National Award Winners and Finalists

About the Resilient Australia Awards

The Resilient Australia Awards is a nation-wide program that celebrates, shares and promotes initiatives that build and foster community resilience to disasters and emergencies. Since 2000, the awards have showcased innovation and exemplary practice across Australia; celebrating achievements that might otherwise go unseen, and inspiring others to build greater disaster resilience in their own communities.

With the exception of multi-jurisdictional projects, submissions are judged in their state or territory, and jurisdictional winners considered for national awards. 

The Australian Government is proud to sponsor the Resilient Australia Awards in partnership with the Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and the states and territories.

Finalists

Bushfire Resilience Rating Home Assessment App

Resilient Building Council
Victoria

The Bushfire Resilience Rating (BRR) has been developed by Australia’s leading bushfire resilience experts through a collaboration led by RBC, funded by NEMA and industry sponsors BlueScope, IAG, and NAB, and supported by emergency management agencies and community members around Australia.

The free app provides households with a tailored list of actions to measurably improve the bushfire resilience of their home. Based on decades of research and post-disaster analysis, it's the only tool that measures the bushfire resilience of buildings, giving insurers, banks and investors a framework for financing and rewarding household resilience action.

The BRR can provide many short and long-term benefits for households and communities, including:

• Measurably reduce bushfire recovery costs, avoiding unsustainable losses for governments, industry, communities and households
• Reduced personal, social, economic community hardships
• Stronger, safer communities that are an attractive place to visit, work and live
• Sustainable insurance, mortgage finance

Bushfires and Your Health: An online course for all Australians

University of Tasmania
Tasmania

Bushfire-affected communities understand the impact of these events extend beyond property loss. Bushfires have enormous mental and physical health impacts, with our research finding that smoke from the Black Summer fires led to an estimated 400+ deaths.

We listened to these concerns, and developed ‘Bushfires and Your Health’, a free online short course hosted by the University of Tasmania. Our course helps participants to understand the physical and mental health impacts of bushfires and smoke, and provides evidence-based strategies to reduce these risks. Over 670 people have enrolled in the three course offerings to date, and our evaluation demonstrates high rates of course satisfaction, engagement in the course material, and an increase in preparedness actions and behaviour change related to improved disaster resilience. Furthermore, critical course information has been translated into multiple languages and promoted to culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Tasmania, making our most vulnerable populations more prepared.

Disaster Relief Australia Operational Big Map Capability

Disaster Relief Australia
South Australia

Disaster Relief Australia (DRA) aim to empower communities with projects that build resilience and foster a sense of community pride. DRA understand that the best way for a community to manage and take ownership of its post disaster recovery is to ensure that community is heard, valued, and educated before that disaster occurs. Educating and equipping communities with the skills and knowledge to identify and manage hazards is integral to achieving this. At a community level, building the resilience and readiness of individuals, families and specific organisations creates a stronger community better equipped to manage the challenges of a disaster situation and recovery. A DRA flagship capability, the ‘Operational Big Map’ exercise sits at the heart of Project Resilience, a multi-phase DRA initiative designed to empower and educate communities to prepare for environmental disasters.

Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap

Resilient Ready
South Australia

The business community across Kangaroo Island has experienced some of the most severe disasters and natural hazards in its history. From drought to bushfires to COVID-19 closures, the extensive impacts have led to both economic and social challenges including business closures, job losses, lost livelihoods, and losing people who move off island to find work.

To support the 738 local businesses in their recovery, Resilient Ready delivered a 15-month project to co-design the ‘Kangaroo Island Business Climate Roadmap’. This free digital resource sets the Kangaroo Island Business Hub up for the next 3 years to embed 16 risk reduction micro-learning module topics across the community.

This SAFECOM-funded project, delivered in collaboration with the South Australian Department for Industry, Innovation and Science includes an innovative approach to community consultation, capturing lived experiences of 16 local businesspeople and launching the Roadmap with global resilience expert Professor Daniel Aldrich at the airport.

