That the NSW Government introduce a formalised governance structure at the State level to provide leadership and better assist local coastal councils with the management of catchments, funding and administrative constraints in relation to their Coastal Management Plans.

That the NSW Reconstruction Authority continue to work with the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, NSW Treasury, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and the emergency services organisations under the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act 1989 to minimise any duplication and improve efficiency between the work of the Authority and these agencies, particularly with respect to disaster preparedness and mitigation activities, data, modelling and information sharing.

By December 2024, all audited agencies should: finalise evaluations of their role in the provision of emergency accommodation and temporary housing for the Northern Rivers and Central West flood events, and incorporate lessons learned into future planning and continuous improvement. These evaluations should be undertaken in conjunction with other agencies where appropriate.

By August 2024, the NSW Reconstruction Authority should develop a process for a state-wide recovery lessons learned process and facilitate this being completed each year in coordination with the State Recovery Committee.

By August 2024, the NSW Reconstruction Authority should develop a strategy to manage the transition of people into long-term accommodation, taking into account recommendations from relevant reviews

By August 2024, the NSW Reconstruction Authority should determine a timeline for demobilising the temporary housing villages and transitioning tenants out of temporary housing

By August 2024, the NSW Reconstruction Authority should review the temporary housing waitlist to determine the current extent of unmet need

By December 2024, all audited agencies should develop internal plans for implementing whole-of-government responsibilities under the Welfare Functional Area Supporting Plan and any plan developed as a result of recommendation one. This may include, as appropriate, the agency's:
- role in whole-of-government governance arrangements, including key interactions with other agencies
- procurement process, including analysis of appropriate options
- process for identifying appropriate sites for temporary housing
- relevant communication activities, including engagement with Aboriginal communities.

By August 2024, the NSW Reconstruction Authority should develop a whole of government plan for temporary housing to coordinate future temporary housing responses to emergency events

That NSW develop and prosecute with the Commonwealth Government a platform of priority initiatives and reforms the Commonwealth should pursue to better support emergency volunteering and build community capability, in partnership with other States and Territories.

The Minister for Emergency Services establish a new state-based emergency volunteering award, to improve recognition of emergency volunteers.

To promote integrity and transparency, the Department of Regional NSW should ensure that for all future grant programs it: ensures a communications plan is in place, including the communication of guidelines to potential applicants.

To promote integrity and transparency, the Department of Regional NSW should ensure that for all future grant programs it: establishes and follows guidelines that align with relevant good practice guidance including accountabilities, key assessment steps and clear assessment criteria.

To promote integrity and transparency, the Department of Regional NSW should ensure that for all future grant programs it: documents all key decisions and approvals in line with record keeping obligations. 

To promote integrity and transparency, the Department of Regional NSW should ensure that for all future grant programs it: ensures regular monitoring is in place as part of funding deeds.

To promote integrity and transparency, the Department of Regional NSW should ensure that for all future grant programs it: ensures staff declare conflicts of interest prior to the commencement of a grants stream, and that these conflicts of interest are recorded and managed.

Relief and recovery capability: The Inspector-General for Emergency Management recommends that Emergency Management Victoria and the entity referred to in Recommendation 13, or otherwise responsible government department – in collaboration with the relevant relief and recovery organisations:
(a) identify the core capabilities required for operational relief and recovery roles at state, regional and incident levels
(b) coordinate capability development opportunities to develop a consistent level of capability in relief and recovery for relevant agencies at the state, regional and incident levels.

That, in order to prioritise early suppression and keep fires small:
a) Government set a KPI for NPWS regarding the percentage of fires that start on-park and are contained within 10 hectares, and consider whether 70% is an appropriate KPI for the NSW RFS and NPWS
b) NSW fire authorities deploy remote area fire fighting resources based on enhanced research and predictive modelling. In some circumstances, this may require prioritising the deployment of RART to enable rapid initial attack of new remote area ignitions over ongoing suppression operations, where supported by a relative risk assessment.

