Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2024

Speaker profiles

Speakers and panels

Explore the people and presentations coming to the 2024 Australian Disaster Resilience Conference.

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View presentation slides and conference papers

Dr Lori Moore-Merrell

DrPH, MPH, U.S. Fire Administrator

FEMA

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC24

Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell was appointed by President Joseph Biden as the U.S. Fire Administrator on October 25, 2021.

Prior to her appointment, Lori served nearly 3 years as the President and CEO of the International Public Safety Data Institute (IPSDI), which she founded after retiring from a 26-year tenure as a senior executive in the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). She began her fire service career in 1987 as a fire department paramedic in the City of Memphis Fire Department, Memphis Tennessee.

Lori is a Doctor of Public Health and data scientist, whose work has changed fire and EMS deployment throughout the world. As the principal investigator and senior project manager, she oversaw the development of landmark reports and other tools to improve residential and high-rise fireground operations, community risk assessment, fire and EMS resource deployment, and ‘Big Data Analytics’. Her work continues to influence executive decision-making across the fire service.

Douglas D'Antoine

Recovery Executive Officer

Shire of Derby West Kimberley

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC24

Douglas D’Antoine is Bardi and Jawi from country 200km north of Broome, Western Australia. He resides in Broome and has a somewhat unique albeit unsophisticated position as to the advancement of Aboriginality that is overwhelmingly supported by the Fitzroy Valley 2023 ‘lived experience’.

Prior to the devastating Fitzroy Valley floods cause by ex-tropical cyclone Ellie in January 2023, Douglas was a native title lawyer and then became the deputy CEO at the Kimberley Land Council, a corporate oil and gas lawyer at Woodside and then BP (upstream), roustabout and wool presser, and a police officer.

At the time of the floods, he was the CEO for Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation that holds native title on trust for the Bunuba language group. By way of context, Nyikina, Gooniyandi, Walmajarri and Wangkatjungka are the four other language groups in the Fitzroy Valley.

Since the floods, Douglas was the community advocate for those directly impacted by the floods opposite the Prime Minister, Premier and many other government dignitaries, then became the Executive Officer to the Fitzroy Valley Flood Recovery Working Group and is now the Recovery Executive Officer with the Shire of Derby West Kimberley.

Douglas’ presentation focusses on the nationally unprecedented nature in which the agencies associated with the floods engaged the Fitzroy Valley community, and particularly the five language groups within the Fitzroy Valley through the Working Group.

He will explain how that engagement, that is being recognised nationally as best practice, laid the foundations for the strong and effective governance of the flood recovery efforts that, by way of outcomes, includes the reduction of crime in Fitzroy Crossing and the Fitzroy Valley.

Dr Catriona Wallace

Adjunct Professor

Founder, Responsible Metaverse Alliance

Shark on TV series Shark Tank Australia

Keynote speakers – shared with AFAC24

Dr Catriona Wallace has been recognised by the Australian Financial Review as the Most Influential Woman in Business and Entrepreneurship.

Catriona is an expert in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse and is an Adjunct Professor, keynote speaker and Founder of the Responsible Metaverse Alliance. Catriona is also the co-author of the book Checkmate Humanity: the how and why of Responsible AI.

As the founder of one of the first AI companies to list on the Australian Securities Exchange, Catriona has truly lived the life of an entrepreneur and CEO in the emerging technologies field. Indeed, Flamingo AI was the second only woman-led (CEO and Chair) business ever to list on the Australian Stock Exchange.

Based on her extensive experience in AI and emerging technology Catriona delivers keynote speeches globally on topics including AI, Web3 and the metaverse, digital transformation, responsible technology, the future of work, and diversity and inclusion.

Catriona's experience as one of the rare women leaders in advanced technology means that she is ideally suited to present on these important and topical subjects and does so in a way that is highly accessible, informative, non-technical, engaging and inclusive.

This unique skill set has also seen Catriona invited to Co-Chair Sir Richard Branson's B Team's AI Coalition and be a Director of the Garvan Institute, Gradient Institute and to Chair an AI VC Fund, Boab AI.

Catriona has achieved Advance Australia's highest award in technology and innovation for Australians working abroad and has been recognised by Onalytica as one of the top AI speakers and metaverse commentators, globally. Catriona was inducted into the Royal Institution of Australia acknowledging her as one of the country's most pre-eminent scientists.

With a burning passion for and deep knowledge of AI and emerging tech such as the metaverse, Catriona believes that sharing knowledge about the responsible use of technology and is her true path and purpose.

Brendan Moon AM

Coordinator General

National Emergency Management Agency

Keynote speaker – shared with AFAC24

Brendan Moon AM commenced as the first Coordinator-General of the National Emergency Management Agency in October 2022.

Brendan brings with him 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 in 2016. While with QRA, Brendan led recovery operations and state-wide reconstruction and recovery efforts for all significant natural disasters in Queensland since late 2015 until 2022.

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 Reduction’s Asian Ministerial Conferences on multiple occasions. He is a passionate advocate for cooperation and collaboration across international, national, state and local agencies for disaster preparedness, response and recovery. Brendan is a graduate of the University of Queensland.

Amanda Leck

NSW Reconstruction Authority

State Disaster Mitigation Plan - Driving systemic disaster risk reduction in NSW

As disasters become more frequent and severe, their impacts on communities are wide reaching. To address this risk to life and livelihoods, the NSW Government has legislated the development of a State Disaster Mitigation Plan (SDMP).

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Speaker bio

Amanda Leck is a strategic and experienced leader, with more than 25 years’ experience working in the disaster management sector, as well as across all levels of Government, the private sector and with community organisations to support risk mitigation, community preparedness and disaster resilience.

Amanda is the Deputy Secretary and Group Head of Adaptation, Mitigation and Reconstruction with the NSW Reconstruction Authority. In that role she is responsible for senior executive leadership of the Group including the delivery of the State Disaster Mitigation Plan and Disaster Adaptation Plans in the Hawkesbury Nepean Valley and Northern Rivers areas of NSW.

Amanda is also responsible for the Northern Rivers Adaptation Division of the Reconstruction Authority, working with all levels of government and the community to deliver the largest reconstruction, recovery and adaptation program ever delivered in NSW, in response to the devastating Northern Rivers floods of February 2022. Her responsibilities also include the development of a reconstruction capability for NSW in response to disaster events, working closely with Transport for NSW, Public Works and local governments to support a timely and co-ordinated response for impacted communities

Amanda’s previous role was as the Deputy Commissioner Capability and Risk with Emergency Management Victoria, where she was responsible for risk-based emergency management planning at the state, regional and local level, as well as critical infrastructure resilience and capability development across all hazards.

Prior to that, Amanda was Head of the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience where she led a program of work on behalf of the Commonwealth Government to support a disaster resilient Australia.

Amanda has worked in complex community and government environments, bringing together stakeholders across a diverse range of sectors, to deliver outcomes to reduce risk and support disaster resilience for communities.

Presentation outline

In 2022 the NSW Reconstruction Authority was established, paving the way for the creation of a single agency to proactively reduce the impact of future disasters across NSW and to help communities recover from them faster. An essential element of the Act is the requirement for the RA to develop a State Disaster Mitigation Plan (SDMP).

Taking a whole of government approach, the SDMP will reduce the impact and cost of natural hazards on people, homes, livelihoods, infrastructure, and communities.

The plan has 37 actions that drive systemic change to reduce the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets to disasters. Through addressing the gaps in state-level policies and programs, NSW is driving systemic disaster risk reduction, as well as supporting and guiding the development of Disaster Adaptation Plans (DAPs) at the local level.

Developed with local knowledge and expertise, DAPs assess the hazard risk and outline the specific strategies and actions to prevent or mitigate the impact of disasters. DAPs are intended to drive systemic change in NSW, impacting on land use planning decisions and driving investment in mitigation.
This conference presentation will provide an overview of the SDMP and key actions underway, including the Framework and Guidelines for Disaster Adaptation Plans, now complete.

Two years on from the devastating floods in the Northern Rivers in February 2022, the presentation will focus on work underway to develop a DAP in the Northern Rivers, as well as the implementation of the largest adaptation program ever delivered in response to a disaster in Australia, to prepare the region for future catastrophic disasters.

Georgia Whitbread
IAG

Liz Connell
South Australia State Emergency Services

Lara Beattie
Australian Red Cross

Panel: Lessons in Collaboration

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Speaker bios

Georgia is a social impact professional at IAG. Georgia works with a range of partners and on projects that are designed to create safer, more connected and resilient communities. She is passionate about the role business can play in addressing pressing societal issues. She job-shares with Jennifer Cobley, as Executive Manager Social Impact and together develop a social impact program that delivers both business value and positive societal change for our customers and broader community.

Liz Connell is the Deputy Chief Officer South Australian State Emergency Service. Liz previously held the role of General Manager State Emergency Service and has delivered programs in all hazards risk management, community engagement and communications. Liz has over her career worked at all levels of Government predominately in Local and State Government in South Australia with a strong focus on strategy development, stakeholder engagement, collaboration and facilitation. Liz has had a long-term interest in climate change and its consequences for social and economic impacts, community and disaster management. As an avid and passionate gardener, Liz is a keen observer of the weather and changing patterns.

Liz has Graduate Certificate in Public Sector Management, a Bachelor of Arts Degree, and Diploma in Project Management.

Lara Beattie is a dedicated and experienced professional in the field of community-led disaster resilience. She currently serves as the NSW Manager for Preparedness at the Australian Red Cross, where she leads emergency services delivery and supports disaster resilience programs across New South Wales. Lara has been with the Australian Red Cross for over three years, previously working as a Recovery and Resilience Officer, where she collaborated with communities and service providers in the Snowy Monaro and Queanbeyan-Palerang regions.

Presentation outline

In this insightful panel discussion, Georgia Whitbread from IAG, Lara Beattie from Australian Red Cross, and Liz Connell from South Australian State Emergency Service come together to explore the critical lessons in collaboration for disaster resilience. Recognising that no single organisation can address the complexities of disaster response alone, the panellists will draw on their extensive experience across the insurance, humanitarian, and emergency services sectors to demonstrate how combining strengths through collaboration leads to impactful outcomes. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how these collaborations enhance community preparedness, response, and recovery efforts in the face of disasters and extreme weather events.

Melanie de Kleyn

Ipswich City Council

The value of resilience: lessening the risk for our community

For many residents of Ipswich, living through floods has become a way of life. Over and over again, the raising flood water turns our suburbs into islands and we watch, waiting for the waters to recede so we can start the arduous task of clean up once again. Many will move back in, often without basic amenities while they try to piece together their lives and find funds to rebuild and replace all they lost.

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Speaker bio

Melanie de Kleyn is the Project Manager, Flood Resilient Homes for Ipswich City Council. One of the worst affected local government areas of Queensland during the February 2022 flood event, her role has seen the implementation, coordination and success of the Voluntary Home Buy Back program in Ipswich, and the subsequent acquisition of over 200 properties in the most at-risk flood areas of the City. With many years of experience in local government and stakeholder management, and a passion for collaboration to affect positive change, Melanie is proud to be a part of a program which has had such a positive impact for many Ipswich residents.

The Voluntary Home Buy-Back (VHBB) program is a jointly funded initiative under the Resilient Homes Fund, which has been delivered by the Commonwealth and State governments through the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA).

The VHBB program was established following the 2022 South East Queensland flooding event and was designed for homes that were the most severely damaged or at the highest risk of future flooding.

Presentation outline

Some members of our community will get on with their lives, knowing it will happen again. For others, it becomes too much and they are no longer resilient to stay and face another flood. In May 2022, the Resilient Homes Fund Voluntary Buy Back Program was established and provided our community with a new option – what could be more effective disaster reduction then to remove the risk completely? Through state and federal funding, residents could voluntarily register for their property to be purchased by Council with the land rezoned to non-habitable use. This would eliminate not only the current owner’s risk but any future risk for potential owners.

