The committee recommends that the Australian Climate Service and the National Emergency Management Agency work with all levels of government and industry to establish and maintain a national disaster risk map and database, covering all types of natural disasters in Australia, which is accessible to the public.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet include in the Australian Government Crisis Management Handbook criteria for the publication of plans to appropriately inform stakeholders of crisis arrangements.

That the Australian Government require all publicly funded climate models to be published on the National Computing Infrastructure with minimal restrictions, to encourage wide reuse and scientific scrutiny.

That the Australian Government require the National Emergency Management Agency make its data and products opensource and accessible to government and the public wherever possible.

That the Australian Government formalise the National Partnership for Climate Projections as a sub-committee to the Adaptation Working Group and support it through the National Climate Service with appropriate resources to drive the broader co-ordinated work program and achieve national participation.

That the Australian Government establish an appropriate data solution (e.g. a data platform) to publish climate and hazard data; enable federated data curation including for domain data; support access for a broad range of data providers and public; create data insights and publish information as needed.

That the National Climate Service Improve access and usability of climate information by making Commonwealth-funded products free and open-source by default.

That the Australian Government develop a long-term national strategy and funding approach for computational infrastructure and data storage for climate data and modelling.

That the National Climate Service establish and grow a knowledge brokering service that assists users to find the data, information and advice needed to resolve their climate questions and understand the uncertainty inherent in climate models.

That the National Climate Service develop robust quality assurance processes for data, tools, information and services provided by the National Climate Service and made available on the climate information portal.

That the National Climate Service 5.2 establish a portal for climate information, products and services sourced from across a range of quality assured providers that:
5.2.1. gradually builds over time a library of open-source climate information products and services
5.2.2. provides publicly available, up-to-date climate information for Australia (including states and territory regions and coastal zones, Australia’s oceanic Exclusive Economic Zone and external territories)
5.2.3. presents information in easy-to-understand ways with a variety of formats for download and visualisation
5.2.4. includes external, reputable information from up-to-date sources domestically and around the world, including from other national and transnational climate services.

That the National Climate Service promote data standards to integrate and connect data from different fields, aligned with international best practice.

That the Australian Government require, and fund as necessary, the responsible agencies to uplift natural hazard data inputs to a level required by the National Climate Service and the National Emergency Management Agency, with co-ordination of data for emergency management (e.g. hazard extent mapping, forecasting and tracking of historical events) to be managed by National Emergency Management Agency and hazard projections to be co-ordinated by the National Climate Service.

That the National Climate Service conduct a gap analysis of Australia’s climate data and information needs and user literacy and refresh this regularly.

That the Australian Government signal to partners and suppliers that the National Climate Service is open to collaborating and data sharing

The Committee recommends the Australian Securities and Investments Commission consider seeking data from insurers on their performance based on the metrics recommended in Recommendation 51:
- Quarterly, for business-as-usual operations
- Monthly, for each declared event.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the General Insurance Code Governance Committee share data so that it is possible to evaluate breaches of the General Insurance Code of Practice in the context of an insurers’ overall claims profile.

The Committee recommends the Australian Government and Insurance Council of Australia explore measures to facilitate the exchange of substantiated information about the resilience of a property to insurers, including new mitigation measures undertaken through state-based grant and loan programs.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) appropriately use powers that it has as a result of the removal of the exemption of claims handling of insurance products under the Corporations Act 2001. The Committee notes that ASIC has only recently been granted such powers and they are as yet untested.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government continue to work with the insurance industry through the Hazards Insurance Partnership to collate:
- data contained in the National Flood Information Database, and
- household-level data held by insurers (de-identified where appropriate).