Optimism and hope - building resilience after the South Australian Black Summer bushfires.

Department of Primary Industries and Regions
South Australia

The summer of 2019/20 saw the South Australian Government respond to multiple and concurrent bushfire events – namely Kangaroo Island, Cudlee Creek, Keilira and Yorketown, collectiveley an estimated 187,000 hectares of primary production land was burnt.

On farm losses were estimated to be $186.5 million and stock losses were ~70,000 livestock, much of this on Kangaroo Island. The ~60,000 livestock lost on Kangaroo Island represents the largest loss of livestock nationally for any single fire during the 2019/20 fire season.

Working in partnership with key industry bodies PIRSA designed a recovery program that supported people get back to business and build long term resilience.

The $19.28 million local economic recovery primary production sector (LER PPS) program was announced in February 2021. This program is complex and consists of 4 major projects across 27 initiatives. The focus of this nomination is the significant resilience outcomes resulting from this work.

Principal Connection Days

NSW Department of Education, Rural Regional Remote Education Policy
New South Wales

Bushfires, floods, drought, mouse plagues and COVID-19 have meant a tough couple of years for many regional, rural and remote schools in NSW. School leaders in these areas were actively seeking high-quality, face-to-face professional learning to build staff capacity around resilience and wellbeing. Recognising this need, the department developed resilience-focused workshops for a number of regional and remote locations across the state. Held over 2 days, the face-to-face professional learning focuses on strengthening networks and building resilience within schools. The workshops provide an opportunity for principals and school leaders to focus on how to support themselves as school leaders, as well as staff, students and their broader communities.

The workshops were open to school principals, or an appropriate delegate based in regional, rural and remote schools.

ReGroup: Community-led Recovery. Evidence, dimensions and supports for Community Recovery Committees

The University of Melbourne
Victoria

Community matters when it comes to disaster recovery and an important element of this are Community-led Recovery Committees or groups. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that often these groups have difficulties with regards to burnout, navigating bureaucratic red tape and finding consensus on purpose or representativeness of the group. While government is enthusiastic about community-led approaches to disaster recovery, there are gaps in evidence on how to best support these initiatives. Our project aimed to address the knowledge gap around Community Recovery Committees and come up practical tools and resources to better support CRCs. Our project also aims to help local and state government officials better understand how to best support CRCs.

Resilient Homes Fund, Disaster Resilience Program

Department of Energy and Public Works and Queensland Reconstruction Authority
Queensland

Through the ‘power of many’¹, Queensland homeowners have been empowered to prepare for and recover quickly from future flooding events – significantly reducing the effort, cost and time to return people to their homes following a flood.

The $741 million Reslient Homes Fund is the first household resilience program of its kind to be offered in Australia and has the potential to change Queenslanders’ lives and improve the state’s resilience to flooding.

This innovative Fund is setting a nationwide standard for a household resilience program that keeps Queenslanders safe and builds homes back, stronger.

_{1. Whitmanm N 2010, ‘The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life’, Crown Business.}

Suburban Land Agency's Your Resilient Home

Suburban Land Agency
Australian Capital Territory

The Suburban Land Agency’s 'Your Resilient Home' guide is an innovative and comprehensive resource aimed at empowering homeowners to create resilient homes that can withstand and recover from disasters and emergencies.

The guide offers practical and actionable information, guiding homeowners through a step-by-step process to assess risks, design and construct resilient homes and gardens.

'Your Resilient Home' equips homeowners with the knowledge and tools to mitigate risks, reduce vulnerabilities, and enhance the resilience of their homes. By implementing the guide's recommendations, homeowners can protect their families and property, reduce reliance on emergency services, and contribute to overall community resilience.