With a new program came the unknown – with limited resources, experience and no roadmap forward, how does a local government buy, remove houses, and rehabilitate and re-zone land? Through collaboration with the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, Ipswich City Council decided to focus on our residents and work together to share the roles and responsibilities of a program that would have such a positive impact on their future.

After 18 months of planning, implementing and working with the homeowners, we are discovering what has and hasn't worked. There have been many challenges and lessons learnt and we share these so that future programs of this nature can be successful in providing long-lasting resilience to disaster impacted communities.

Vanessa Inkster
Adelaide Hills Council

Miranda Hampton
Adelaide Hills Council

Pia Charlton
Adelaide Hills Council

Sophie Millsteed
Adelaide Hills Council

Recipe for resilience

Join Adelaide Hills Council's Community Resilience Team as they present their award-winning* recipe for community-led disaster resilience.

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Speaker bios

Vanessa Inkster is the Project Support Officer (Community Resilience) at Adelaide Hills Council. Her role has included management of the 'Recovery Ready Halls' project, aimed at equipping local facilities to function as Recovery Support Hubs following emergencies, fostering social connection and resilience. She thoroughly enjoys working to increase community capacity and confidence in facing future challenges.

Vanessa has assisted in internal capacity building projects, such as the development of a Recovery Operations Manual and Departmental Subplans to ensure clarity and timely response to community following emergency events.

Vanessa background includes working in State Government with landholders holding Water Licenses. She is passionate about supporting vulnerable members of society, especially the elderly, safeguarding the environment, and preserving wildlife.

Miranda Hampton was appointed as the Community Recovery Officer for the Cudlee Creek bushfire in South Australia, in February 2020. Drawing upon a diverse background in community development, education, the arts and health, Miranda worked closely with the Adelaide Hills community to support a community-led recovery. Miranda continues to work with the fire impacted communities in the Adelaide Hills, focussing on building resilience and preparedness in her new role as Senior Community Resilience Officer at the Adelaide Hills Council, leading the Towards Community Led Emergency Resilience project and council’s first Community Resilience Team.

Pia works in Adelaide Hills Council’s Community Resilience team, where her role is Landscape Management Project Officer. This involves helping residents and other land managers to understand their bushfire risk and more effectively manage their own vegetation. She has coordinated the development of a comprehensive Bushfire Management Landscape strategy and several educational resources as part of this work, as well as contributing to the overall work of the community resilience program including workshop delivery and active community consultation.

Pia’s role combines her passion for community development and capacity building with over 10 years’ experience in the natural resource management field. She has previously volunteered with the SA Country Fire Service and has lived most of her life in the Adelaide Hills where she now resides with her young family, so understands firsthand the importance of community connections and access to clear information and support in preparing for extreme events.

Sophie Millsteed is the Community Resilience Officer at Adelaide Hills Council, living and working on Peramangk and Kaurna land. Her role focuses on raising awareness of child-centered approaches to disaster preparedness, increasing psychological disaster preparedness, and strengthening community resilience. She also leads the Disability Inclusive Emergency Planning Project in Adelaide Hills.

With over 15 years of experience in social work and community development, Sophie combines creativity, critical thinking, and compassion in her work, focusing on systemic change and community-led initiatives.

Presentation outline

Join Adelaide Hills Council's Community Resilience Team as they present their award-winning* recipe for community-led disaster resilience.

Ingredients:

Tackling complex issues – consultation with community and key partner agencies to create a Bushfire Mitigation Strategy, clearly outlining council and community responsibility for land management to reduce overall risk.
Practical Support – offering grant funds to local community groups to establish Recovery Ready Halls, enhancing community connections in the process.
Community education and empowerment – holding workshops with individuals and
community groups to identify their strengths and vulnerabilities in disaster preparedness and creating clear plans to build resilience. Working to empower people with disability in becoming peer leaders, educating others on how to build a personal emergency safety plan.
Organisational support – development of a Recovery Operations Manual to ensure council response following disaster is clear, community minded and effective.
Community partnerships – collaboration with community networks to ensure local residents have a voice to council and are represented.

Method:

Although individual projects have been clearly defined from the outset, their implementation has been significantly shaped by the community. This part of the session will share examples of what community consultation has looked like, and how it has shaped positive results. It will also explore the ways in which new approaches are embedded into existing programs and initiatives, adding value and influencing systems change without increasing workloads- not unlike a parent hiding grated carrots in the bolognaise to increase its nutritional value.

This program is underpinned by the idea that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to community-led disaster resilience. Therefore, it will not be prescriptive, but focus on key learnings that can be used to shape other community-led approaches.

*This program was honoured to receive the 2023 Resilient Australia National Local Government Award.

Carla Hall
Youth Affairs Council Victoria

Fiona MacDonald
Victoria University

Empowering Youth in Rural Victoria for Disaster Resilience: Initial Findings from Future Proof: Young People, Disaster Recovery and (Re)building Communities

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Speaker bios

Carla joined the Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic) in mid-2020, working as the Rural Youth Projects Coordinator, prior to this Carla worked directly with the flame impacted community of East Gippsland throughout the 2019-2020 bushfires in the evacuation centre and brings a lived experience of disaster to her work in this space. Carla’s role involves the development of a youth-centred approach to bushfire recovery and mental health engaging directly with young people and community members in rural and regional areas about their experiences of, response to, and recovery from the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires across Eastern Victoria. This provided young people, with the opportunity to share their ideas for recovery, rebuilding and preparation for a better future. For the past 15 years Carla has worked in the Youth Sector in Local Government, Generalist youth work, employment, and homelessness. Carla lives and was raised on the lands of the Gunai Kurnai People and acknowledges that sovereignty was never ceded, and this always was, and always will be aboriginal land.

Associate Professor Fiona MacDonald is Principal Research Fellow in the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities, VU Research, Victoria University. A Sociologist, Fiona’s research investigates the impact of contemporary social and cultural structures on the everyday lives of children and young people, both face to face and online. Taking a social justice perspective, Fiona focuses on the engagement and empowerment of young people. Working across disciplines, Fiona collaborates with community organisations, government and industry stakeholders, conducting research with practical outcomes and impact for young people and those who work with them.

Fiona has led research around young people in disasters, writing the IGEM Evidence from Experience report on young people’s experiences of the black summer bushfires; led the VU research partnership for the Future Proof: young people, disaster recovery and (re)building communities bushfire relief and recovery project that brings together 14 partners across Victoria. Fiona is the joint research lead, on the newly funded Centre of Excellence in young people and disasters, a partnership between Victoria University and Youth Affairs Council Victoria that aims to bring together expertise around young people (12–24-year-olds), young participation and disasters.

Presentation outline

The Future Proof project was initiated by the Youth Affairs Council Victoria (YACVic), with Victoria University as a research partner, in response to the 2019-20 bushfires. Future Proof is a collaborative effort involving multiple stakeholders who aim to bolster disaster resilience in rural Victorian communities. This presentation will share the initial findings of this innovative initiative, shedding light on its impact and effectiveness in building resilience among young people.

Future Proof is a collective impact endeavour, drawing on the strengths of its 14 diverse partners, including 14 Local Councils, NGOs, ACCOs, and Victoria University. The project's core objectives include empowering local youth to actively engage in disaster recovery efforts. A variety of activities and training, including qualification pathways, the establishment of youth advisory groups (YAGs), and specialised training for both young individuals and youth workers, Future Proof fosters a culture of youth-led decision-making and community engagement.

Informed by a place-based approach, Future Proof focused on the needs of young people and considered the challenges they face in bushfire-affected regions in Victoria. By integrating youth work principles into resilience initiatives, the project aims to not only equip young people with valuable skills but also amplifies their voices in shaping resilient communities.

In this presentation, Youth Affairs Council Victoria and Victoria University aim to share insights captured across the Future Proof project that speak to young people’s engagement in disaster recovery and community resilience. Valuable insights into the upskilling of young people in regional and rural communities in the aftermath of, and preparation for, disasters will also be shared.

Beck Dawson
Resilient Sydney

Jon Swain
City of Sydney

Tackling Australia’s silent killer: from hot policy to cool hubs

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Speaker bios

Described as the “person paid to worry about Sydney”, Beck leads the Resilient Sydney program with all 33 local governments of metropolitan Sydney, hosted by the City of Sydney. Implementation of the first Resilient Sydney Strategy involves catalysing collaboration projects with state and local governments, businesses and communities to build local responses to global and city challenges from shock events and ongoing stresses.

Beck has successfully led strategic systems and organisational change programs for resilience and sustainability across government, property, business and the cultural sector in Australia and the UK. Beck holds a Masters of Sustainable Architecture and a Bachelor of Science with Honours.

Jon Swain is the Manager Homelessness at the City of Sydney and Jon has led Homelessness, Mental Health and Environmental teams at Local, State and NGO level for the past 16 years. Jon oversees direct funding of Specialist Homelessness Services (SHS), service coordination, business and community education, policy design, public space management and coordination of emergency responses. Jon’s current focus is developing short/ long-term solutions for people experiencing homelessness against extreme weather events and is currently involved in the Mobile Cooling Hub pilot led by St Vincent Health and Sydney University.

Presentation outline

Heat is Australia’s deadliest weather-related hazard. It is also increasingly recognised that heat-related deaths are under reported and the risk of heat-related disruptions is increasing as the number and duration of heatwaves increases in Australia. Since 2022, 30 organisations in Australia’s largest city have come together to form the Greater Sydney Heat Taskforce to create some hot policy to address the challenge. Meeting over 18 months, the Taskforce have developed a metropolitan-wide plan and key tools to reduce the impact of extreme heat and a warming climate on all 5 million people living and working in Greater Sydney. This innovative process is the first of its kind in Australia to develop a multi-sector, place-based heat adaptation plan for the benefit of the community. This presentation will give an overview of the process and plan development led by the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils and Resilient Sydney.

In the City of Sydney and all Australian cities, the risk of heat-related illness is higher for people experiencing homelessness due to a lack of access to cool places, and water, and the complex interactions between mental illness, medications and substance use disorder. The City responded in a partnership with emergency medical organisations and academics to develop the Mobile Cooling Hub. The Hub plays a key role in mitigating heat-related illness for people experiencing homelessness as an immediate responses to protect this vulnerable population from weather-related illness and death. The presentation will highlight the importance of cross government/academic/health partnerships, innovation, scalability and the critical importance co-design plays in developing emergency responses for people experiencing homelessness.

Sumarlinah Winoto

Nillumbik Shire Council

Community exercises: A collaborative approach to emergency preparedness

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Speaker bio

Sumarlinah Winoto is a Communities First Project Officer in the Emergency Management Unit at Nillumbik Shire Council. They have worked in community organising for around 10 years, and completed their Masters in Disaster, Design and Development at RMIT in 2023. Using an asset and strengths-based approach to community development, Sumarlinah is passionate about collaborating with communities to help them achieve their vision of community wellbeing. They are delivering programming as part of the Disaster Resilient Nillumbik project, which is funded by Australian Government in partnership with the States and Territories under the National Partnership Agreement for Disaster Risk Reduction. Disaster Resilient Nillumbik is a co-designed disaster risk mitigation, community preparedness and resilience building project. A partnership between Nillumbik Shire Council, emergency management agencies and the Nillumbik community, Disaster Resilient Nillumbik aims to increase local risk awareness, build disaster resilience and arm Council, emergency management agencies and the community with the capability to reduce disaster risk in Nillumbik.

One aspect of the project is working with local residents and agency volunteers to run community emergency exercises to increase capacity and confidence in navigating future disasters.