The Committee recommends that the General Insurance Code Governance Committee publish aggregate data on code breaches by clause, individual insurer, and brand.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government ultimately move towards a national, centralised, public-facing portal containing flood risk data at the household level for:
- all households and small businesses across Australia, and
- all land being considered for release for development and all land that has been released for development, but not yet developed.
Agencies tasked with developing the portal should reflect upon governments’ past efforts to develop similar portals and lessons learnt. The portal should be easily accessible, user friendly and display high-quality flood risk information in a way that is readily understandable to communities. That before data is released on such a portal for existing properties (residential and small business), that the entity creating the flood study release that data through a staged process involving appropriate community consultation and engagement.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government work with state and territory governments to ensure flood maps are produced to a high standard across the nation, regardless of the size of the local government area producing the modelling. This may require:
- increased funding for local government areas and water authorities, and
- the development of agreed standards to ensure that flood mapping is completed to at least an agreed minimum standard.
That, over time, this higher quality flood modelling be made freely accessible to homeowners and the general public along with easy to understand information about flood risk exposures at each property. This may be best undertaken in the first instance by local councils and/or water authorities responsible for generating the flood modelling, consistent with Recommendation 3 of the Actuaries Institute’s Funding for Flood Costs report (August 2023).

The Commonwealth should prioritise its data coordination efforts, including the provision of timely decision relevant information to assist decision makers to manage their risks and satisfy their disaster management objectives.
- Relevant data includes disaster risk information, climate hazard impact, capability and capacity information and vulnerability data.
-The data provided should be in a format that is usable by decision makers across all levels of government.

The Minister for Emergency Management should deliver an annual Statement to Parliament that:
- Defines the Commonwealth’s role in prioritising risk reduction, prevention, resilience, and mitigation against natural disasters.
- Outlines the national natural disaster risk reduction investment priorities.
- Reports against nationally agreed natural disaster risk reduction and resilience investment outcomes.
- Updates Parliament on the progress of disaster impacted communities where Commonwealth programs and investment are involved.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government work with state, territory and local governments and road agencies, including Austroads and the National Transport Research Organisation, to address existing road asset data gaps by developing a comprehensive understanding of the road network condition and standardised road asset dataset, with agreement on the following:
- a common definition of road asset data
- a consistent format across road asset data collection and storage.

The Committee recommends that clearer demarcation of climate data and sharing responsibilities between the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and state and territory and local governments be established to facilitate adequate warning and risk mitigation.

For future emergency response programs, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water develop requirements for service provider reporting that enables output and outcome data to be compared or aggregated to provide assessment of progress at the program level.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water develop a stakeholder engagement plan, including maintaining an up-to-date list of stakeholders, to ensure appropriate engagement in future wildlife and habitat disaster recovery programs.

Each jurisdiction should be allowed a maximum of three senior officials on ANZEMC to enable the inclusion of these jurisdictional responsibilities (see Appendix F for Summary of State and Territory responsibilities).

ANZEMC’s Terms of Reference should be amended to reflect the recommendations above.

NEMMM should co-convene a joint Ministerial Council meeting with climate change adaptation ministers to promote greater coherence between NEMMM’s resilience work and climate adaptation—two key components of a future national resilience strategy. This should be a face-to-face meeting.

The government members of ANZEMC should be senior officials (Commissioners, Deputy Secretaries or Heads of Agencies) from agencies that have the lead jurisdictional responsibility for preparedness and response and resilience and recovery.

ANZEMC should map out the many existing time-limited working groups and reference and advisory groups and the communities of practice, to identify which are no longer required and should be discontinued, which should continue and be officially sanctioned by ANZEMC, which should continue as informal interest groups, and to identify potential gaps.

The ANZEMC workplan and meeting agendas should be explicitly organised under two headings: “Disaster Resilience and Recovery” and “Preparedness and Capabilities Policy”.

The current ANZEMC Sub-committees and other subsidiary bodies should be reconceptualised as “communities of practice” and important sources of expert advice, rather than as national governance bodies.

ANZEMC’s core mission should be narrowed to:
1) Supporting the NEMMM, particularly to identify its five priorities for action and ensuring they are implemented; and
2) Providing a forum for key senior officials to address other nationally (e.g., cross- jurisdictionally) pressing, emerging and longer-term challenges.

