CEO reflections on bold thinking for a more resilient Australia

A big thing happened this year there was a new world record in the men’s marathon of 1 hour 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Who knows what the first world record was back in 1908?

For men It was 2 hours, 55 minutes.

The first women’s sub 3 hour marathon was in 1971; today the world record is 2 hours and 9 minutes.

So you may ask: Andrew, why is this important? It demonstrates what we as humans can do to enhance and improve our state of being. These significant changes over time in the marathon have been credited not to changes in our physiology but largely to more support for athletes, innovations in shoe technologies and the use of pace runners. So essentially doing the same thing but differently and a drive to do better.

Cases of human advancement are not isolated to marathon running, for example:

• compared with their counterparts in 1891–1900, boys and girls born in 2021–2023 can expect to live around 30 years longer
• more than one billion people were lifted out of poverty from 1990 to 2015.

These are extraordinary numbers.

In the world of disasters, we have seen a significant reduction in the loss of life from natural hazards globally, which has primarily been made possible by the advancements in global telecommunications and development of early warning systems.

So we can do it! We can make a difference.

This masterclass was an opportunity for reflection.

It was an opportunity to view the world and our operating environments in different ways and to challenge ourselves as leaders as to how we will adapt and lead our organisations into the future with an eye to various worsening threats, but increasing opportunities.

You have all received a copy of the Natural Hazards Research Australia’s (the Centre) Be Ahead of Ready report. When I first joined the Centre, I wanted it to project boldness and encourage bold, agile thinking to inform our research program. The ideas expressed in the report are designed to challenge us all and to think big. By big thinking, I mean what capabilities and policies will we need in 10 to 20 years time. We must be thinking about what investments and actions are necessary now, so that we can be ahead of ready, be ahead of the curve and safeguard the resilience, safety and sustainability of Australia.

I speak with chief executives who say I need to think about what my organisation will look like 10 years from now. This sort of thinking has always been important, but even more so now, and it is vital to ensure the sector is served by good research and innovation outcomes to deliver evidence to support such forward thinking and decision making.

I often speak about worsening natural hazard risk being driven in part by climate change, rising exposure, increasing wealth, increased complexity of infrastructure systems and environmental degradation.

We clearly live in a time where natural hazard risk is growing faster than investment to manage it.

Natural hazards are now a real fiscal issue of significance, with growing concerns also being expressed in areas such as public health, the environment and defence.

Increased housing pressures mean greater hazard exposure, but also changes in the nature of exposure, for example the growth in large high-rise apartment towers in flood-prone suburbs. A recent US study identified that for every property acquired via buy back programs another ten were built on floodplains.

There are significant pressures within the Australian insurance market to maintain insurance at an affordable level, natural hazards are now a cost of living issue as much as a safety and resilience one.

Recent terrorist attacks illustrate a decline in social cohesion and the global economic and security landscapes are increasingly uncertain, with further challenges posed by mis- and disinformation and challenges to public trust in agencies.

The recent national defence strategy outlines actions related to civil preparedness. What will be the role of existing agencies in building civil preparedness for conflict and/or further global supply chain disruptions?

There are also immense opportunities presented by advances in technology. We are rapidly seeing the adoption of artificial intelligence throughout society which will bring with it benefits and risks that will need to be carefully managed and governed.

Autonomous systems mean that it is now possible to imagine capabilities that will significantly reduce the need for human frontline response. We have a global firetech industry solving rapid detection, decision support and suppression challenges. We are seeing advances in the application of drones in a military context that will ultimately flow to greater civilian application.

The growth in satellite systems will significantly enhance our ability to research the behaviour of natural hazards, for example, snapshots of fire behaviour every 20 minutes from space will provide a major advancement to understand the efficacy of bushfire management investments. The direct benefits to public safety are obvious.

Research is informing critical reflections. For example, since the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC first established that heatwaves were Australia’s most deadly natural hazard, we have seen a much greater focus on the management of extreme heat over the last decade. I think there is also now a weight of evidence regarding bushfire smoke that requires a similar increased focus. Compounding hazards are also taking a much greater toll on mental health.

Beyond briefly covering challenges and opportunities, which will be covered by others in more depth, I want to share some of my own reflections on what I see as now being needed to further advance a bold agenda for disaster risk reduction, noting that such a bold agenda requires a systems approach involving many different stakeholders and capabilities.

Most importantly we must urgently move to a risk-based approach where policy and capability investments are firmly dictated by a knowledge of current and future risk. This means more than just better hazard models, it means:

• enhancing the multi-hazard approach to risk assessment
• better understanding the true impacts of natural hazards – noting that the true impacts of natural hazards are significantly under reported
• understanding what really works to reduce risk and enhance the measurement of avoided risk.