Presentation outline

As part of our grant-funded community preparedness programming, Nillumbik Shire Council in conjunction with community and various agencies successfully piloted emergency exercises with residents from Strathewen, Arthurs Creek and St Andrews in October and November 2023. Agencies regularly perform drills, but community members rarely get opportunities to test their capabilities, even though they are often the first responders in an emergency. Our aim with these exercises is to bring community together to test their emergency planning and response, and support them to feel more confident should an emergency occur. Similar models have been successfully developed in other countries like Japan and New Zealand, and this pilot shows communities in Australia are keen to follow this trend towards emergency exercises conducted with the community.

The exercises were an opportunity for the community to test their thinking and responses during an emergency where they are isolated in town for a few days without power. They were guided by a simple mission statement – “to keep the community safe, calm and informed”. Within the hour, participants gathered information, identified needs and resources at their disposal, and developed a plan for how they would manage a few days in this situation. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback, with participants able to identify assets and opportunities to help them be more prepared, and keen to participate in annual exercises.

We see this as a great opportunity to present our programming pilot and share our positive outcomes, so that Local Government, agencies and various organisations can look to adopt similar programming. We have found there is increased community interest for emergency preparedness exercises and that they bring many benefits for local communities, including increasing community connection, highlighting what community assets already exist locally, and creating opportunities for community to identify areas to be considered for improvement.

Luke Barbagallo
City of Coffs Harbour

Biba Honnet
St Vincent de Paul

Erik Rau
Australian Red Cross

The Coffs Coast Multi-Lingual Emergency Warnings Network; a community-government-NGO partnership for disaster communications in 22 languages

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Speaker bios

Luke Barbagallo is a disaster worker living on Gumbaynggirr Country, on the Mid-North Coast of NSW with his young family, ten chickens, and Bruce the Dog. During his 5.5 years working in Australian based international NGO’s, Luke developed a keen passion and interest in community-led disaster risk reduction and resilience, leading him to study the Master of Disaster, Design and Development at RMIT.
He joined Bellingen Shire Council shortly before the 2022 Floods as a Community Resilience Officer, and moved to the City of Coffs Harbour later that same year to lead the City’s Resilience and Recovery Service. Luke has led several significant PPRR initiatives in this role, including the development of the joint Coffs-Bellingen LEMC Local Recovery Plan, delivery of a Local Recovery Exercise using the AIDR Toolkit, hosting a Disability Inclusive Emergency Planning (DIEP) Forum, and launching the P-CEP Connect Mid-North Coast community of practice. Luke is a person with a hidden disability, which informs his work in DIDRR.

Luke also serves as a Retained Firefighter with FRNSW in the town of Bellingen, sits on the Community Advisory Council for Healthy North Coast (PHN), and volunteers locally at Northbank Community Gardens.

Biba Honnet is a social development practitioner who has spent the past 16 years developing and delivering community projects in Australia and South East Asia. She is an advocate for place-based, strengths-focused and community-led approaches to engagement, development and service delivery.

Biba holds a Master of Social Development with a focus in Forced Migration and a Bachelor of Community Welfare - International Development. In her current role she manages Vinnies’ North Coast Settlement Service which holds the Dept. of Home Affairs contract to deliver humanitarian migrant settlement activities in Northern NSW.

Erik is a welfare worker from Germany with a passion for cultural diversity and recently worked as a Recovery and Resilience Officer at the Australian Red Cross, based in Coffs Harbour. Currently he works as a Case worker for the Settlement Services International. The focus of his role with Red Cross has been working with Multicultural community and place-based organisations strengthening their resilience. Before moving to the Mid North coast, he worked for more than a decade in the refugee and welfare sector in Melbourne; including working with communities impacted by the Black summer fires and COVID 19 in East Gippsland. His other roles in Melbourne ranged from working in Family services, Disability, Youth, Drug and Alcohol, Refugee settlement services, and managing Unaccompanied Minors and Crime prevention programs. Prior to joining the Australian Red Cross, he provided Emergency Support to people on the Mid North Coast impacted by COVID19, as well as assisting local community group build resilience and community capacity through the establishment of a community garden. Overall, his experience has given him a valuable insight into the coping strategies and resilience of individuals and communities when faced with great adversity in their daily lives as well as during and post disaster.

Presentation outline

The Coffs CALD Emergency Grapevine is a community network on the Coffs Coast using WhatsApp to support culturally and linguistically diverse residents to access timely and accurate information before, during and after disasters. The Grapevine team consists of staff from St Vincent de Paul, Red Cross, Council, DCJ and the NSW Police who witnessed the impact of poor communication on the CALD community during successive disasters. The Grapevine builds on the existing efforts of the Multilingual Information Co-Op (MiCO), which Red Cross supports and consists of volunteers from migrant and refugee backgrounds who translate, interpret, and record safety messaging in video format.

During disaster events, residents who are new Australians with low English literacy are at risk of being left behind before, during and after a disaster. Their ability to adequately prepare, respond and recover from disasters is to a degree reliant on their English proficiency. In our region, several languages and minority dialects are spoken, however, emergency messages are not presently translated into these languages.

Members of these communities rely on younger family members, service providers or trusted community leaders to navigate some aspects of daily life. This need is amplified among more recent migrants to Australia, especially when accessing government, health, education, banking or housing services. The City of Coffs Harbour is a Refugee Welcome Zone, and many of our CALD residents are also navigating complex traumas.

To address this need for accurate emergency information, in language, the Grapevine connects 22 distinct cultural group community leaders with Easy English emergency warnings that are then disseminated through WhatsApp, the most common messaging platform used locally by CALD communities.

Our presentation documents the community engagement process that established the network, and our advocacy to have the Grapevine recognised in the LEMC, and recorded in the City’s Pre-Event Recovery Plan.

Ruby Awram
Emerging Minds National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health

Ben Rogers
Emerging Minds National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health

Partnerships and practice guidance - supporting the workforce to respond to the unique needs of infants and children in disasters

The increasing intensity and frequency of disasters means more Australian children and their families are at risk than ever before. Infants and children are among the most vulnerable populations in disaster. Disaster events can have significant impacts on children's safety, mental health and development and, without the right support, can lead to lifelong difficulties.

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Speaker bios

Ben Rogers is the Manager of Digital Health at Emerging Minds’ National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Ben is responsible for leading the development of resources and tools for parents, families, educators and other professionals on infant and child mental health. He manages the Emerging Minds disaster and climate change stream and has led the development of the Practice Guide for supporting infants, children and families in relation to disasters. Ben is a member of the National Infant and Child Disaster Mental Health Advisory Committee (NICDAC). A qualified Occupational Therapist, he has held positions in a variety of mental health and child and family services across Australia and the United Kingdom. This clinical experience has seen him focus on supporting rural and remote families as part of a telehealth assessment, therapy and capacity building service. With a track record of leading complex projects, including national mental health promotion initiatives and large-scale telehealth projects, Ben is dedicated to advancing child mental health support through innovation and collaboration.

Ruby is a Child Mental Health Advisor at Emerging Minds. Her work focuses on expanding and deepening the capacity of professionals, organisations, sectors, and systems to respond to the needs of infants, children, and families in relation to disasters at the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. Drawing from her experience as a mental health occupational therapist, she has been involved in a range of capacity-building initiatives, including leading the development of the Practice Guide for supporting infants, children, and families in relation to disasters at Emerging Minds, implementation of the Community Trauma Toolkit, and developing content for the Be You online disaster recovery training for education leaders. Ruby is a member of the National Infant and Child Disaster Mental Health Advisory Committee (NICDAC) and recently established the Emerging Minds Child and Family Partner Disaster and Climate Advisory Network. She has published research informed by families impacted by parental mental health difficulties and is especially interested in advancing family focused mental health support in relation to disasters. Her commitment to supporting children, families, and professionals is informed by her own lived experience of severe cyclones, bushfires, floods, and gun violence.

Presentation outline

Although there are positive outcomes for children who receive the help they need, this remains scarce for infants, children, and families in disasters. Recent events have highlighted several challenges regarding the implementation of coordinated and effective child-centred support.

New data from the Emerging Minds National Workforce Survey revealed a critical deficit in workforce self-rated skills and confidence to respond to the unique developmental needs of infants, children, and families in disasters. This highlights a clear need to enhance capacity.

Emerging Minds in partnership with the Australian Child & Adolescent Trauma, Loss, & Grief Network, has worked with leading practitioners and researchers across multiple sectors and listened to the voices of children and families with lived experience to develop a comprehensive practice guide. The guide focuses on systemic and proactive approaches to support infants, children, and families through disaster preparedness, response and recovery. When used alongside resources for families, this evidence-informed best practice resource will strengthen collaborative approaches across sectors to help us build interconnected systems, practices, and structures that are essential to supporting our youngest Australians through disasters.

With a focus on responding to the needs of infants, children, and families in disaster, this presentation will explore:

key learnings through partnerships with families, practitioners and researchers including the
National Infant and Child Disaster Mental Health Advisory Committee;
new data on workforce capability;
holistic, collaborative approaches to address systemic risk and drive change using the guide;
examples of innovative practices.

Dr Michelle Hamrosi
Australian Breastfeeding Association

Kate Turtiainen
Australian Breastfeeding Association

Bushfire babies: the Australian Breastfeeding Association's bushfire project, building disaster resilience in Eurobodalla Shire and beyond

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Speaker bios

Dr Michelle Hamrosi is the Community Engagement Officer on the Australian Breastfeeding Association's Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project. Michelle is also a General Practitioner and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and a clinical lecturer for ANU Rural Clinical School. Michelle is also the group leader and volunteer breastfeeding counsellor for the Australian Breastfeeding Association Eurobodalla group. She is a member of Doctors for the Environment, Climate and Health Alliance and Parents for Climate. She loves spending time in nature, her garden and with her 3 children.

Kate Turtiainen is the local project officer for the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project based in Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW south coast. Kate experienced the 2019-20 bushfires up close and with her husband defended her home in Bateman’s Bay. Since then, she has become mother, to a daughter now 3 years old. Kate is also a movement specialist, supporting and educating new mothers in recovery from childbirth complications. Kate is committed to ensuring that mothers and their children in Australia generally, and Eurobodalla specifically are enabled to be prepared for emergencies and, when an emergency occurs better supported during and afterwards.

Presentation outline

The 2019-20 bushfires were devastating for the people of Eurobodalla Shire on the NSW South Coast. Many pregnant women, new mothers and other caregivers of infants and young children were badly affected by this emergency. While local emergency responders and community members did their best to support very young children and their parents, it was evident that gaps remained. In was in this context that the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) launched the Community Protection for Infants and Young Children in Bushfire Emergencies Project (Bushfire Project). ABA has long-standing presence in Eurobodalla Shire and is a part of the fabric of the community. The organisation has an intimate knowledge and understanding of new motherhood and the needs of families and has long advocated that they be better supported in disasters. This presentation will describe how the ABA Bushfire Project has worked to make a meaningful difference to disaster preparedness in Eurobodalla through an innovative combination of research, community engagement, and organisational collaboration (including at a local, state and national level). The many emergency preparedness resources for parents and emergency responders that have been developed as a part of the Bushfire Project will be shared. The ABA Bushfire Project is the first of its kind in Australia and it is hoped that other communities will be able to take what has been learnt and the resources developed and apply them Australia-wide.

Bhiamie Williamson
Monash University

John Richardson
Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience

Steve O'Malley
Gender and Disaster Australia

Collin Sivalingum
Australian Red Cross

Antony Ruru
Fire and Emergency New Zealand

Dr Emma McNicol
Monash University

Panel: Masculinities, culture and disaster resilience: a panel discussion

How does culture influence perceptions of masculinities? And how then, do these alternate and variable masculinities influence our perceptions of, and responses to, disasters? This panel explores these questions and more, beginning an overdue conversation on masculinities and disaster resilience.

