-turned-relief centre that formed organically in the first hours and days of the emergency, to the community-controlled, whole-of-village redesign and rebuild still in progress. The Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre emerged as the lead recovery project of the Cobargo village rebuild. The Resilience Centre’s journey from disaster site to inspirational symbol of hope serves as an exemplar of Resilience Reimagined.

This presentation will share the story of the Cobargo Bushfire Resilience Centre: its initial inspiration, goals, aspirations, and emergent projects, including the Badja Forest Rd Fire oral history project being undertaken in partnership with the National Library of Australia. This presentation reveals the architect's vision from concept through to final designs and how the Centre’s design, material selection, and special features embody resilience, as well as the difficulties faced undertaking high-stakes competitive grant applications and how grant successes (and failures) impact community recovery. Learn about Cobargo's inclusive community consultative processes and the role of the Centre in educating and preparing individuals and communities for future disasters, as well as the partnerships and allegiances the Centre is currently forging with major cultural and educational institutions.

Julie Brook

Meridian Urban

Harnessing strength of community for neighbourhood scale risk understanding and locally led resilience: The Douglas Shire Community Resilience Scorecard Project

Douglas Shire is one of Australia’s most pristine environments and part of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Wet Tropics. The Shire is characterised by small, isolated communities, divided by a ferry, large visitor numbers and some residents who don’t wish to be found, while simultaneously facing Queensland’s greatest risks in natural hazards from cyclones, flood, coastal hazards, landslide, bushfire and increasingly heatwaves. Douglas Shire Council has embarked on an ambitious Community Resilience Scorecard project through risk understanding and development of localised ‘scorecards’ modelled on the UN Resilient Cities Scorecard concept.

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Speaker bio

Julie is a local government integration and policy implementation specialist with well over a decade of industry experience across the public and private sectors. Her business focus and Masters qualification promotes strong project management skills and a strong interest in governance, maintaining a holistic outlook on major projects.

In recent years she has developed a strong capability community-led disaster resilience and climate adaptation projects, creating synergies with strategic land use planning and resielince or adaptation policy and implementation for built environment, advancing collective resilience outcomes. She has recognoised qulaifications in monitoring and evaluation.

Julie has experience in planning, legislative frameworks, planning instrument and policy formation, land use strategies, risk-based decision making, planning for resilient communities and local heriatge conservation.

These experiences have led to a recent focus on authentic community engagement with some of our remotest and vulnerable communities, policy implementation, the complexities of current governance structures and the need to change the way we work together.

Presentation outline

Douglas Shire is one of Australia’s most pristine environments and part of the UNESCO World Heritage listed Wet Tropics. People live there because of connection to the landscape whether this is economic or cultural. The Shire is characterised by small, isolated communities, divided by a ferry, large visitor numbers and some residents who don’t wish to be found, while simultaneously facing Queensland’s greatest risks in natural hazards from cyclones, flood, coastal hazards, landslide, bushfire and increasingly heatwaves.

Douglas Shire Council has embarked on an ambitious Community Resilience Scorecard project through risk understanding and development of localised ‘scorecards’ modelled on the UN Resilient Cities Scorecard concept. Existing best practice locally and regional, national, and international methods were employed in content development.

The project explored local attitudes towards disaster management and risk from natural hazards. Through community engagement a baseline of existing understanding and resilience at a neighbourhood-level has been developed for seven places, including from an indigenous and business perspective.

Initial risk assessments were obtained from best practice, existing risk assessments across five hazard categories and applied to the seven places. Through further community consultation, a ‘resilience vision’ and ‘risk statement’ was prepared and tested for each community before developing final scorecards.

The final scorecards include risk exposure and vulnerability, resilience case studies, actions, and information with locally produced artworks. This is a first step to creating a pathway for inclusive decision making and community scale risk understanding.

The strategy will enable community identified actions to be elevated through the local disaster management framework to achieve a resilient community, which is well-placed to manage hazards and to minimize their effects and/or to recover quickly. The vision of Douglas Shire Council is for the community to work together to improve their own resilience as envisaged by the Queensland Strategy for Disaster Resilience.

Andrea Myers

Wangki Radio

Imagining a resilient Fitzroy Crossing: reflections on the Fitzroy Crossing floods January 2023 from a Traditional Owner perspective

This presentation shares the presenter’s story of being at the frontline of the first month of the Fitzroy Crossing floods in 2023 as a traditional owner. It proposes that the diverse knowledges, values and experiences of Aboriginal voices must be included in government decision making at all stages of emergency management.