A risk-based approach means that we invest scarce monies in the areas and things that work to reduce risk and keep our communities safe. It also means we fundamentally understand the impact of future developments in at-risk areas. The insurance sector has been decades ahead in its appreciation of natural hazard risk and there are significant opportunities for government to build upon these capabilities, as is starting to occur.

We must support local councils who are at the front line of disaster risk reduction. An understanding of risk and the capacity and capabilities of local councils should fundamentally inform our decision making.

Ultimately, we need a national disaster risk reduction capability road map. Approaches to building capabilities to address disaster risk reduction vary across different parts of the sector. Such a fragmented approach does not enable the scaling of innovation that will be necessary to be ahead of ready. Such a road map could assist in aligning future research priorities to ensure that research and innovation are actively coordinated to contribute to building required capabilities. A road map should:

• be based on the risk-based approach
• be national in its focus
• outline key national capabilities required to be maintained over a future horizon
• be incorporated within national governance frameworks and championed at the highest levels
• be developed collaboratively with industry and not-for-profits
• be alive and agile to adapt to new science and innovation
• be supported by a broad national policy framework that supports the implementation of disaster risk reduction principles
• be published widely so that others can contribute
• most importantly be supported by funding that also leverages private sector investments.

The road map need not cover every foreseeable capability, but focus on those we know will matter most in the future.

From a research and innovation perspective, there are significant opportunities for a greater collaborative and joined-up effort to test, trial and scale new capabilities across trusted partners to contribute to the deployment of such a road map. This is where research and development infrastructure that is globally and laterally connected is pivotal. That is why for example over the last two years, we have stood up the international community of practice on assisted relocation.

The road map would inform national workforce planning to ensure that an appropriately skilled workforce was available to provide a unity of effort, adopting an approach beyond blue and red lights and embracing a whole of community approach to disaster risk reduction. This will certainly mean different skill sets and maturing infrastructure to support workforce development. It will also mean investing further in a research and innovation infrastructure which supports bold thinking.

We are seeing the necessity for much bolder and more expensive disaster risk reduction investments. In Australia for example this has seen the implementation of buy-back, retro fitting and house raising schemes in NSW and QLD and internationally, the bold Californian approach to reduce wildfire destruction through the introduction of Zone Zero regulations to eliminate combustible materials from 0 to 1.5m away from the base of a home.

There will inevitably be a greater need for such large scale disaster risk reduction programs in Australia for example large-scale home buy-backs. Historically, though such approaches have taken decades to reduce existing risk. Do we really have that much time?

Our system  has always been largely reactive. The key to moving to a future end-state where we are ahead of ready is to radically shift to a proactive planning and investment model based upon risk and the latest research evidence, rather than large post-event investments focused on a set of post-event inquiry recommendations. We also need to better understand and communicate the true costs of natural hazards to support business cases.

Communities will always be critical. They are the ultimate first responders during crises, but ultimately any disaster risk reduction efforts will only be effective with their buy-in and participation. We must support communities with improved risk transparency and communication that is personalised to individual circumstances. There is much talk about the introduction of a resilience star rating system for Australian homes and businesses. Such a system could be mandatory for all new properties and owners of existing properties could be regulated to disclose their rating when selling or leasing. California now requires sellers in areas of high wildfire risk to affirmatively state if any qualifying retrofit work has been completed.

We must also move from providing people with long lists of how they can prepare their homes and families, to providing them with tailored advice as to what will have the biggest impact for the least effort and provide them with support and incentives such as insurance discounts. It is good to see banks begin to support such initiatives through loan products. Ultimately private finance and public-private partnerships will be key to reducing risk.

There is much also to be learnt from First Nations approaches to caring for Country and how proper care for Country ultimately enhances sustainability and resilience. First Nations perspectives should be ingrained throughout disaster risk reduction strategies, reflecting on the resilience of First Nations communities over tens of thousands of years.

So in conclusion we must be bold in our thinking. We must strive to be ahead of ready. We must accept that future disasters do not need to be inevitable, as they are ultimately the product of our decisions.

There are many opportunities to address worsening disaster risk, but we must all work together, including beyond traditional relationships, to achieve a more resilient and sustainable future more urgently. We must:

• be community-centred and make better decisions about where and how we live
• spend scarce monies based on risk and an understanding of what works where
• embrace new technologies and national and global partnerships across the whole of community
• build a future workforce skilled in disaster risk reduction
• invest in research that builds the policies and capabilities for our future.

Good luck – think bold and together we can do more.