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Speaker bios

Bhiamie Williamson is a Euahlayi man from north-west New South Wales. Bhiamie holds degrees from the Australian National University, the University of Victoria, BC, Canada, the University of Arizona, USA, and the University of Wollongong. Bhiamie leads the National Indigenous Disaster Resilience program at Monash University.

John Richardson is the Manager of Knowledge Development, for the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. He has qualifications in Geography, Nursing and Environmental Science.

He has worked in disaster management since 1997, in range of roles including the State Recovery Manager for Victoria in the early 2000s, and more recently the National Resilience Adviser for Australian Red Cross. He also is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne.He has a keen interest and eye for patterns and connections in disasters, both at a practice and a policy level. He has a strong interest in bereavement in the public realm and how music represents the disaster experience.

Steve O’Malley AFSM is the current Manager of Emergency Management sector engagement at Gender and Disaster Australia (GADAus, formerly GAD Pod), Steve has been an emergency responder for more than 35 years and a passionate trainer and presenter on gender equity, diversity and inclusion and the prevention of gendered violence.

Spearheading much-needed change in both the policy and practice of emergency service organisations, Steve is also a Board and Honorary Life Member of Women and Firefighting Australasia (WAFA). Through his role at GADAus, he cultivates valuable, innovative, and strategic partnerships both inside and outside the emergency management sector to dispel traditional constructions of masculinity and shape a more equitable and fairer society for all.

Collin Sivalingum is a trained member of the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) – Field Assessment Coordinating Team (FACT), responsible for field assessment to determine response and recovery strategy after a disaster. FACT Team members are deployed across the world at short notice from Federation Head Quarters in Geneva.

Collin has extensive management consultancy and project management experience and has worked in most countries in Africa and all countries in Sub-Sahara Africa and parts of Europe. Much of his humanitarian and aid work was in communities, where he experienced firsthand human suffering and highly displaced communities.

He is an IFRC Preparedness for Effective Response Facilitator for the Asia-Pacific Region, assisting Red Cross national societies in the region with the development of disaster management strategy and plans.

Besides being a Commander for Red Cross Emergency Operations, Collin is also a Board Member for CASSI; a disability support organisation that supports clients in Queensland and New South Wales, a founding member and President of Woodlands Community Inc. He is currently the State Emergency Services Manager for Queensland Red Cross and is part of various strategic disaster management forums, working across disaster preparedness, response and recovery activities.

Dr Emma McNicol is a feminist philosopher and expert on Simone de Beauvoir. Emma's research focuses on intersectionality, specifically how we conceptualise and overcome race, colonial, gender and class-based oppression in the context of climate crisis.

Panel outline

Recognising the different ways in which disasters impact men, women, and gender diverse people(s) is essential in building sustainable, safe, and happy communities. Yet within gender and disaster discourses, commentary and investigations on men and masculinities has been limited to describing men’s participation in front line combat agencies.

Recent research has demonstrated how both during and immediately after disasters women are at increased risk of experiencing domestic and family violence. Researchers have also found that when gender discrimination is not a sector priority, recovery efforts risk reinscribing inequality. These findings are especially urgent in the context of increasingly severe, simultaneous, and cascading disasters.

A culturally diverse panel of varied ages, each representing different parts of the disaster resilience sector, will explore these urgent questions regarding culture, masculinities, and disaster resilience.

This panel seeks to identify priorities actions for researchers, policy makers, and community and non-government organisations as they seek to engage men and boys in disaster response and recovery. Crucially, the panel seeks to create new ways of thinking about masculinities and natural hazards and explore how disasters can be a space of transformative opportunities to address entrenched gendered inequality and rigid conceptions of gender.

Lauren Rickards

La Trobe University

Why and how we need to investigate and strengthen the resilience of lifelines

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Speaker bio

Lauren Rickards is Director of the La Trobe Climate Change Adaptation Lab at La Trobe University, which is investigating the impacts of climate change on different types of work, and the work needed to respond to climate change. Lauren’s research investigates the social complexities of climate change impacts, risks and adaptation, especially in relation to regional and rural communities. She leads the NHRA project Understanding the resilience of lifelines for regional and remote communities project with Adriana Keating and Paul Ryan.

Presentation outline

For communities, it is often the way hazards disrupt and degrade the lifelines that sustain them that generate the worst impacts. Conversely, it is the effective functioning of established lifelines - and, in some cases, the unexpected emergence of informal lifelines - within disaster situations that often saves lives and reduces impacts. Yet how to analyse lifelines and their resilience in diverse situations is not clear-cut. Practice, policy and research continue to function within habitual boundaries that defy the reality of the sort of complex disasters that are proliferating around us. Enabling more effective decision-making under increasing complexity and uncertainties requires practitioners, policy-makers, researchers and research-funders to become far better at systemic, imaginative, reflexive and cross-disciplinary forms of inquiry capable of illuminating, projecting and supporting lifelines.

This presentation shares the results from the Natural Hazards Research Australia funded project “Resilience of Lifelines in Rural and Regional Australia.” We will report on the sector-informed development of a conceptual framework (new ways of thinking about lifelines in disasters) and the associated research agenda that aims to advance understanding of and engagement with the issue across sectors and disciplines. Understanding how lifelines function and how they could function better in the context of a wide range of external and internal stressors is vital to strengthening the resilience of Australian society under climate change.

Melinda Morris

Climate-KIC Australia

Making the case for climate and disaster resilience investment

As climate change intensifies, disaster impacts on the economy, nature and communities continue to rise. Investing now in resilience can avoid future losses, and it can also create value across economic, social, environmental and governance domains. Despite the growing recognition of the urgent need to build resilience to the impacts of climate change and disasters, there remains a substantial shortfall in funding for resilience solutions.

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Speaker bio

Melinda specialises in climate adaptation, resilience and disaster risk reduction. Her experience in knowledge brokering, systems thinking and strategy underpins her work to develop solutions for a better future that is more sustainable, inclusive and equitable. She applies co-design processes and collaboration practice to deliver large, multi-stakeholder projects that take place-based and systemic approaches to build resilience and adapt to climate change.

Presentation outline

The Resilient Futures Investment Roundtable is a coalition of public, private, research and not-for-profit organisations working to address this gap by developing resources to improve decisions around when, where and how to invest in resilience. This includes developing guidance and case studies to support organisations to develop a strong business case for climate and disaster resilience investment.

The guidance helps organisations to consider what an increasingly systemic response to their climate and disaster risk looks like. It provides a framework for capability building, moving along a spectrum from a single asset approach, to integrating co-benefits, to acknowledging interdependencies and interconnections, moving towards an integrated systemic approach that delivers higher value and systemic resilience outcomes. The guidance allows organisations to imagine and compare how their resilience investment strategy can operate at an increasingly systemic scale.

To encourage a systemic approach, the guidance is underpinned by AIDR principles for systemic disaster risk. It aims to help organisations put these principles into practice, working from where they are now to identify a pathway towards systemic disaster resilience investment. Drawing on examples from practice, it provides a framework to think about what organisations can do differently and where to look for resources. Ultimately, it also allows organisations to make the opportunities, challenges and trade-offs of their climate and disaster resilience investment visible, enabling informed decisions about when, where and how to invest in climate and disaster resilience.

Dr Kate Brady
University of New South Wales/ Australian Red Cross/ University of Melbourne

Dr Colin Gallagher
University of Melbourne

Community-led recovery: what do we agree on, disagree on and how can we make it easier?

Community-led approaches to recovery is one of the national disaster recovery principles, and underpins much of the existing recovery doctrine and plans in Australia. As disasters become more frequent and widespread around Australia, locally based, community-led recovery initiatives will become increasingly important.

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Speaker bios

Dr. Kate Brady has had a distinguished career in disaster recovery operations, programming and research. Kate is the Senior Research Fellow for the UNSW How We Survive initiative, is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and is the Technical Adviser to Australian Red Cross Emergency Services, where she established and led the disaster recovery program for 12 years.

Most of Kate’s work focuses on what people find helpful and unhelpful after disasters. Throughout her career, Kate has had significant influence on State and National emergency management policy and has an international profile in collective trauma, resilience and in disaster recovery programming and policy. Kate is a co-author on the Australian Disaster Recovery Framework, the Australian Community Recovery Handbook and was an advisor in the development of the National Disaster Mental Health Framework. In 2021, she became the host for ABC’s podcast ‘After the Disaster’.

Dr Colin Gallagher is a Senior Research Fellow in Social Networks with the Disaster, Climate and Adversity Unit at the University of Melbourne. His research interests lie in the role of social networks in disaster recovery processes, including mental health, community-led recovery, and services delivery. This work often involves the application of advanced methods in social network analysis, including the use of complex statistical models for social network data, to infer patterns and processes that reflect collaboration and social support processes. His work also includes a substantial knowledge translation component, including the development of data platforms for collecting, visualising and reporting social network data in an accessible, timely manner.

Presentation outline

Despite this, there is very little agreement what ‘community-led’ recovery is or what it should be, and the level of input vs responsibility community members should have in recovery. While there is broad consensus that it is an important element of sustainable recovery, concerns about representativeness, opaque decision-making processes and burden shifting to disaster affected people have also been identified as challenges.

These difficulties point to the nature of community-led recovery as a “wicked problem”: it is urgent yet lacks a clear definition and a stopping point; it is socially complex, with changing needs and pressures that are difficult to recognise or assess.

From 2021-2024, the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales have been partnering with a range of organisations and communities to undertake a multi-phase body of research looking at differing perspectives on community-led recovery. This has included a range of input from disaster affected community members, government organisations and recovery workers.

In this presentation, we will present new research findings, including:

What different players in disaster recovery consider community-led recovery to be
Identifying challenges in community-led recovery approaches and how they can be addressed
Presenting new tools that are being developed to make place based, community-led recovery easier for disaster affected communities.

Jenni Beetson-Mortimer
Northern Rivers Community Gateway

Fiona Batterham
Northern Rivers Community Gateway

Tomorrow Ready Project: a place-based, grass-roots initiative building resilience for spontaneous volunteers and disaster recovery

Northern Rivers Community Gateway is a placed-based, community organisation with nearly 50 years delivering welfare and community capacity building programs.

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Speaker bios

Jenni is a descendent of the Ngemba people, originally from Brewarrina in Western NSW, and now lives in the NSW North Coast. Jenni is CEO of the Northern Rivers Community Gateway. She holds a Master of Leadership from Deakin University, a Bachelor of Social Science degree. She’s a graduate of Social Leadership Australia and has completed post graduate studies in public sector management. Jenni is chair of the NSW Financial Inclusion Network, a Board member of NCOSS, a Professional member of the Planning Institute of Australia, the Australian Human Resource Institute, and Institute of Managers and Leaders. Jenni spent 15 years working in state and federal government in management, audit and project management roles. Since 2000 she has been employed in leadership roles within the NGO sector as CEO, manager, planner and community development worker. Jenni has a strong commitment to social justice, financial inclusion, and grass roots community support that provides true integrated, wrap-around services to disadvantaged people.

Fiona has twenty years’ experience in both the community and employment sectors. For the past 8 ½ years she has been employed by Northern Rivers Community Gateway. Recently working across the programs and business development functions. Fiona holds two post graduate qualifications from Griffith University, in social work and Employment Relations. Fiona regularly volunteers in her local community and finds true purpose in volunteering roles that match her values base.

Presentation outline

Northern Rivers Community Gateway is a placed-based, community organisation with nearly 50 years delivering welfare and community capacity building programs.

Placed-based, community-capacity-building programs have derivative benefits when working with vulnerability and disadvantage at the local community level. Place based organisations have been front and centre, changing gears for effective disaster response management. Located in the CBD of Lismore, Community Gateway know first-hand the impacts of the floods. Drawing on our strengths in delivery of disaster recovery and Emergency Relief services, our expertise as a Volunteer Resource Centre - Community Gateway is undertaking a pilot program, Tomorrow Ready.