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Speaker bio

Andrea is a Bunuba woman, Fitzroy Crossing resident and mother of five, who experienced the January 2023 floods firsthand. Since the beginning of 2023, she has been involved in the recovery and response efforts in a variety of roles around the community, including with Aboriginal corporations and now as part of the legal response working out of the flood hub. She continues to use her skills and experience to advocate for a strong future for Fitzroy Crossing and the broader Fitzroy Valley community.

Presentation outline

This presentation shares the presenter’s story of being at the frontline of the first month of the Fitzroy Crossing floods in 2023 as a Traditional Owner. It proposes that the diverse knowledges, values and experiences of Aboriginal voices must be included in government decision making at all stages of emergency management. It shares the strengths of how local people came together in the evacuation stages, the critical role the Bunuba Rangers played and how a community leadership established in the first week of the disaster assisted greatly in ensuring the response adapted to local ways of operating.

With 90% of native title determined in the Kimberley region of WA, it argues that Prescribed Body Corporates (PBCs), the corporations that hold native title in trust, should play a key role in emergency planning and response and this collaboration will lead much better coordination between government and community. While the valuable contribution of Indigenous rangers has now been acknowledged in the fire management space, with possible PBC Joint Emergency Management Coalitions in mind, it imagines what systems Fitzroy Crossing will need to put into place and what values will need to be embraced by government to be resilient now and into the future.

Katherine Ellis

Leadership Victoria

Local self-determination, collective support: adapting collective impact models for disaster resilience, response and recovery

Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) has been piloting an innovative disaster resilience model that draws on collective impact principles. It brings together multiple partner organisations, each with responsibility for defining and delivering activity that is relevant to their local community’s circumstances and needs. YACVic has applied the model in bushfire, flood, pandemic and mental health contexts. This presentation will draw on these as case studies.

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Speaker bio

Katherine is the CEO of Leadership Victoria, which builds the capacity of leaders to effect complex and adaptive change in pursuit of an inclusive, equitable and sustainable society. Katherine has over 30 years’ diverse leadership experience across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.

Until recently, Katherine was the CEO of Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic), the peak body for young people and the youth sector in Victoria. Since early 2020, YACVic has been leading a series of projects focused on young people as active agents in disaster readiness, response and recovery, including the 14-partner Future Proof Bushfire Recovery Project in eastern Victoria.

Katherine previously worked for six years in London as Director of Youth Affairs at the Commonwealth of Nations, working on youth empowerment policy and programming across 53 countries with governments, youth leaders and other stakeholders. Her career also includes five years leading and transforming the Reach Foundation, as well as periods consulting to other organisations such as Teach for Australia and the Foundation for Young Australians. Earlier, she spent over a decade in the private sector, working both in Australia and internationally in a variety of analysis, strategy and corporate social responsibility roles.

Katherine believes that it is vitally important to recognise young people as experts in their own lives, and make sure their unique needs and perspectives are at the heart of the policies, decisions and programs that affect them. Katherine holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, a Master in e-Business, a Bachelor of Commerce, and a Diploma of Youth Work.

Presentation outline

In disaster resilience, response and recovery, there can be an inherent disconnect between major agencies that operate at large-scale systemic levels, have specific expertise, and/or administer major tranches of funding; and local communities that have their own unique experience and needs.

Local community stakeholders often do not have the connections or capacity to apply for major funding, explore best practice, engage with other similarly-affected communities, or engage with experts on critical issues, while also delivering locally. The result can be an incursion of well-meaning but uninformed externals who also take employment opportunities away from locals, or local communities pushing on without supports that could ensure better outcomes.

In the face of more, and more devastating, disasters affecting Australian communities, we explore how local communities, with local knowledge and passion for their community, can lead their own resilience building, response and recovery efforts, while also having streamlined access to major government resources, technical experts and evidenced best-practice.

Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) has been piloting an innovative disaster resilience model that draws on collective impact principles. It brings together multiple partner organisations, each with responsibility for defining and delivering activity that is relevant to their local community’s circumstances and needs, while YACVic as the backbone organisation coordinates an agreed overarching framework, and access to funding, technical expertise, capacity building and information sharing amongst the partners.

YACVic has applied the model in bushfire, flood, pandemic and mental health contexts, and the presentation will draw on these as case studies.

