COAG meeting reviews Australia’s disaster management and critical infrastructure protection arrangements

The latest meeting of COAG (the Council of Australian Governments) took place in Queensland on Monday 7th December 2009. Among many items on the agenda were reviews of Australia’s disaster management and critical infrastructure protection arrangements:

Natural disaster arrangements
Following decisions at its 30th April 2009 meeting, COAG agreed to a range of measures to improve Australia’s natural disaster arrangements. Given the expected increased regularity and severity of natural disasters arising from extreme weather events, governments recognise that a national, coordinated and cooperative effort is required to strengthen Australia’s capacity to withstand and recover from emergencies and disasters. COAG therefore agreed to a new whole-of-nation, ‘resilience’ based approach to natural disaster policy and programs, which recognises that a disaster resilient community is one that works together to understand and manage the risks that it confronts.

COAG agreed to a range of measures to improve Australia’s natural disaster arrangements through more efficient and effective funding arrangements for natural disaster mitigation, relief and recovery; strengthened coordination and partnership between the Commonwealth and State governments in preparation for, and in response to, disasters; and the introduction of a framework for improving the interoperability of radio-communications equipment used by emergency services.

COAG also noted recent actions taken by the Commonwealth and State governments to improve national capabilities for responding to disasters.

Critical infrastructure protection
COAG noted that the effective protection of critical infrastructure is reliant on a strong, collaborative partnership between governments and critical infrastructure owners and operators.

COAG noted that there are areas of common government responsibility where critical infrastructure activities need to be closely co-ordinated. To help achieve this improved co-ordination, COAG agreed to create a new committee, the National Critical Infrastructure Resilience Committee, both as a national co-ordination mechanism for critical infrastructure resilience, as well as to enhance and replace existing co-ordination mechanisms.

The National Critical Infrastructure Resilience Committee will develop working relationships with relevant Ministerial Councils and Committees, and undertake further work in relation to the roles and responsibilities of respective governments as they relate to the concept of ‘critical infrastructure resilience.’

More details (PDF)

•Date: 8th Dec 2009• Region: Australia •Type: Article •Topic: DR general
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