ANZEMC should establish time-limited, flexible task forces, reporting directly to ANZEMC, to implement NEMMM’s five priorities for action and essential other initiatives, comprised of diverse membership (e.g., government, private sector, academia, civil society), determined by the requirements of the task.

Given the importance of NEMMM’s work, meetings should occur quarterly and be in-person at least twice yearly, be of sufficient length to allow for issues to be properly canvassed and discussed and be preceded by an opportunity for the NEMMM members to meet informally alone together.

ANZEMC should meet four times each year, including twice face-to- face, with one of the in-person meetings devoted predominantly to “Disaster Resilience and Recovery.” The face-to-face meetings should be preceded by an opportunity for the ANZEMC members to meet informally.

NEMA with CCOSC should investigate ways to better integrate and align CCOSC and the NRSC with the national coordination capacity.
- This should include building on the existing arrangements in exceptional circumstances to outpost NRSC staff as liaison officers to the Australian Government National Situation Room.
- This should also include identifying event thresholds that would trigger the need for greater integration.

NEMMM agendas should ensure that discussion of urgent tactical challenges don’t crowd-out consideration of the strategic challenges.
- NEMMM should request ANZEMC, facilitated by NEMA, to conduct “stress-testing” scenario planning of the consequences (e.g., exhausted emergency workers, insufficient emergency housing and shortages of trades people) of year-on-year increases in consecutive and intensifying national-scale disasters.

State and territory governments should provide further community education on the function and limitations of different sheltering facilities, including evacuation centres, Neighbourhood Safer Places, places of last resort and natural disaster shelters. This education should be nationally consistent. 

The Australian Government should facilitate state and territory governments working together to develop minimum national standards of information to be included in bushfire warnings apps. 

Australian, state and territory governments should establish a national register of fire and emergency services personnel, equipment and aerial assets. 

State and territory governments should, as a priority, adopt nationally consistent terminology and functions for the different sheltering facilities, including evacuation centres, Neighbourhood Safer Places, places of last resort and natural disaster shelters. 

State and territory governments should urgently deliver and implement thevall-hazard Australian Warning System. 

The Australian Government should make provision, in legislation, for a declaration of a state of national emergency. The declaration should include the following components:
(1) the ability for the Australian Government to make a public declaration to communicate the seriousness of a natural disaster
(2) processes to mobilise and activate Australian Government agencies quickly to support states and territories to respond to and recover from a natural disaster, and
(3) the power to take action without a state or territory request for assistance in clearly defined and limited circumstances. 

Australian, state and territory governments should develop consistent processes for the classification, recording and sharing of fuel load data. 

State and territory governments should ensure that those responsible for evacuation planning periodically review those plans, and update them where appropriate, including in relation to:
(1) key risks that essential service outages have on communities during a severe or catastrophic natural disaster (particularly communications an
power)
(2) availability of essential supplies, including food and water, and
(3) consequence management and compounding events such as the loss of essential services or health impacts. 

State and territory governments should expedite the development and implementation of the Australian Fire Danger Rating System. It should ensure that there is national consistency in the visual display of the AFDRS and action to be taken in response to each rating. 

Australian, state and territory governments should continue to develop a greater capacity to collect and share standardised and comprehensive natural disaster impact data. 

Australian, state and territory governments should ensure greater consistency and collaboration in the collation, storage, access and provision of data on the distribution and conservation status of Australian flora and fauna. 

State and territory governments should ensure that those responsible for evacuation planning periodically review those plans, and update them where appropriate, including in relation to:
(1) roles and responsibilities of state and territory governments, local governments and local communities
(2) education and signage about evacuations and evacuation routes, including education of seasonal populations
(3) the adequacy of evacuation routes; including contingencies if evacuation routes or centres are assessed as not being able to cope, and
(4) the potential inability to evacuate, either by reason of circumstances or personal characteristics. 