CSIRO’s research shows that disasters are expected to cost the Australian economy almost three times more in 2050. Let’s invest some of that money upfront to support collective and collaborative models that will reduce risk and support local communities in distinct and powerful ways.

Moderator: Liz Mackinlay
Australian Business Volunteers

Natascha Wernick
Byrrill Creek Community Resilience Team

Zena Armstrong
Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund

Melanie Bloor
Resilient Uki

Panel: Community perspective on resilience reimagined

Many small, community-owned and led organizations have emerged in response to disasters, committed to supporting communities during disaster response and recovery. The learnings from these community groups are significant, but the mechanisms and forums for sharing these learnings is fragmented. This panel of community representatives from Victorian and New South Wales fire-affected areas will explain how they’ve generated their own solutions for adaptation and resilience. They will describe how they’ve worked alongside other stakeholders as equals, as advocates and partners. The community voice will be clearly heard and unfiltered.

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Speaker bios

Moderator: Liz Mackinlay

Liz Mackinlay is a global strategist with local community at the forefront of her mind and work. Having grown up in regional Queensland, she's spent 30 years working in more than 80 countries in international, Indigenous and community development in roles including CEO of Australian Doctors International and global head of strategy for World Vision. In her current role as CEO of Australian Business Volunteers, Liz has brought the full force of her experience to life by implementing an innovative new approach to community-led recovery following the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires in NSW and Victoria. She’s driven to facilitate radical collaboration between government, nonprofit, corporate, academia, emergency services, the private sector and an army of volunteers to ensure our communities are prepared for a more resilient future.

Natascha Wernick

Natascha has firsthand experience in building community resilience as the Community Resilient Team (CRT) leader since 2020, following the Red Cross Model. She was responsible for liaising with the care and combat organizations to bring in medicines, supplies and assist in the missing person search when her community was affected by three successive flood events that left their small community of around 200 isolated for two weeks with power and mobile phone outages, broken bridges and roads, landslides and loss of life. She is currently working Australian Business Volunteers as a Community Development Program Facilitator, assisting communities in Southern NSW to better plan and prepare for natural disasters.

Zena Armstrong

Zena Armstrong is engaged in community-led action on climate change, local adaptation, disaster recovery and resilience building. She works across disciplines and sectors with people from all walks of life - art, music, community, government and the private sector - to explore and implement transformative action. During a long career with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Zena served two postings in China, including as Consul-General Guangzhou. Her international relations experience includes work on national security and counter-terrorism, and engagement in many UN multilateral negotiating forums including on climate change, sustainable development and the environment. Named the 2023 Cobargo Citizen of the Year, Zena is now an active community volunteer. She is the Director of the Cobargo Folk Festival, employing art and music to foster connectedness and community. As President of Cobargo and District Energy Transition Group Inc. (Renewable Cobargo) she is working to establish a resilient community-owned microgrid. Zena also presides over the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund Inc., aiding community bushfire recovery and resilience building. Zena's wealth of experience enables her to adeptly employ international development and strategy models to fit local contexts, making her a transformative community leader.

Melanie Bloor

Melanie Bloor is the founder of Resilient Uki, a non representative community group supporting Greater Uki, a semi-rural region of the Tweed Shire, to be more connected and self-reliant in the face of climate change. A passionate community member with an investment in the future through her two children, Melanie has been a pioneer in the community resilience space in the Northern Rivers of NSW over the last decade. Her interest lies not only with the localisation of disaster preparation, but also with the nexus point between community and, as she calls it, “the benevolent machine”. She is committed to tool building and knowledge sharing as a way of supporting the capacity of communities. Kindness and Connection are her calling cards.

Presentation outline

Community recovery efforts after an extreme weather event have traditionally relied on a top-down approach led by government, paid emergency managers and experts external to the local community, with a high volume of emergency response volunteers.

'Resilience' is an industry undergoing rapid growth, major players are jostling for leadership, territory and deliverables.

In our proposed panel, Australian Business Volunteers (ABV) will moderate in person a panel of community representatives (online) from Victorian and NSW fire affected areas who will explain how they’ve generated their own solutions for adaptation and resilience. They will describe how they’ve worked alongside other stakeholders as equals, as advocates and partners - the community voice heard clearly and unfiltered.

Panellists will speak to how they’ve:

Demonstrated leadership in preparedness and recovery
Secured required resources and built cohesion to address long term recovery and resilience, using intermediaries as partners
What they feel is needed for the ‘resilience’ industry to be reimagined with communities like theirs firmly at the centre, driving the agenda.