Our project is relevant and timely, considering the increasing frequency and severity of disasters in Australia. The guide is practical and collaborative, with a focus on empowering individuals and communities. Ultimately, our aim is to empower the community, as we work together to build a more resilient Australia.

Tasmanian Strategic Flood Map - Risk Assessment (TSFM-RA)

Tasmania State Emergency Service
Tasmania

The Tasmanian Strategic Flood Map Risk Assessment (TSFM – RA) builds on the Tasmanian Strategic Flood Map (TSFM) digital twin, so that for the first time Tasmania has a digital twin for strategic flood risk assessment. The TSFM-RA and GIS toolset are changing the way that Tasmania SES assesses flood consequences and prototypes options for flood policy development, planning and management decisions.

The TSFM-RA integrates TSFM models with land-use and vulnerability data to assess flood risk at a strategic scale. Automated GIS-based processes are used to perform complex multi-scale risk profiling. The final overlay provides an ordinal assessment of risk, which will define areas where flood risk is acceptable, tolerable, and not acceptable. To complement the spatial products, outputs include a simulated impact assessment and risk summary for each impacted human settlement area across Tasmania.

The TSFM-RA is a beta system, with plans in place to evolve into an established capacity.

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Finalists

As One Nyitting Limited – Using Ancient Technology in contemporary land management

As One Nyitting
Western Australia

The power of First Nation knowledge is awe-inspiring and its durability speaks to the strength, resilience and ingenuity of First Nation peoples on Noongar Boodja. As One Nyitting has been handed down a protected Cultural location from their Ancestors to care for in Gidgegannup, Western Australia. Close to ancient sacred sites, the block holds 170 hectares of bushland surrounded by state forest. In 2020, Nyitting Naturescape (NN), home of the Nyingarn, was devastated by fires that swept through from Woorooloo to Gidgegannup. This disaster has provided a unique opportunity to nurture the land back to health by regenerating the land utilising Ancient technologies, which have proven to be sustainable for over 60 thousand years. NN allows for the engagement of the First nation community to share their knowledge and to educate the non-First nation community to utilise ancient technology in contemporary land management.

CALD Communities Resilience to Risk Project

Multicultural Communities Council of SA (MCCSA)
South Australia

The Increasing CALD Communities Resilience to Risk project, funded by the South Australian Fire and Emergency Services Commission, aims to enhance disaster resilience in CALD communities. The project, led by the Multicultural Communities Council of South Australia (MCCSA) and state control agencies, has established a network of bilingual communicators from various communities. These communicators promptly inform communities about disasters and engage them in risk reduction efforts. They receive comprehensive training on Disaster Risk Reduction, enabling effective communication about disaster risks and community involvement. The project aligns with national and state disaster resilience strategies, addressing climate change and natural disasters. By disseminating educational materials and multimedia resources, the project increases awareness and understanding of emergencies among CALD communities. It empowers them to respond effectively and extends the reach of government emergency messaging to vulnerable groups. Ultimately, the project plays a pivotal role in building a more resilient society in South Australia.

Operation Green Shoots@Charleston

Charleston Community Centre Incorporated
South Australia

Charleston is a small town in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. The park precinct was gifted to the people of Charleston in the late 1880s by Charles Newman.The Charleston Community Centre Inc is a thriving hub for many activities and recreation within the local community. The devastating Cudlee Creek fires threatened the township of Charleston, leaving much loss in its wake. As a response to this disaster the Charleston Community Centre Inc brought together community members to form the Charleston Response and Recovery Group (CERRG) to provide oversight and direction to develop and instigate a community led emergency response plan, education programs, infrastructure and ongoing funding and development opportunities. We seek to build social capital and resilience in our community to prepare for a sustained recovery from extreme emergencies and natural disasters by providing physical, mental and emotional support through community programs and projects.

Reclaim by RANT Arts

RANT Arts
Tasmania

Reclaim is Devonport’s signature Youth Week Tasmania event featuring a series of activities that celebrate, showcase and empower young people from the North West Coast. In recent years North West Tasmania has experienced significant natural disasters which have severely impacted our community.