Community consultation following the 2017 flood highlighted real risks in relation to the absence of a framework to manage the thousands of spontaneous volunteers who step up immediately after a disaster. Community Gateway worked with Red Cross, SES, Local Council and the RFS to develop a framework for the management of spontaneous volunteers. These same issues were amplified in the disaster of 2022. DRRF funded Community Gateway to implement its framework and to trial a project that will build the capacity of spontaneous volunteers.

This presentation will showcase the Tomorrow Ready program, a grass roots initiative aimed at building long term disaster resilience; providing spontaneous volunteers leadership training, police checks, and skill-matching to volunteer involving organisations.

Tomorrow Ready Volunteers will not replace traditional volunteering, nor do they replace emergency services volunteers in disaster management. The uniqueness of Tomorrow Ready is offering volunteers true flexibility and keeping spontaneous volunteers connected, engaged and trained for the next disaster, irrespective of whether that’s one, two or five years away.

Tomorrow ready volunteers will value-add by delivering an effective and safe model of Spontaneous volunteering.

Liz Ellis, former Australian Netballer, is ambassador for the program. This presentation will explore our vision for expanding Tomorrow Ready across NSW.

David Sanderson
University of New South Wales

Andrew Rae
NSW Reconstruction Authority

Joanne Murrell
Anglicare NSW South, NSW West and ACT

Place-based recovery for real – lessons from the Resilient Towns Initiative

The Resilient Towns Initiative (RTI), funded by Regional NSW, operated in several locations in New South Wales between 2021-2024, supporting disaster recovery and preparedness measures that were identified, prioritised and enacted by community members. RTI worked with youth, communities, emergency services and local businesses in seven towns, asking ‘how can we make our communities safer?’ Activities included around 50 workshops, meetings, youth events, training over 400 people in accredited courses, and providing small grants to invest in people’s priorities.

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Speaker bios

David has over 30 years’ experience working across the world in development and emergencies. He worked for 12 years in NGOs and consultancy in all regions before joining academia in 2006. Since then he has held full Professorships in the UK, Norway and Australia, and visiting professorships in Spain, France and the USA (Harvard University). David has sat on several boards including the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Humanitarian Innovations Fund. David is author of the 2019 ODI/ALNAP 'Urban Humanitarian Response Good Practice Review' and the 2020 'Using the Sphere Standards in urban settings. Part Two' and was co-editor of the 2016 IFRC 'World Disasters Report' focusing on resilience. David holds a doctorate in urban development and disasters.

Andrew Rae is a dedicated disaster recovery professional with extensive experience since the Black Summer Bushfires. As Recovery Coordinator for Snowy Valleys Council, Andrew played a pivotal role in supporting impacted communities, walking alongside them on their journey to recovery. His empathetic approach and commitment to rebuilding have been instrumental in restoring hope and resilience within these communities.

Andrew's career spans multiple levels of government, showcasing his versatility and deep understanding of disaster management. His collaborative efforts have facilitated effective recovery strategies, ensuring that affected areas receive the support and resources they need. Currently, Andrew brings his expertise to the NSW Reconstruction Authority, where he focuses on Regional Delivery. In this role, he continues to drive recovery initiatives, helping to rebuild lives and communities with a focus on sustainability and preparedness for future challenges.

With a passion for making a tangible difference, Andrew Rae remains a trusted leader in disaster recovery, known for his compassionate approach and unwavering dedication to the well-being of the communities he serves.

Jo Murrell is the Anglicare Bushfire Recovery Program Manager & also Coordinates recovery efforts for the Snowy Valleys LGA that was directly impacted by the Dunn’s road Bushfire of 2019/2020. Her hometown of Batlow was directly impacted on Saturday 4th January 2020 and was labelled as “Undefendable” by Authorities.

For the past 4 years Jo has gained valuable experience in Disaster Recovery and Relief by assisting residents throughout their journey, also networking with multiple agencies and the ongoing Management & reporting for the success of the Bushfire Recovery Program as well as advocating for ongoing funding of valuable services like Anglicare’s.

Jo has a strong focus on Preparedness, Mental Health and keeping community connected. She also enjoys a healthy lifestyle and long distance running living in Batlow with her Husband.

Presentation outline

The project’s place-based approach was pivotal, relying on local knowledge of location and community dynamics. The approach was innovative in several ways. Working with Disaster Relief Australia, we used huge satellite maps (20mx15m), printed onto durable material, which communities walked on to identify and discuss risks and opportunities. We employed action planning, drawn from international development, a ‘bottom up’ approach that employs serendipity, opportunism, focusing on community-driven starting points (people prioritise what’s important, not outsiders) rather than pre-prescribed ‘top down’ outcomes from outsiders. Our partnership was novel, between communities, universities, NGOs and State and local government.

An independent evaluation concluded that the project ‘has had a positive impact on communities, fostering collaboration, transforming mindsets and empowering individuals to work together towards a safer and more resilient future’. The project was extended by the donor to two new regions of NSW, and its approach has been adopted by NSW Reconstruction Authority. RTI was also shortlisted in 2023 for a national award.

This presentation will outline the project’s activities, the underlying theory of change, and present lessons from practical experiences that can be scaled up and replicated elsewhere. We will present what worked, what didn’t, and what we learnt. Our presentation will be clear, lively, informative and engaging.

Anne Crestani
Resilient Villages project

Karen Cody
ABCD Inc.

Catherine MacNamara
ABCD Inc.

Disaster resilience is built for the community by the community

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Speaker bios

Anne Crestani has been working in the community sector for over 25 years. Over the last 10 + years she has been leading teams and projects that are focused on supporting people and communities impacted by disaster events. This includes the Step by Step disaster recovery support services (2013 and 2019/20), the Walk With disaster preparedness E-learning tool, and the Step by Step Wellbeing and Community Resilience Projects. Anne is currently the Project Lead for the Resilient Villages project and is a passionate advocate and supporter of community informed and community led resilience planning and action. Anne is a recipient of both the Resilient NSW award (2019) and the NSW Premiers Community Service Award (2021).

Karen Cody is the Vice President of ABCD Inc. and was instrumental in forming the association and ensuring it’s activities reflected the community’s expressed needs. She designed and led a program of activities to prepare her community for the next bushfire event, using knowledge gained through 20 years of experience in federal policy and program management and as a volunteer with the local bushfire brigade.

The program of activities conducted included:

home and property bushfire risk assessments for residents together with the identification of cost-effective solutions to address those risks,
a video series communicating the learnings from the bushfire assessments,
emergency community mapping
community SMS messaging tool
a community led Resilience Action Plan to address the area’s very real risk of future bushfires, and
more recently out of necessity, advocating for institutional change to ensure community-led bushfire risk-reduction priorities are reflected in institutional planning, prioritising and hazard reduction activities.

Catherine MacNamara is a co-founder of ABCD Inc. which was formed following the Gospers Mountain Bushfire that devastated the area in 2019. She saw a need for a local association to advocate for the community, apply for bushfire grant funding for the community and to connect residents trying to rebuild and recover from the disaster. She was motivated to ensure that local services were better prepared to help residents during future emergencies and promoted a community-led approach to building resilience and mitigating the risk of future bushfires.

Catherine's career of over 30 years working in education allowed her to bring skills in communication, organisation, event management, graphic design and publication to ABCD Inc. projects.

Catherine is part of the Communications team, moderates the local Facebook groups, is one of the editors of the community newsletter “The Lyrebird Local” and leads a local Storytelling Project. Her interest in nature and the environment and being an avid bird watcher, makes her an important member of the ABCD Inc. Environment and Biodiversity group. She is excited about one of ABCD Inc.’s biggest projects nearing completion - a new community hall! Catherine is proudest of how ABCD Inc. has been instrumental in creating greater community connectedness in the three villages of Bell, Clarence and Dargan.

Presentation outline

Many communities across the country are doing their bit to share responsibility for their own disaster readiness. The current state of play sees community stubbornly remain on the periphery of formal emergency planning and disaster governance. In addition, the specialised role of place-based community organisations are largely unrecognised and under utilised. The Association of Bell, Clarence and Dargan (ABCD Inc), represents residents across 3 villages located in the Upper Blue Mountains of NSW, who came together following the devastation of the 2019-20 bushfires.

In the midst of recovering from this disaster, ABCD Inc have taken the lead in building their community's disaster readiness. Resilient Villages works alongside ABCD Inc (and other groups) to support their resilience goals. The positive impact of this partnership demonstrates the value and effectiveness of communities working together at the grassroots level to strengthen their disaster readiness. The ongoing risk to community disaster capability remains with the current model of disaster governance in NSW. Systemic change is necessary to fully optimise and embed the long-term benefits of community led disaster resilience.

Briony Rogers (moderator)
Fire to Flourish

Lindsey Goodman
Fire to Flourish

Kizzy Nye
Fire to Flourish

John Walters
Cobargo Community Development Corporation

Sam Henderson
Northern Rivers Community Foundation

Panel: Learning and systems change for innovative community funding models

As communities seek to increase their disaster resilience, ready access to funding that can resource self-determined and collective priorities is the holy grail. While funding is not the only enabler of community resilience, it is a critical capacity for communities to take meaningful action in reducing their disaster risk, preparing for disaster and recovering well when disaster strikes.

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Speaker bios

Briony Rogers, Professor of Systems Change at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute, is a leader and expert at catalysing transformations to address the challenges of climate change. Through her work, she brings together people with diverse expertise and lived experience to develop hopeful visions and take action that has real-world impact for communities, cities and regions.

As CEO of Fire to Flourish, she leads a pioneering initiative to rethink our approach in the aftermath of disaster. Working closely in partnership with communities affected by the 2019/20 Summer bushfires, Fire to Flourish is piloting a model of holistic support for community-led recovery. As Director of MSDI Water, Briony leads a team of boundary spanners with expertise in water, governance, sustainability and system change with experience in developing and implementing collaborative processes and diagnostic tools to support change in policy and practice.

Before this, Briony was the Chief Research Officer for the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities, where she led researchers from multiple universities to deliver an interdisciplinary research program spanning economics, governance, transitions, modelling, engineering and design. Briony has an interdisciplinary background, with a PhD in Environmental Sociology, a Bachelor of Civil Engineering (Honours) and Bachelor of Science.

Lindsey is an accomplished change leader with over a decade of expertise in strategic financial management, governance, and program oversight across both public and private sectors. She excels in driving impactful programs and fostering community-led recovery and resilience.

Currently, Lindsey is the Program Director at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) for the Fire to Flourish program. In this role, she oversees the design and management of a $70 million initiative, empowering bushfire affected communities in New South Wales and Victoria. The program’s innovative model profiles local leadership and action, working in partnership with government, philanthropic organizations, not-for-profits, and the private sector to strengthen holistic resilience and drive sustainable recovery.

Previously, as Program Manager for the City of Melbourne, Lindsey managed the implementation and governance of the $300 million combined Melbourne City Recovery and Revitalisation Funds. These initiatives were pivotal in reinvigorating the city post-COVID-19, driving economic recovery, and supporting local businesses through participatory approaches and community engagement. Lindsey's career is marked by a strong focus on responsive program delivery, innovative grant design and strategic financial management. She is passionate about values-driven outcomes, ensuring she delivers impactful and transformative programs that resonate deeply with communities.

Kizzy Nye is a proud Walbunja woman from Mogo on the NSW South Coast. Kizzy worked for the NSW Education Department as an Aboriginal Education Officer at Mogo Public School for 25 years and is dedicated to education and teaching the importance of practicing culture to our younger generation.

Kizzy has a lived experience of the catastrophic 2019-2020 Black Summer Bushfires, this experience enabled her to work tirelessly as a volunteer to assist her community in the recovery efforts in Mogo. Working alongside Elders and community members to deliver essentials and provide support where needed.