Communities are best placed to generate their own solutions for adaptation and resilience. A true community-led resilience effort will take resources and funding to create the conditions to ensure that communities are respected as leaders with influence and control over the policies and solutions we need to guarantee our future.

Ondrej Bures
Finity Consulting

Dr Justine Bell-James
The University of Queensland

Insuring nature based defences – the role of the insurance sector in promoting nature-based solutions involving coastal wetlands in Australia

This presentation focuses on the role of the insurance sector in promoting resilient nature-based solutions. It will show the risk reduction benefit provided by coastal wetlands in Australia, and estimate prevented property damages mainly from flooding and storms, highlighting case studies of areas where such measures would be most effective. It will also describe how the insurance sector can serve as an enabler for the protection of these environments.

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Speaker bios

Ondrej Bures

Ondrej Bures is a Climate and Sustainability Analyst at Finity Consulting. Ondrej has an educational background in Geography and Urban Planning with Master’s in Sustainable Cities. In his studies he learned to understand a holistic nature of urban planning and challenges of reaching sustainable transitions.

In his professional career, Ondrej works in areas of decarbonisation, climate risk, climate modelling and resilience.

Dr Justine Bell-James

Justine Bell-James is an Associate Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law with expertise in environmental and climate change law and climate change litigation. Justine’s research focuses on legal mechanisms for protection of the coast under climate change, incorporating both human settlements and coastal ecosystems. She currently leads an ARC Discovery Project (2019-2022) considering how coastal wetland ecosystem services can be integrated into legal frameworks. Justine is also an expert on legal mechanisms to facilitate blue carbon projects in Australia and internationally, and she was involved with the development of a blue carbon methodology under Australia's Emissions Reduction Fund.

Presentation outline

Coastal wetlands play an increasingly important role in mitigating the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. They protect property against flood and storm surge damage by absorbing wave energy and reducing flooding and erosion, and positively support wider coastal ecosystems. Coastal wetlands have a high mitigation benefit and can act as an effective carbon sink. However, they are increasingly more vulnerable with built structures preventing their natural migration, threat of sea level rise, changes in global precipitation regimes, sediment delivery and more. When degraded or destroyed, these ecosystems can emit large amounts of stored carbon back into the atmosphere and limit coastal resilience.

Thinking about the different roles the insurance industry can play in mitigating climate risk and protecting the environment while protecting vulnerable communities and assets is a significant opportunity offering numerous benefits. As the risks to coastal communities continue to rise, the protective role of coastal wetlands will become more important, especially with most of the Australian population occupying coastal areas. Investing in the resilience of coastal wetlands can be a highly cost-effective way to reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities while protecting the resilience of local ecosystems.

This presentation focuses on the role of insurance sector in promoting resilient nature-based solutions. It will show the risk reduction benefit provided by coastal wetlands in Australia and estimate prevented property damages mainly from flooding and storms, highlighting case studies of areas where such measures would be most effective. It also describes how the insurance sector can serve as an enabler for protection of these environments. This would both promote public awareness of the importance of coastal wetlands in protecting property while justifying investments in restoration programs.

Dastagir Mir

Australian Bureau of Statistics

Disaster resilience and the ocean account

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), in partnership with the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, has recently released Australia’s first National Ocean Account, focusing on the blue carbon ecosystems of mangroves, saltmarsh and seagrass. These experimental accounts represent the most current and comprehensive data available at the national scale for extent, condition, carbon stocks, carbon sequestration and coastal protection services.

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Speaker bio

Dastagir has extensive experience at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Having worked on a wide
range of statistical data to produce economic, business, and environmental statistics, including
Population Census. More recently, he has been involved in producing Australia’s first Land Cover and
Ocean Ecosystem environmental accounts using Earth Observational data and spatial analysis
techniques. Dastagir has an educational background in Geography and Environment.

Conference outline

The Ocean Account provides a standardised and consistent framework for the integration of data, to enable the measurement of progress towards local, national, and global priorities. These accounts can inform a range of policies which support the management of healthy and resilient oceans. In addition to supporting resilient policy making, ecosystem accounts highlight data gaps and can help lead research funding to ensure that Australia has a comprehensive understanding of our natural assets and how these assets can provide services to the community.