In 2019-21, along with the rest of the world, we experienced the hardships of COVID. Then in late 2021, in the wake of COVID isolation, the North West Community experienced the devastating Hillcrest Primary School tragedy. This was followed in 2022 by severe flooding which devastated our community once again.

Tasmania’s North West is a community in recovery. Reclaim contributes to our region’s recovery by providing opportunities for our community’s youth and families to come together and celebrate the spirit and talents of young people from North West Tasmania. This in turn enhances social well-being and builds our community resilience.

Sarsfield Snaps

Sarsfield Community Association
Victoria

Sarsfield Snaps, a community-led photography project, emerged immediately after the 2020 bushfires in East Gippsland to provide children and young people aged 3-18 years with an opportunity to share their perspective of the disaster. From a small beginning, the project evolved to support almost 70 children and young people across seven townships.

During this time, the photographers:

• developed their photography skills
• grown in independence and confidence
• developed new friendships
• deepened connections with their community
• exhibited their work locally in multiple locations
• exhibited at Melbourne Zoo
• participated in media interviews, podcasts, and state-wide forums
• produced calendars
• created care packs for students affected by bushfires in Europe
• published a photography book
• created tiles to be mounted at a new community centre.

Many photographers have reflected that Sarsfield Snaps has strengthened their relationship with the environment and the people around them.

Whole of community resilience in the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria

Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation
Queensland

By working together, a group of inspirational and caring locals including Carpentaria Land Council Aboriginal Corporation’s (CLCAC) officers, Indigenous Rangers, and Rural Fire Service volunteers rallied to help their communities to respond, recover, and be resilient following the Monsoon and flooding in March 2023.
While these remote communities are regularly impacted by monsoonal rains and flooding, this devastating disaster resulted in waters rising to unprecedented levels. The majority of Burketown's 150 residents had to be evacuated when the Albert River reached over 7 metres, exceeding the 2011 record flood level of 6.78m. About 40 Burketown houses were inundated with flood water.

The region and its communities heavily rely on local responses and local knowledge and CLCAC’s Burketown based Gangalidda & Garawa Rangers have been instrumental in the preparedness, response, recovery and resilience of these communities, making significant contributions using their traditional and local knowledge and training skills and resources.

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Finalists

Climate Change Your Tune

Living School
New South Wales

Born as a message of action in the catastrophic aftermath of the 2022 Lismore floods, Climate Change Your Tune is an initiative that endeavours to give a voice to children facing the increasingly severe impact and dangers of climate change. The initiative features an original song, composed by Year 6 students, that encourages all people to take action to protect our Earth so as to prevent further natural disasters from occurring. Inspired by SDG 13, Climate Action, this song speaks specifically to the people who are not playing their part in preventing further catastrophe, urging them to change their tune. After experiencing the Lismore floods, losing homes, businesses and their school, the students wanted to take effective and immediate action, creating a campaign to add as many voices to the choir as possible, knowing that many voices are louder than one. Often ignored, they needed to be heard.

Port School 'Resilient and Ready' Program

Port School
Western Australia

The Port School 'Resilient and Ready' program equips young people from vulnerable communities with the necessary skills to understand and engage with the growing risks and impacts of natural disasters. By enhancing their resilience, response, and recovery abilities, the program empowers them to actively contribute to reducing disaster risks and impacts.

This innovative initiative brings together students of diverse ages and backgrounds, uniting them under a shared uniform and ethos. It exposes participants to the roles and responsibilities of volunteering in emergency services organisations, augmenting the community's ability to respond to disasters. The program imparts essential qualifications in fire extinguisher training and first aid and cultivates valuable soft skills such as leadership, communication, problem-solving, and empathy. Ultimately, the program equips young individuals to effectively deal with disasters and support their friends, families, and wider communities in preparing for and managing disaster situations.