Kizzy is currently the Community Lead for Eurobodalla Fire to Flourish, helping to advance community-led disaster recovery and to address priorities and activities for recovery and resilience after the 2019-20 bushfires.

John Walters has been Chair of the not-for-profit Cobargo Community Development Corporation since it was forged out of the crucible of the disastrous 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires. John has also been a director since 2016 of the village’s largest business – the Cobargo Co-operative Society Limited - a multi-faceted member-owned enterprise providing a range of rural, hardware and nursery products to the community. John’s volunteering extends to his presidency of the local Rural Fire Brigade, as vice-chair of the Cobargo Quaama Business Recovery Group Inc, and as a committee member of the Cobargo RSL Sub-branch.

Awarded the 2024 Australia Day Cobargo Citizen of the Year, John is an active community volunteer who is employing his corporate experience drawn from a long and varied career spanning journalism, media and sales, and his personal advocacy skills and passion for community. John’s experience includes some 30 years in media, including with News Corp, and more recently 10 years in the renewable energy industry. John “retired” from the corporate world in 2014 and moved with his wife to a cottage in the heart of Cobargo to enjoy a more “relaxed” new life on the beautiful Sapphire Coast.

As chair of the Cobargo Community Development Corporation John has worked for the past four (4 ) years with a team of dedicated volunteer directors to successfully gain major Bush Fire recovery funding from NSW and Federal Government and deliver the REBUILD COBARGO project needed to restore the vital commercial heart of Cobargo tragically lost in the Black Summer bushfires, and to reinvigorate and secure the socio-economic survival of the village into the future. Under a unique model of community ownership and management, the project has drawn acclaim from NSW and Federal Government stakeholders as the “gold standard of community led disaster recovery”.

Sam leads the Northern Rivers Community Foundation (NRCF), an important source of funding and support for community organisations and networks across the region, particularly post-2022 floods. In this role, he is stewarding NRCF to work more systemically while continuing to support place-based grassroots groups to develop and deliver solutions appropriate for their community.

Sam’s experience encompasses corporate, not-for-profit, and governmental sectors, with extensive experience working with First Nations peoples on business/economic development projects in remote and regional areas. After completing an MBA (Social Impact) at UNSW, he transitioned into leadership roles within the not-for-profit sector. A long-term resident of Northern Rivers/Bundjalung, Sam spends his time with a mindfulness program of surfing and gardening, while raising a joyful/unruly pack of young kids, dogs, and chickens.

Presentation outline

Yet, the lived experiences from communities across Australia reveal flaws in current funding models. For example, grant scheme parameters that do not align with community priorities, bureaucratic procedures creating barriers to access for many people, funding timeframes that do not reflect community need, and schemes that pit community groups against each other to compete for scarce resources. It is clear that transformative change is needed in how direct community funding is approached if we are to truly empower community-led resilience.

Led by Fire to Flourish and involving diverse community members who have been directly involved in designing and implementing recent trials of innovative models, this panel discussion will explore lessons learned from the new frontier of community disaster funding. This includes Fire to Flourish’s experimentation with participatory granting, Northern Rivers Community Foundations’s rapid disaster response experiences and Cobargo’s community owned funding mechanism.

Through facilitated discussion, panellists will unpack what the models involve, how they were experienced by the community, how transparency and accountability was ensured, the benefits that were observed, and implementation challenges that were encountered. The panel will also explore the pathways for scaling community-led funding models, critically examining the system changes needed for communities everywhere to be able to readily access the resources they need to fund the priorities and projects they determine.

Joanne Murrell
Anglicare NSW South, NSW West and ACT

Liam McManus
Anglicare NSW South, NSW West and ACT

Von Hutcheson
Anglicare NSW South, NSW West and ACT

Empowering communities: the role of Anglicare's bushfire recovery program in effective rebuilding

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Speaker bios

For the past 4 years Jo has gained valuable experience in Disaster Recovery and Relief by assisting residents throughout their journey, also networking with multiple agencies and the ongoing Management & reporting for the success of the Bushfire Recovery Program as well as advocating for ongoing funding of valuable services like Anglicare’s.

Jo has a strong focus on Preparedness, Mental Health and keeping community connected. She also enjoys a healthy lifestyle and long distance running living in Batlow with her Husband.

Liam is a carpenter with expertise in construction, project management and training. He holds a degree in Environmental Studies (UNSW) and has a keen interest in sustainability in the built environment. He has experience working in remote areas and sharing cross-cultural knowledge and communication. For the past two and a half years he has been employed by Anglicare as a Bushfire Rebuilding Advisor supporting people as they rebuild after the Black Summer bushfires.

Von Hutcheson is the Anglicare Bushfire Recovery Coordinator for the Eurobodalla and Bega Valley shire, dedicated to supporting bushfire-impacted individuals and community groups on their ongoing recovery journey. With over four years of professional experience in disaster recovery and a background in community engagement, she possesses a deep understanding of the complex issues that residents affected by bushfires continue to face. Von is adept at helping people access available support services and providing assistance where emerging needs are present.

In her work with individuals and community groups, Von fosters community connection and supports capacity building not only in the recovery but also in the preparedness space. As a long-term volunteer for community-driven events in the Eurobodalla region, her passion for her local community and the beautiful South Coast shines through in all her endeavours.

Von enjoys living on the NSW South Coast in Dalmeny with her husband, two teenagers, and their dog. Her commitment to helping others and improving her community underscores her work, making her a valuable resource and advocate for those still navigating the challenges of bushfire recovery.

Presentation outline

Anglicare's Bushfire Recovery Program offers valuable insights into the success of community-led recovery efforts. Originating from the lessons learned during Black Saturday, the program was initiated with a Rebuilding Advisory Service to streamline the recovery process. Recognising the challenges of rebuilding in the aftermath of a disaster, Anglicare's recovery program addresses the complex interplay of trauma, emphasizing the need for comprehensive technical and social support. The program features Rebuilding Advisors and Recovery Coordinators working collaboratively to provide holistic assistance post-disaster.

The program's impact has been significant, with a robust and sustained engagement from individuals seeking support in navigating planning applications, approvals, trade connections, and overall building management. Anglicare has framed our response in a caring trauma informed way and facilitated owner builder groups through informative 'Deconstructing Construction' events, empowering individuals to take charge of their rebuilding journey. This success story exemplifies an effective approach that recognises the inseparable connection between the social and technical aspects of rebuilding lives and homes.

Nikhila Madabhushi (Moderator)
Monash University

Professor Mel Dodd
Monash University

Roxanne Smith
Monash University

Cara MacLeod
Monash University

Pamela Denise
Monash University

Panel: Placemaking as a catalyst for building resilience—using arts, culture and creative practices to co-design new social and spatial infrastructure for high-risk communities

This panel brings together creative practitioners, Aboriginal leaders and researchers to share insights from their ongoing placemaking collaboration in the Clarence Valley in New South Wales.

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Speaker bios

Nikhila is an architect, researcher and educator. Her research-based practice, Equity Office, foregrounds decolonising and participatory design methods for built and spatial environments. Her work has been supported by various awards and recognitions, enabling her to gain diverse knowledge(s) on the confluence of Country, disasters and place. She publishes, speaks and exhibits regularly on these themes, with her work aiming to build bridges between academic, disciplinary and public discourse. Following further postgraduate study in global development at RMIT University, granting her extensive field-based international experience, she was the Innovation Fellow in Architecture (2020-21) at Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA). Her research and teaching through this role, focused on rethinking community-led recovery of built environments in regional contexts, following the 2019-20 bushfires across Gunai/Kurnai-Bidwell Country (East Gippsland). She is currently a Research Fellow at MADA and her context now extends across the eastern seaboard of Australia, where she continues co-creating applied research with diverse communities, concurrent to practice.

Mel is an award-winning architect, educator and academic leader whose underpinning values and mission places creativity at the heart of positive social change, achieving this through transformative education and creative inquiry. Currently Interim Dean at Monash Art, Design and Architecture, and the Co-Director of Monash Urban Lab, her practice-based research explores innovative socially engaged design and participatory processes through strategic partnerships with government, industry and civil society. Educated at University of Cambridge and with a PhD by Practice from RMIT University she is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK, and an Adjunct Professor at Central Saint Martins. Her publications include Spatial Practices: Modes of Action and Engagement with the City (Routledge 2019) and Live Projects: Designing with People (RMIT Press, 2012). Mel has been a collaborator with muf architecture/art and was a contributory author to the practice publication This is What We Do: A Muf Manual (Ellipsis, 2002). She was Curator of Ground Melbourne at Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism (2023).

Roxanne Smith, a Wiradjuri/Ngemba woman, is passionate about the connection of people to place and Country and the need for that connection to be entwined in the planning and development of spaces by the communities and people that live, work, and play in them. She has been an avid advocate for community-led solutions, acknowledging and supporting the wonderful work that communities continue to do, and the resilience they show—sometimes against seemingly impossible odds. Roxanne walks with communities as they explore their connection to Country, dreams for their places and the way they wish to see themselves in the future, encompassing tactile, creative techniques, to enable the visualisation of those dreams—watching communities prioritise and build their own change is a powerful story for resilience. Roxanne deeply understands that each community is unique in their applications and desires to make people's lives more robust, happy, sustainable, and connected to place.

Cara MacLeod brings over twenty years of experience in teaching, facilitating and community engagement in the arts, to her role as Community Lead of Fire to Flourish Clarence Valley. Together with her colleagues, Cara is supporting bushfire affected communities to grow their resilience through a strengths-based, community-led approach that foregrounds the wisdom and innovations of First Nations peoples. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts from College of Fine Arts, UNSW, and a Master of Teaching from The University of Sydney, her experience includes K-12 Visual Arts Teacher and Educator and Coordinator and Manager at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. Promoting access and inclusion, she has collaborated with schools, regional galleries and communities, people with disabilities and seniors through her art practice, grounded in kindness, empathy, connecting with nature and play. Following the 2019-20 bushfires, Cara delivered place-based creative recovery projects in local communities in the Northern Rivers, including art workshops, music events, learning resources and setting up a community garden to support wellbeing and social connectedness.

Pamela Denise is a professional Community Artsworker, Public Artist and Placemaker based in the Northern Rivers, NSW. Her workplace is primarily regional NSW and QLD delivering projects and programs for local councils, state government departments including schools, NGOs and regional arts councils. Having completed over two hundred public art commissions and community art projects since 1998, Pamela is an experienced collaborator, workshop facilitator and project manager. Notable creative adventures include a 10 year run as a QLD Flying Arts Alliance tutor from 2008–2019. Pamela’s scope includes working with general communities, youth, Aboriginal communities, women at risk, people with disability and more recently, designing and delivering Creative Recovery Projects in disaster affected communities. Pamela assists people to explore artforms that reveal a sense of self and place. Primary outcomes often include public art installations or festival installations and performances. Pamela is currently augmenting her practice by working as a Community Facilitator for Fire to Flourish, exploring participatory granting in the Clarence Valley.

Presentation outline

This panel brings together creative practitioners, Aboriginal leaders and researchers to share insights from their ongoing placemaking collaboration in the Clarence Valley in New South Wales.

‘Place’ is an unequivocal aspect of people’s experiences of disaster. From phenomena such as topophilia marking people’s love of place, and solastalgia capturing one’s sorrow of its destruction, processes that shine a light on rehabilitating places to build resilience and prepare for disasters are critical. These highly sensory and environmental experiences of disaster strongly relate to Aboriginal perspectives on Caring for Country, and offer a decolonised view of space as inherently linked to time; a process, not only an outcome. Such ways of thinking about place supports and accelerates the movement towards place-based programs, and community-led processes.