That, to ensure updated resource-sharing arrangements are in place, the NSW and Victorian Governments progress and finalise a multi-agency Memorandum of Understanding before the 2020-21 fire season commences.

Implement a fully integrated civilianised single call and dispatch centre, that includes a redundancy option outside the Sydney CBD, which will adopt an agnostic approach to deploy the quickest most suitable resource to an emergency. Such a centre should be managed by either a non uniformed public servant staffed organisation like the Office for Emergency Management, or the NSW Police Force

I recommend that the Premier of New South Wales consider whether the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act 1998 and the Health Records and Information Privacy Act 2002 should be amended to ensure that there is appropriate access to health related information available to ASIO (consistent with recommendation 12 of the report of the Martin Place Siege Joint Commonwealth—New South Wales review)

I recommend that the New South Wales Police Force, in conjunction with NSW Health, establish a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre to identify and gather information about fixated persons, assess the risks they pose, and attempt to mitigate such risks through early intervention.

Government Communications Coordination
In future events, a more coordinated communications structure across Government, where
planned Government announcements relevant to the region in recovery are developed in
conjunction with the recovery team, would be beneficial to ensure recovery teams are aware
of, and can plan for, decisions that impact on the work of the recovery team.

That the NSW Government consider enabling the default position during catastrophic and extreme fire danger periods to be the same as for section 44 fires, so that fire control centres have the same systems and resources ready to deploy should a fire break out.

That the Rural Fire Service consider amending its fire prediction reports to include a checklist of significant factors that have not been able to be considered in the prediction model and a warning to be alert for them and seek intelligence on them from fire ground managers.

That during periods of ‘severe’ or worse fire conditions, that the National Parks and Wildlife Service consider adopting a posture of pre-emptive planning and deployment of incident management teams in national parks similar to the manner in which the Rural Fire Service does.

That in Class 3 fire-fighting operations, the Rural Fire Service consider including a fire behaviour analyst in the incident management team if feasible.

That the Department of Primary Industries address the forthcoming potential shortage of veterinary pathologists and agronomists within its testing facilities by positive recruitment actions over the next five years such as offering scholarships or training existing professional staff to develop skills in pathology.
The Committee encourages the Department to continue with these efforts to use the skills of private sector vets to strengthen the emergency response in the Australian Veterinary Reserve and the Accreditation Program for Australian Veterinarians.

All accredited rail organisations should be required to re-apply every three years to ITSRR for accreditation.

The incident command system should clearly identify the roles of the rail commander, site controller, police commander and commanders of the other emergency services, and the way in which each is to work together during the recovery phase of any rail accident.

The ITSRR should ensure that OTSI, as a division of ITSRR, co-operates and assists the ATSB in the conduct of any independent investigation by the ATSB of any rail accident or incident in New South Wales.

A designated staff member at the RMC should act as the rail emergency management co-ordinator. He or she should be the sole point of contact at the RMC with other rail personnel involved in the rail accident and emergency services personnel during the rescue phase of the emergency response.

The New South Wales Government should make the necessary arrangements with the Australian Government, including any necessary legislation, for the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to have the power to investigate all rail accidents occurring on the New South Wales rail network the investigation of which may advance the knowledge of the causes of rail accidents in Australia.

A direct line of communication should be established between the RMC and Emergency Services Operations Control Centre by a “tie line” or otherwise, so as to ensure that in the case of a serious rail accident there is an open line of communication between the officer in charge of the management of the incident at the RMC and the various emergency response services.

The rail commander should have complete authority to direct and control any rail employees attending the site of a rail accident, in accordance with directions given or arrangements put in place by the site controller, until the rescue phase of the emergency response to the rail accident has been completed.

The role of the rail commander should be to provide support and assistance to the site controller and emergency services personnel until the rescue phase of the emergency response to any rail accident is completed.