Woodridge State High School Empowered, Resilient and World Changing!

Woodridge State High School
Queensland

The Woodridge State High School tree was planted 20 years ago and sits at the front of the high school. This tree has been a meeting place for the school and community for many years. Just like a tree’s growth and development so too has the Woodridge State High School been forced to grow and develop at a rapid rate.

In 2022 the high school faced many changes and challenges, but in the face of adversity the high school learnt to be resilient and learn to see the forest for the trees. The five core areas of resilience that Woodridge State High School focused on were the Human Element, Maintaining our Core Business, Shared Belief of High Expectations, Leveraging Change and Sustainability.

Due to multiple disasters including floods, COVID-19 and a tornado the Woodridge State High School and subsequent community has been forced rally together and change the way the school is run, and the students are educated and cared for. Changing their school timetables to be more flexible, integrating more technology into everyday education and being more opening to suggestion and feedback for educating students are among the many changes made.

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Finalists

A memorandum of understanding – facilitating community, resilience, and collaboration across borders.

Balonne Shire Council
Queensland

The border bubble concept gained attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as strict state boundaries were imposed. While many have moved on from this concept, the Town of Mungindi has embraced it, creating a unique collaboration across borders, and as result, building a resilient community.

Mungindi, with a population of 650, straddles the QLD-NSW border, and is divided by the Barwon River. It falls under the joint responsibility of Moree Plains Shire in NSW and Balonne Shire in Queensland. This town stands out as the only one in the southern hemisphere with the same name and postcode on both sides of the border.

Balonne and Moree have fostered a strong collaborative relationship in recent years, resulting in a joint project to provide Mungindi with a comprehensive service delivery model across state borders. All stakeholders played a crucial role in achieving the project's goals and strengthening the community’s resilience.

Moreton Bay Regional Council Places of Refuge

Moreton Bay Regional Council
Queensland

The Moreton Bay Region experienced historic levels of rainfall from late February to early March 2022 with many locations within the region recording 75% of their average annual rainfall within a three-day period. This significant event severely impacted the region with widespread flooding affecting many communities.

Moreton Bay Regional Council (MBRC) activated its’ disaster management arrangements to respond to the event. This included activating a number of ‘places of refuge’ (POR) in Council’s library buildings for impacted community members affected by the flooding. The libraries were seen as well-known community meeting points that cut across all demographics no matter your age, culture, religion or status and were not promoted as evacuation centres for temporary accommodation, but somewhere displaced people could receive the latest information, basic needs for life support (e.g. food, water), and, a friendly face or ear in a time of need.

The Paddock: The Goals

Buloke Shire Council
Victoria

In the aftermath of the Victorian October 2022 flood event, recovery efforts in the Buloke Shire faced a critical challenge with a volunteer fatigue epidemic. However, a transformative vodcast streamed live from a football ground in the Mallee has helped to realign their recovery journey goal posts, shifting their perspective through storytelling, reigniting community passion, sense of purpose, and desire to make a difference.

The launch of The Paddock: The Goals vodcast coincided with the commencement of the North Central League's football, netball, and hockey season, strategically leveraging the community’s deep-rooted active sports culture.

The vodcast brought together the six sporting communities of Birchip, Charlton, Donald, Nullawil, Sea Lake, and Wycheproof, which had all experienced the impact of the floods. Originally launched as a single episode, the vodcast's engagement reach went well beyond these sports grounds, prompting its extension to 10 episodes, further amplifying its community-building influence.