The ABS demonstrated two coastal protection models for mangroves and saltmarsh. The aim of these models was to identify length of Australia’s coastline, and the number of people and dwellings that were likely to be offered coastal protection from storm surge through mangrove and saltmarsh ecosystems. These accounts provided national and state level estimates for mangrove ecosystems, saltmarsh ecosystems and both combined. The data showed that, in 2021, mangroves and saltmarsh combined provided coastal protection services for up to 280 thousand people occupying 150 thousand dwellings. Up to $228 billion would be required to replace services provided by either saltmarsh, mangroves, or both, in the form of seawall construction.

The account was a first attempt at measuring coastal protection services and will be refined in the future as more data becomes available and spatial processing capabilities improve.

Dr Madelon Willemsen

Aurecon

Nature-based solutions to take off the heat-designing resilience into Sydney’s new urban area

This presentation will showcase the Western Sydney Aerotropolis Storm Water Capture Project. This nature-based solution will help reduce the impact of heatwave disasters on the people living and working in the Aerotropolis. Dr Madelon Willemsen will explain the process of co-design, the impact of and impact on regulations of this project, and discuss the multitude of benefits for people and nature, creating enhanced disaster resilience in Sydney’s largest urban development area.

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Speaker bio

Madelon has extensive experience tackling the complex threats to nature and delivering positive outcomes for biodiversity and people. Her expertise lies in bringing the new concepts of quantifying of natural assets, nature-based solutions and nature-positive investment towards net zero and net gain biodiversity, together for strategy and actionable frameworks towards a sustainable future for all species.

Her PhD was in the ‘Wicked Problem of Biodiversity Conservation Management’ and as a senior professional (for more than 20 years) she has worked in many different roles (from zoo curator to project officer and CEO) and many different sectors nationally and internationally and as a formally trained program manager she enjoys the design and delivery of complex projects to drive the transition towards nature as a critical inclusion for the optimal delivery of the social and economic outcomes into the future.

Presentation outline

Floods and fires are the visible disasters within our Australian landscapes; however, to date heatwaves have been responsible for more human deaths than any other natural hazard, including bushfires, storms and floods.

With climate change induced heatwaves enduring and likely worsening, especially felt by those living in urban areas, metropolitan areas in development, such as the Western Sydney Aerotropolis will have to deliver innovative solutions to secure disaster resilience in its infrastructure, land use and its economy. We can build clever buildings to help people cope with disasters but to tackle the impact of climate change and improve disaster (e.g. heatwaves, floods and fires) resilience of our cities we have to also integrate robust nature-based solutions that will moderate outdoor temperatures and preserve our green spaces, support our outdoor way of life as well as reducing the developments’ impact on biodiversity loss.

According to the IUCN nature-based Solutions (NBS) are these solutions that deliver on the protection, sustainable management and restoration of natural resources that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously benefiting people and nature.

NBSs have proven to be more effective in reducing the impact of natural disasters (droughts/floods etc) as well as improve recovery and enhance long-term resilience of nature and people alike.

We would like to showcase the Aerotropolis Storm Water Capture Project as one of these NBSs that will help reduce the impact of heatwave disaster of the people living and working in the Aerotropolis. We will explain the process of co-design, the impact of and impact on regulations of this project and discuss the multitude of benefits for people and nature creating enhanced disaster resilience in Sydney’s largest urban development area.

Chairperson: Martijn Gough

Aither

Closing Panel: Why aren’t we spending more on disaster resilience?

To address substantial and growing disaster risk, significantly more funding must be directed to disaster mitigation. The reasons for low disaster mitigation funding are regularly mentioned, but solutions rarely follow. The conversation about serious and tangible solutions must be elevated now to enable actions to be implemented tomorrow.

Commonwealth and state government funding for disaster resilience is small compared to disaster relief funding. The ICA found that the Commonwealth government had spent $500 million on disaster resilience since 2005, compared to $24 billion on disaster relief.

Speakers:

Kylie Macfarlane
Insurance Council of Australia

Jean Palutikof
Griffith University

Dr Russell Wise
CSIRO Environment

Major General (Rtd) Jake Ellwood
Queensland Reconstruction Authority

Speaker bio

Martijn Gough

Martijn is an economist and a public policy specialist. Over the last 15 years he has worked at the forefront of climate change adaptation and emergency management policy and reform with the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance, the United Nations Development Programme and local government. For the past 7 years he has led the Resilience and Adaptation advisory service at Aither, a leading policy, strategy and economics consulting firm. Martijn is also a member of the NSW Coastal Council where he provides independent economic and strategic advice to the Minister responsible for coastal management and adaptation.