The panel will begin with a short film capturing recent work in the Clarence Valley. Following this, panellists will discuss how their communities have come together to generate rich ideas for new or upgraded spaces, places and concurrent services that work in concert across multiple modes; for everyday social resilience as well as during emergencies. Doing so reveals that place-making is a relational process that uses participatory principles in place-based settings. It aims to support community resilience planning through a socially-engaged process of co-creation of ideas for places, as well as through built and infrastructural outcomes generated from that process. The panel will explore how placemaking enhances resilience and how this project captures and communicates evidence of this approach.

Calise Liu
Finity Consulting

Sinead Keane
Finity Consulting

Saroop Philip
Finity Consulting

Home insurance affordability: drivers and policy solutions

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Speaker bios

Calise is a qualified actuary specialising in general insurance and climate risk. She was a co-author of the Green Papers on Home Insurance Affordability, published by the Actuaries Institute in August 2022 and August 2023.

Calise directly supports a number of Appointed Actuaries, providing insight into the performance of a range of private and government insurance schemes. This includes modelling of property costs resulting from both working losses and from catastrophes, and the treatment of reinsurance cover in these events. She also conducts insurance liability valuations for motor, business liability, workers’ compensation and CTP lines of business. Calise regularly prepares actuarial valuation reports and has supported a number of pricing projects.

Sinead is a qualified actuary and a senior consultant in the perils and climate team. She is experienced in catastrophe and capital modelling and leads the maintenance and updates of Finity’s proprietary suite of climate models. She has led the development of the model governance framework for the Finity climate and perils practice.

Prior to joining Finity, Sinead was the Group Capital Modelling Manager at QBE Group. In this role, Sinead led a team of analysts in the development and calibration of the Group Economic Capital Model.

Sinead is an active volunteer of the Actuaries Institute, including acting as the liaison between the Climate and Sustainability Working Group (CSWG) and the General Insurance Practice Committee (GIPC).

Saroop is a qualified actuary and specialises in natural perils pricing and insurance affordability. He co-authored two reports on Home Insurance Affordability published by the Actuaries Institute in August 2022 and August 2023, and was involved in the Institute’s 2020 paper on Property Insurance Affordability. These reports explore the socioeconomic impacts of climate change and the related affordability stress experienced by communities across Australia.

Saroop is also passionate about public policy and the role that actuaries can have in it. He is a member of the Actuaries Institute’s Public Policy Council Committee, which is responsible for developing and ensuring expert commentary on issues where there is uncertainty over future financial outcomes.

Presentation outline

Home insurance is an important component of financial resilience following a natural disaster. In the context of disasters, home insurance provides the means to start the process of rebuild. However, rates of non-insurance and under-insurance, particularly in disadvantaged communities, is significant and growing. A key driver of this is increasing insurance affordability pressure, particularly in areas of high natural hazards risk, as insurers respond to more frequent and severe extreme weather events over recent years by increasing insurance premiums.

Insurance affordability is a focus area for many stakeholders, including regulators and governments. In 2022, the government-backed Cyclone Reinsurance Pool was established in order to improve the accessibility and affordability of insurance for households and small businesses in cyclone-prone areas. In November 2023, the NSW government announced the removal of the Emergency Services Levy from insurance premiums. While these actions are significant steps, home insurance affordability remains a critical challenge, which is likely to be exacerbated by climate change.

The Actuaries Institute has developed an Australian Actuaries Home Insurance Affordability (AAHIA) Index to quantify home insurance affordability stress across Australia. We found that in 2023, 12% of Australians would need to pay more than 4 weeks of their household income on their home insurance premium. These communities tended to be disadvantaged households concentrated in areas with high exposure to flood risks.

We will also discuss the effectiveness of existing land use & planning regulations, which form an important part of the solution to improving home insurance affordability and disaster resilience. We do a systematic analysis of new properties in Australia over the past decade, the change in exposure in areas exposed to significant natural perils risk, and any interaction of these areas of high development with those households under insurance affordability stress.

Sharanjit Paddam
Finity Consulting

Kate Cotter
Resilient Building Council

Alix Pearce
Insurance Council of Australia

Vanessa Beenders
Actuaries Institute of Australia

Jennifer Cobley
NRMA Insurance

Jessica Forrest
NAB

Panel: Resilience ratings - practical adaptation technology delivering positive systems impact

The Resilience Ratings program has delivered innovative new technology that is enabling markets to recognise and reward effective risk mitigation action, disrupting the disaster cycle to reduce suffering and market failure risks such as access and affordability to insurance and finance.

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Speaker bios

Sharanjit is an actuary with 30 years’ experience in consulting in the UK and Australia. He is a leading expert on climate change, was awarded Insurance Leader of the Year 2022 by ANZIIF, Actuary of the Year 2023 by the Actuaries Institute, Risk Manager of the Year by the Climate Alliance in 2020, and is a TEDxSydney speaker.

He co-leads Finity’s perils & climate practice and advises insurers, banks, investors and governments on climate risk assessment, management, strategy and reporting. He is a member of the Resilient Building Council’s expert panel. In 2024 he co-authored a report for the Actuaries Institute on Home Insurance Affordability and Home Loans at Risk. Prior to Finity he was Group Head of Environmental, Social and Governance risk at QBE Insurance Group, where he developed QBE’s global policies, risk management framework, and reporting on climate change.

Kate Cotter established the Resilient Building Council (RBC) in 2014 to help people know how to make their homes and communities safer. Kate leads multi-disciplinary teams to solve complex risk problems, apply science through the development of equitable and transformational resilience systems and tools, and catalyse adaptation investment and action.

Over the last decade, RBC’s team of independent experts have worked with households, communities, government and industry to develop the Resilience Ratings Scheme – which measures the performance of buildings to bushfire, flood, cyclone, storm and heatwave risks. In a world-first, insurers and banks are providing insurance premium benefits and mortgage rate reductions to recognise resilient homes with certified Ratings.

Kate and the team at RBC are on a mission - to empower every Australian one-by-one to make their homes and communities safer and insurable - changing our national story from one of vulnerability to resilience.

Alix currently heads the $60b Australian general insurance industry’s climate and social policy team, drawing on the industry’s critical role in the economy to drive down climate risk and better protect communities. She has a history of building unique alliances to drive change, her career has seen her work with global security leaders, first-responders, front-line communities, consumer groups, major companies and all tiers of government. She is also a published author, working with Australia’s premier climate experts, economists and policy analysts on landmark reports that have shifted the national conversation.

As the Head of Campaigns for the Climate Council, Alix led the organisation's advocacy and government relations team, focused on driving down emissions this decade. As the Director of Policy and Campaigns for the Consumer Action Law Centre, she led a team of policy professionals, campaigners and communicators in the wake of the Banking Royal Commission. She also worked as the Founder and Director of the Cities Power Partnership, the biggest climate and energy program for cities in the country. Alix’s leadership and work has been recognised with numerous awards, including Campaigner of the year at the 2018 Third Sector awards and the 2023 Asia Insurance Sustainability Award. She also serves as a Board Director for Not-For-Profit Global Voices.

Vanessa leads the Actuaries Institute’s thought leadership program, working closely with actuaries across a range of industries to deliver insights across key societal issues in major reports, papers and submissions. She is also responsible for delivery of Institute support to its Practice Committees, providing technical and professional support to its members. Before joining the Institute, Vanessa worked across government, financial services and education, in both public and private sectors.

Jen Cobley is an experienced leader of strategic corporate and community partnerships and programs, driving social and commercial outcomes. She has a demonstrated history of working in the insurance industry and in building cross sector partnerships. As Executive Manager Social Impact at NRMA Insurance, Jen and her job-share partner Georgia Whitbread lead a team responsible for developing and executing activities that enable communities in across Australia to better prepare for and respond to natural hazards. This includes preparedness and behaviour change campaigns and programs with long term community partners.

Jessica leads NAB’s Sustainability function and is accountable for measuring and understanding the impact of the business on the community and environment – and developing programs and strategies to ensure NAB is operating in a sustainable way, consistent with the expectations of their stakeholders. In her role, Jessica oversees NAB's Sustainability Performance, Environmental Affairs, First Nations Affairs, Consumer Affairs, NAB Ready Together, NAB Foundation and colleague volunteering and giving. Jess has more than 20 years’ experience in Corporate Affairs, including 14 years at NAB.

Panel outline

The Ratings provide households with a customised action plan, specific to the vulnerability of their individual property and local risk, empowering them to make effective, data-informed decisions.

With over 1,000 users per week across 274 LGAs completing the Bushfire Resilience Rating home assessment app, households are reducing the risk of their homes igniting in a bushfire by an average of 67%. This is the first time rapid, measurable resilience action is happening at scale – anywhere in the world.

The rapid adoption of the Resilience Ratings self-assessment app demonstrates how motivated people are to reduce risk to their lives, homes, livelihoods and communities. Empowering people, one-by-one, is changing our national story from vulnerable to resilient.

The Resilience Ratings system is the first program in the world to produce a whole of mortgage resilience discount (from NAB), with other banks following. Insurers are currently developing products to support the Multi-hazard Resilience Ratings program.

Providing transparent, clearly communicated residual risk information (Ratings) supports risk reduction action at every decision point; planning, development, repair/restoration, re-building, maintenance, insurance, finance and property sale/lease - to inform & enable action by all sectors.

Kate Cotter, CEO and founder of RBC, will lead a panel discussion with representatives from Resilience Ratings collaborators including ICA, IGCC, ASFI, NEMA, IAG and NAB.

The Panel will discuss the systems change that is enabling resilience investment through the Ratings program, including multi-hazard case studies, insurance and mortgage discounts, novel research modelling resilience carbon abatement generated through resilience retrofitting, and their collaboration to activate global capital towards Australian disaster risk reduction.

Duncan Sheppard

Insurance Council of Australia

Future proofing Australia's resilience

Australia is on the frontline of climate change impacts, with more severe bushfires, cyclones that are projected to intensify and possibly track further southwards, and an increase in rainfall intensity and associated flooding. These extreme weather events pose growing risks to our homes and businesses, and in high-risk areas, can make insurance increasingly unaffordable.

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Speaker bio

Duncan is an experienced advocacy, communications and government relations professional with extensive experience in both the public and private sectors. His current role is Senior Advisor, Resilience at the Insurance Council of Australia. Prior to this he was Senior Policy and Communications Advisor at the Civil Contractors Federation and has also held senior advocacy roles with the Australasian Railways Association and the Australian Logistics Council. His government background spans both federal and local governments. In the role of Senior Advisor, Resilience, Duncan drives the ICA’s advocacy agenda for improved resilience in the built environment, with a focus on improving Australia’s building codes and standards, investing in household and large-scale resilience measures and improved land-use planning arrangements - ultimately helping to maintain an insurable Australia. The Insurance Council of Australia is the representative body of the general insurance industry in Australia, with its members representing approximately 95 per cent of total premium income written by private sector general insurers.

Presentation outline

New research by the Centre for International Economics, commissioned by the Insurance Council of Australia has found Australian homeowners are losing about $4 billion each year due to extreme weather events such as bushfires, cyclones and floods, highlighting the need for greater action to future proof Australia’s resilience in the face of worsening weather.

The CIE analysis also found that strengthening the National Construction Code could reduce the current average annual building related costs estimated to be around $2 billion per year for cyclones, $1.475 billion per year for floods and $486 million per year for bushfires.

These costs include rebuilding or repairing buildings damaged from extreme weather events, the cost of replacing and repairing home and contents, and disruption costs including temporary accommodation and impacts on employment. The costs are also projected to double by 2050, as bushfires, cyclones and floods become more severe and/or frequent in a changing climate.

To address this challenge, the Insurance Council of Australia is advocating for a strengthening of the National Construction Code to require that new homes are made more resilient to the impacts of bushfires, cyclones and floods.

Future Proofing Australia’s Resilience will unpack this new research to make the case for a strong National Construction Code, and the benefits of broadening and expanding its scope to include building resilience.

The presentation will also discuss the need to avoid building new homes in vulnerable areas, including high-risk parts of the floodplain.