The Simtable Project

Ku-ring-gai Council
New South Wales

In 2019 Ku-ring-gai Council acquired a Simtable from America. Originally this technology was designed as a wildfire planning tool. Council staff explored the Simtables’ potential to engage residents most at risk of bushfire and encourage investment in resources for extreme weather resilience. Ku-ring-gai was the first Council in the world to adopt the Simtable into a structured community education resilience program. Typically urban interface residents underestimate their bushfire vulnerability and assign sole responsibility for risk management to a public authority. Functionally the Simtable is a dynamic portrayal of how fire behaviour is affected by slope, aspect, vegetation type, humidity, fuel dryness, wind speed and direction. The Simtable was integrated into Council's Climate Wise Communities workshops where it serves to vividly demonstrate the difficulty of accurately predicting bushfire behaviour. It challenges the assumption that a fire truck will assist them and focuses their attention on shared responsibility.

Upper Hunter Hall Crawl

Upper Hunter Shire Council
New South Wales

Imagine going back in time to the dance hall days, when the local hall was the epicentre of rural entertainment.

The Upper Hunter Hall Crawl was a series of 'shindigs' located in six quaint country halls across the shire. After the worst drought in eighty years, followed by some of the worst bushfires and floods our region has ever seen - and then COVID - it was time to bring the community together again.

We asked each of the communities what kind of 'shindig' they'd love to see in their old halls and we had some fabulous reactions! Some wanted bush poetry, others reminisced about rock and roll, lots requested country and a few suprised us saying - how about some opera or jazz!

With the help of a grant from the Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Fund (BCRRF) we were delighted that we were able to make it happen.

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Finalists

Harmony on Haig by RANT Arts

RANT Arts
Tasmania

In 2022 Harmony on Haig project saw a renewed partnership between RANT Arts and Migrant Resource Centre Northern Tasmania allowing friendships to continue between participants from Launceston’s Bhutanese community and broader community via a series of creative workshops planned to garner community drawings for a co-created outside wall mural for MRC’s Harmony Building in Mowbray.

Co-creation of the mural was guided by designers T3D, an artistic partnership who collaborate with artists, architects, fabricators and building users, to create site specific artworks. Workshops included a social component and celebrated diversity via a cultural exchange featuring food and sharing of stories.

Harmony on Haig aimed to build community resilience by fostering social connections which benefited participant mental health and wellbeing by reducing cultural and social isolation.

NTPFES Wellbeing Project

Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency Services
Northern Territory

The Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency Services (NTPFES) Wellbeing Project is a transformative initiative focused on enhancing the wellbeing of our employees and volunteers, and their families. By prioritising their wellbeing, we create a supportive work environment that promotes resilience, mental health awareness and shared experiences.

This project ensures that our people are mentally and emotionally equipped to provide the highest level of service to the community, particularly our first responders. By investing in their wellbeing, we empower them to effectively respond to emergencies and protect the public.

Additionally, this initiative has the potential to inspire the emergency management and resilience sector. Through the implementation of the NTPFES Wellbeing Project, we set a precedent for other organisations to prioritise mental health. This project highlights the significance of fostering a culture of wellbeing within first responder agencies, establishing a new standard for excellence in the emergency management field.

Southern Aurora Memorial

Southern Aurora Memorial Committee
Victoria

The Southern Aurora train disaster at Violet Town shook the nation, after 9 people died, and most passengers and railway staff were physically injured.

This unique project commemorates 'hundreds of people helping hundreds of strangers' and acknowledges human values on display in an emergency. The complex fire-fighting, search, rescue and responses involved locals, mainly volunteers, who saved and cared for the injured and distressed.

Recovery continues for many people traumatised by the collision and aftermath. At that time there was no counselling processes, nor understanding of the long-term impacts of a significant disaster. The Southern Aurora Memorial project uses a range of art, design and information thus providing opportunities for remembering, reflection, interaction and learning in a large meditative garden space. That is complemented by appropriate social media, information and local interaction.

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Resilient Australia National Photography Award

Finalists

Bushfire Sunset

Omor Robin
Queensland

Family matters

Blair Horgan
Tasmania

A new dawn!

Paul Lloyd
New South Wales

Firefront approaching

Sean Blocksidge
Western Australia