Kylie Macfarlane

Kylie is the Chief Operating Officer of the Insurance Council of Australia having joined in September 2020 with a mandate to support the incoming CEO to reset and refresh the ICA strategy. Today, Kylie leads the ICA’s advocacy work across all levels of government and other stakeholders on climate and resilience, fraud, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Kylie and her team have responsibility for co-ordinating the response and recovery efforts of the Insurance industry to severe weather events and her other responsibilities include leading the operational functions of the ICA across finance, human resources, member engagement, and IT and data management.

Kylie has held executive and non-executive positions in financial services over the past 25 years and is dedicated to optimising public and private sector responses to rapidly changing environmental context with a focus on strategy, governance, innovation and value creation.

Prior to the Insurance Council Kylie spent 8 years at the forefront of Environmental and Social Governance (ESG), setting standards in organisational reporting conventions on climate, and developing multi-stakeholder approaches to social impact investment focused on producing shared outcomes and embeding social license.

Jean Palutikof

Professor Jean Palutikof was the Founding Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Griffith University, a role she assumed in October 2008. She is currently an Adjunct Professor at the same institution. Previously, she managed production of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report for Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), while based at the UK Met Office.

From 1979 to 2004 she worked at the University of East Anglia, UK, becoming a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, and Director of the Climatic Research Unit. Before that, she was a Lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1974-1979.

Her research interests focus on climate change impacts and adaptation, and communication of knowledge to adaptation decision-makers. A particular interest is extreme events and how to manage these in a changing world. She was Lead Author for Working Group II of the IPCC Second and Third Assessment Reports, and a Review Editor for the Fifth Assessment. She has authored more than 200 papers, articles and reports.

Dr Russell Wise

Russ Wise is a Principal Sustainability Economist at CSIRO in Canberra. Russ is passionate about working with diverse groups of people across industry, government, research, and community to collectively mitigate and manage the disruptive effects of rapidly changing climate, economies, populations, technology and ecosystems. Over the last 15 years Russ has followed this passion by building transdisciplinary teams and leading the delivery of large R&D projects in Australia, PNG, Indonesia, and South Africa. Examples of these include the Strategic Pathways to Resilience Investment projects under the Enabling Resilience Investment initiative and the development of conceptual and analytical frameworks to support transformative adaptation under the Enabling Adaptation Pathways programme. In doing so, Russ has become a leading authority in climate adaptation, resilience, and disaster risk reduction, particularly to overcome systemic challenges to planning and investment decision-making under uncertainty. More information is available at: https://research.csiro.au/enabling-resilience-investment/ and https://research.csiro.au/eap/

Major General Jake Ellwood (Rtd)

As Chief Executive Officer since March 2023, Major General Jake Ellwood (Rtd) is responsible for ensuring the Queensland Reconstruction Authority (QRA) delivers as lead state agency for disaster recovery and resilience. QRA has helped impacted communities recover from more than 100 disaster events since its establishment in 2011.

Major General Jake Ellwood’s distinguished Australian Defence Force (ADF) career included serving as: State Recovery Coordinator, 2021-22 Southern Queensland Floods; Commander of 1st Division (Brisbane); Deputy Chief of Army; and ADF National Coordinator Black Summer Bushfires 2019-20. He has served in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Timor.

Presentation outline

There is compelling evidence to suggest that current government spending on disaster resilience is too low. In 2015 the Productivity Commission called for increased investment in mitigation measures, stating that ad hoc responses to natural disasters have become a ‘growing, unfunded liability for governments’. Commonwealth disaster resilience funding recently increased due to the Disaster Ready Fund, however this funding is still small compared to disaster relief costs. Studies have estimated that every $1 invested in disaster resilience can save $4-$15 in disaster relief costs.

The reason for low disaster resilience funding reasons have stayed relatively constant over time. Relief measures are often seen to be more politically valuable investments as they provide immediate and tangible benefits to communities affected by disasters. The benefits of disaster resilience are often delayed and are difficult to predict, making them less appealing despite significant upside potential. There is also a lack of clear, coordinated, and enforceable risk reduction targets to guide and encourage disaster risk reduction investment at a national scale.

More practical action is needed to understand and resolve major barriers.

A panel of relevant experts, moderated by Martijn Gough, will discuss their thoughts on:
•What are the major barriers to increasing disaster resilience funding?
•Why hasn’t a solution been found?
•What would a solution look like?

The Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2023 is proudly supported by NRMA Insurance.