The 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires were a national trauma. The bushfire season brought devastation across our nation, the loss of 33 lives, the destruction of 3110 homes, unimaginable loss of wildlife and impacted communities across Australia. This loss would have been greater without the extraordinary effort of our volunteer and career-fire fighters, and dedicated emergency services personnel.
Yet the scale of these fires demonstrated the limits of our current arrangements. Collectively, we must reflect on the experience and learn from it. Where arrangements work well, we must build on them. Where change is needed, we must have the courage and humility to do things differently. The crisis was a wake-up call to us all for bold, unified action.
The Royal Commission’s 80 Recommendations provide an ambitious, yet pragmatic, blueprint for action to ensure our national natural disaster arrangements are the best they can be.
The Royal Commission calls for a national approach, a greater role for the Commonwealth Government (with states and territories retaining primary responsibility for protecting life, property and the environment within their jurisdiction), strategic leadership directed at building resilience, greater resource sharing, improved national data, better support for individuals to understand and manage disaster risk within their control, and recognises whole-of-nation effort is needed on multiple fronts.
These reforms are nation building. The Commonwealth will work cooperatively with others to implement Recommendations that need a shared response.
The Commonwealth wants to ensure the resources of the nation are harnessed and applied in appropriate, proportionate and equitable ways to secure the safety, and relief from suffering, of all Australians. We do so with the recognition that due to our changing climate we will collectively face more frequent and intense natural disasters in the future, while being as prepared as possible for less frequent, but profoundly catastrophic natural events.
The states and territories have developed capabilities to deal with natural disasters within their jurisdictions, specifically adapted for their respective environments. The Commonwealth does not seek to replicate these capabilities. However, the Commonwealth, as the national government, possesses and can develop certain operational and strategic capabilities that the states and territories do not have. These Commonwealth, state and territory capabilities are complementary. Their exercise should be coordinated in a considered and timely manner to optimise the safety and security of Australian lives and property.
The 2019 bushfires tested the resilience of the Australian public, and highlighted the public’s expectations of Commonwealth Government leadership in nationally significant emergencies. After events like the Black Summer bushfires, it is clear that the public expects the best available support the nation can give in relieving their suffering. Which particular arm of Government is responsible, or due the credit for providing assistance, is of much less importance.