Stephen Dredge
Meridan Urban

Anna Nottingham
QLD Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works

Driving systemic change in land use planning policy - the Queensland Resilience Policy Maturity Framework for Land Use Planning

This talk will present emerging findings from a localised research project that focuses on the Pacific, drawing lessons from abroad to dialogue at the domestic level in Australia.

Speaker bios

Stephen is the Director of Australian-based land use planning, resilience and adaptation firm Meridian Urban. He is a trusted advisor to all levels of government and communities across Australia in risk-based land use planning, resilient urban growth management, disaster risk reduction, and adaptation.

He has designed and delivered multi-year and multi-million dollar planning programs that have influenced for the better where and how our settlements develop, and has created, led or supported multiple significant risk-based land use planning policy programs undertaken in Australia since 2011.

He has developed and implemented disaster risk reduction, resilience and climate adaptation policy in the built and socio-economic environments at regional and local scales across Australia. He provides trusted advisory, thought leadership and technical support for specific settlements, broader governance reviews and strategic policy or regulatory system changes.

Anna is the Director of the ShapingSEQ Delivery Office in the Queensland Government’s Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works. She is an urban and regional planner with 16 years of experience across a broad range of strategic planning, urban policy and statutory planning roles.

Anna is a strategic thinker and problem solver, leading innovative policy initiatives that address some of the most exciting opportunities, and challenging issues, facing our communities.

In her current role, Anna is responsible for overseeing the implementation of ShapingSEQ 2023 – the Queensland Government’s long-term vision for growth in South East Queensland to 2046. This means sustainably accommodating a growing population with well-designed communities supported by infrastructure, while creating a growth pattern that is resilient and able to cope with future natural hazard events.

Presentation outline

Queensland has entered its second decade of significant natural hazard events. Land use planning is becoming ever more important in creating safer and more resilient settlements that can sustainably
promote social and economic prosperity.

Recognising this, the Queensland Department of Housing, Local Government, Planning and Public Works (DHLGPPW) highlighted disaster resilience as a core innovation in the recently completed update to ShapingSEQ, the South East Queensland Regional Plan.

ShapingSEQ now includes the policy and implementation scaffolding to implement higher order resilience and risk reduction policy imperatives through regional land use planning – from the global Sendai Framework, the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework, and Queensland’s own Strategy for Disaster Resilience.

Utilising the CSIRO Q-RAPTA framework developed for the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, it provides the policy mechanism to help ensure SEQ’s housing and growth needs are well-located over time, helping to minimise risk-related insurability and financing issues for communities, and the repeated ongoing financial obligation of government for disaster recovery and reconstruction. Key elements include:

Potential future growth areas (PFGAs) needing to achieve an acceptable level of risk
The concept of ‘no-go’ development areas – areas at intolerable risk that are incompatible with urban use or built form and should not be identified for development
Integrating risk-based planning investigations and benchmarks into strategic planning, zoning and development decisions
Supporting settlement-scale mitigation and adaptation planning envisaged by other processes like flood risk management or coastal adaptation
A structured implementation framework for making sustained land use policy and practice change over time.

This is an innovative model for other regions around Australia to make the methodical and planned step-changes to land use policy and settlement pattern required by our state and national resilience and adaptation policy documents.

Andrew Coghlan
Australian Red Cross

Bridget Tehan
Australian Red Cross

Antonia Mackay
Australian Red Cross

John Richardson
Australian Institute of Disaster Resilience

Dr Kate Brady
University of New South Wales/ Australian Red Cross/ University of Melbourne

Panel: 110 years of community resilience in Australia: lessons from Australian Red Cross

This session will enable attendees to gain an understanding of community resilience, and what drives and supports resilience before, during and after emergencies and disasters

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Speaker bios

Andrew brings extensive experience in the emergency management sector. His current role is as Head of Emergency Services Strategy with Australian Red Cross. Prior to joining Red Cross, Andrew was the National Recovery Consultant with Emergency Management Australia, providing advice to both State and Federal governments following a range of emergencies and playing a key role in coordinating recovery assistance to Australians impacted by events such as the Boxing Day 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Career highlights include:

• Refresh and growth of Red Cross role in emergency management in Australia, including psychosocial focus in prevention, response and recovery
• Development of Red Cross’ Emergency REDiPlan project, a four step household preparation program aimed at fostering individual and community resilience throughout Australia
• Coordinating the Red Cross response to a range of major emergencies and disasters, including Cyclone Larry (2006), the Black Saturday Victorian Bushfires (2009) and Queensland Floods and Cyclone Yasi (2011) and the 2019/20 Bushfires.
• Development of Red Cross leadership role in long term, community based recovery.
• Contributing to establishment of:
o the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience
o Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience
Andrew has also contributed to the establishment and management of public appeals in the aftermath of multiple disasters, including:
• 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires
• 2019/20 Black Summer Bushfires
• 2022 Floods
• Tasmanian Bushfires
• Bourke Street Tragedy
• Dreamworld Tragedy

Bridget’s current role is Emergency Services Convenor at Australian Red Cross, where she works to support collaboration and shared ways of working across the emergency management sector. This includes building shared ways of working and developing environments of mutual trust with a range of sectors, organisations and people to achieve collective outcomes that better support communities before, during and after disasters.

Bridget has specialist expertise in community resilience as well as the role of community, social service and not for profit organisations in emergency management and disaster resilience at local, grass roots and strategic levels. Bridget also has expertise in the strengths, needs and priorities of people who may be vulnerable or disadvantaged before, during and after emergencies as well as their needs in the mitigation, transition and adaptation to climate change. She has experience in cross-sector collaboration and cooperation and has led a range of cross-sector, award-winning projects.

John Richardson is the Manager of Knowledge Development, for the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience. He has qualifications in Geography, Nursing and Environmental Science.

He has worked in disaster management since 1997, in range of roles including the State Recovery Manager for Victoria in the early 2000s, and more recently the National Resilience Adviser for Australian Red Cross. He also is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne.

He has a keen interest and eye for patterns and connections in disasters, both at a practice and a policy level. He has a strong interest in bereavement in the public realm and how music represents the disaster experience.

Presentation outline

This session will enable attendees to gain an understanding of community resilience, and what drives and supports resilience before, during and after emergencies and disasters.

Australian Red Cross is a leader in community resilience with more than 100 years’ embedded in local communities, including providing support during and after times of crisis. In recent years our comprehensive, award-winning programs, underpinned by international and national research, evidence, and best practice, have assisted individuals, households and communities right across Australia to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies. Our experience and knowledge is unparalleled.

Red Cross has worked with and supported communities in drought, bushfire, flood, cyclones, storms, earthquakes, industrial and transport accidents, mass trauma and a wide range of other emergencies and disasters. From our work with individuals, families and community groups on the ground, and through evaluation of our work, we have gained significant insight into what drives and supports community resilience.

Red Cross also works closely with research institutions to identify what drives resilience, and to develop policies and programs that enable communities to build their resilience and provide support when it is needed.

In addition, we collaborate with other Red Cross organisations and the International Federation of Red Cross to incorporate community resilience experience, insights and evidence from across the world.

Drawing on this significant experience, Red Cross will share their experiences of working with communities, research and data on community resilience to explore with attendees:

What works to help communities be prepared for emergencies?
Why are some communities more resilient than others?
How are communities coping with compounding and cascading disasters?
What’s needed to build community resilience into the future with climate change?

Attendees will gain a deep understanding of the drivers of resilience before, during and after emergencies and disasters.

Jeremy Fernandez
Journalist, TV Producer, News Anchor and MC

Reece Dodds
NSW Surf Life Saving Volunteer (Rescuer)

Adrian Stirling
Rescuee

Inspector Nathan Barnden
Rural Fire Service

Closing panel: Lived experience: reflecting and celebrating

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Speaker bios

Jeremy Fernandez’s career projector has been impressive. Having begun life in Australia as a migrant student, he worked as a kitchenhand, then went on to become a voice over artist before stepping up as a radio producer, and then an ABC presenter. With all of these accomplishments under his belt, Jeremy now specialises in live events and rolling multi-platform news coverage, having worked in Perth, Melbourne and London and with The Seven Network, The ABC, Australia Network, and CNN.

Jeremy has presented and reported in the field for some of the nation’s most complex and demanding broadcasts including successive state and federal elections and budgets, the Brexit referendum, the Anzac Day centenary, Sydney’s Martin Place siege, Melbourne’s Commonwealth Games, and Perth’s Claremont Serial Killer Investigation.

Jeremy has also offered his services to various charitable and community organisations including Room To Read, The Australian Human Rights Commission, The Australian Network on Disability, The Top Blokes Foundation, Mindframe, Suicide Prevention Australia, and Dress for Success.

Above all, Jeremy is proud of his heritage and stands ready to encourage all people to achieve their potential. As a young man, some told him he would never make it in broadcasting because of the colour of his skin. Jeremy says he is humbled by the many people who broke barriers before him, and by those who tell him that his career trajectory gives them hope for themselves and their children.

Reece lives in Forster NSW with his wife, Emma and three children aged 5, 8 and 12. He works full-time for Stacks Law Group as the ICT Manager and often applies his skills as a technology consultant for local community organisations.

Reece is an active member of Cape Hawke SLSC with numerous volunteer roles such as Patrol Officer under the Director of Lifesaving, Patrol Captain for Patrol Team 10, Surf Sports Coach and Nippers Age Manager. He holds numerous SLS awards including Advanced First Aid and Resuscitation, Bronze Medallion, Silver Medallion Beach Management, Silver Medallion Aquatic Search and Rescue, and IRB Driver. Reece also recently attained the Gold Medallion (Advanced Lifesaving) and does casual lifeguarding work throughout Summer with the Australian Lifeguard Services across beaches on the Mid-Coast.

Outside of work and surf lifesaving, Reece enjoys playing Over 35's soccer and coaches the Under 12 Vikings with Great Lakes United Football Club. In his limited free time, he loves to surf or relax with a good book.

Adrian Stirling, young male, recent school leaver from the NSW lower north coast who in June 2024 narrowly survived a life-threatening incident at One Mile Beach. After being smashed by heavy waves and caught on the rocks at the southern headland, Adrian's life was in serious danger. However, due to the heroic actions of off-duty volunteer surf lifesavers he was safely rescued. Despite the challenging conditions, including fading light and large surf, the rescuers managed to reach Adrian, support him, and eventually secure his safety through a hazardous helicopter rescue. Adrian's life was saved thanks to their quick thinking, bravery, and skill. 'I kept on saying to my mate, I think this is when I’m going to die. I think this is going to be the end of my life here.' - Adrian Stirling

Nathan is an impressive young man who lives and breathes the RFS and is definitely a shining light presently and in our future. His heroic efforts saved countless lives during the 2019-20 fire season but also came at devastating personal toll losing his Uncle and cousin in the same fires. He has been recognised for his bravery and his meritorious conduct but more importantly he has faced the black dog and continues to fight and beat it every day.

Presentation outline

As emergency responders, we attend without hesitation life threatening emergencies, utilising our training, our skills, our knowledge, and in many cases, risking our lives to save the lives of others. We do it without hesitation, or seeking thanks, because it is what we do. Be that helping our community, the environment or reducing risk through mitigation activities, it all relies on our commitment, dedication and service. While we may be part of different organisations, or wearing different uniforms, the principles are the same – we are here to help others.

With concurrent disaster events, followed by community recovery and reviews, there is rarely time to stop, reflect and celebrate. Creating the opportunity for all emergency service personnel to reflect on the positive actions and roles is a powerful mindset; and one that reaffirms our community worth and inspires us to lean forward.

This session is a journey of reflection through the personal accounts from emergency services and the members of the community that they have helped. This session will highlight the extraordinary work that our people do, their skills and commitment to duty.

The Australian Disaster Resilience Conference 2024 is proudly supported by IAG.