State and territory governments should ensure those responsible for evacuation planning periodically review those plans, and update where appropriate, to provide for coordination between states and territories in cross border areas and to provide cross-border access to evacuation centres. 

Australian, state and territory governments should create common information platforms and share technologies to enable collaboration in the production, analysis, access, and exchange of information, data and knowledge about climate and disaster risks. 

Australian, state and territory governments should agree to: 
(1) develop consistent and compatible methods and metrics to measure health impacts related to natural disasters, including mental health, and 
(2) take steps to ensure the appropriate sharing of health and mental health datasets. 

State and territory governments should provide information to the public on the closure and opening of roads. Information should be provided in real-time, or in advance based on predictions, where possible. 

State and territory governments should ensure those responsible for evacuation planning periodically review these plans, and update them where appropriate, to account for the existence and standard of any evacuation centres and safer places (however described) in the community, including:
(1) the capacity of a centre to handle seasonal population variation
(2) the suitability of facilities to cater for diverse groups, including vulnerable people, and those evacuating with animals, and
(3) the existence of communications facilities and alternate power sources.

Australian, state and territory governments should prioritise the implementation of harmonised data governance and national data standards. 

Australian, state and territory governments should continue to explore the feasibility of a national, all-hazard emergency warning app. 

State and territory governments should include road closure and opening information on all roads within their borders on public apps. 

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority’s Director of Aviation Safety meet with industry sector leaders to jointly develop a plan for renewing a collaborative and effective Standards Consultative Committee.

The lines of responsibility be made clearer and some individual, perhaps the Regional Environmental Officer, or agency be given overarching responsibility to ensure recommended works related to bushfire mitigation on Defence Estate are carried out in accordance with the Bushfire Management Plan which the Manual for Fire Protection Engineering directs be prepared.

The Marrangaroo Training Area Regional Environmental Officer confer with the local Rural Fire Service at least annually and determine a hazard reduction regime capable of implementation. It is furter recommended all ranges be reviewed in relation to the same issue, that is, that personnel involved in the management of each range under Defence control be directed to confer with local firefighting authorities on at least an annual basis to assess hazard reduction responses to be pursued for that range in subsequent years. 

Range Control Officer Marrangaroo Training Area liase with the local Rural Fire Service units to develop a map indicating the areas of the range likely to contain unexploded ordnance. 

Governments should task the Australia–New Zealand Emergency Management Committee with leading the development of guidelines for the collection and dissemination of natural hazard mapping, modelling and metadata. Guidelines should be developed for all hazards that need to be modelled and mapped at the local/regional level and where consistency across regions is desirable.

Governments at all levels should make new and currently held natural hazard data publicly available in accordance with open public sector information principles. When collecting new natural hazard data or undertaking modelling, all levels of government should:
• make information publicly available unless it would not be in the public interest to do so
• use private-sector providers where cost effective, and use licencing arrangements that allow for public dissemination. Where there are costs involved in obtaining intellectual property rights for existing data, governments should weigh up these costs against the public benefits of making the data freely accessible
• apply cost recovery where governments are best placed to collect or analyse specialist data for which the benefits accrue mostly to private sector users.

The committee recommends that the Australian Transport Safety Bureau retrieve VH-NGA flight data recorders without further delay.

Governments and other stakeholders consider reviewing their existing emergency management arrangements to ensure public communications are clear and the public is kept informed of the incident response.

Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (DBCDE) to work with the Triple Zero Awareness Work Group through Australian Communications and Media Authority's (ACMA) Emergency Service Advisory Committee to review Triple Zero awareness messages with regard to telecommunications outages.

Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy will work with the Communications Sector Group within the Trusted Information Sharing Network to develop best practice guidance for owners of critical communications infrastructure regarding public messaging during a prolonged telecommunications outage covering:
- the provision of early and accurate advice to the community;
- the dissemination of information to business, government, community service providers and critical industry sectors such as banks;
- engagement with emergency service providers and the appointed local incident manager;
- public communications over radio, by personal contact etc. - avoiding a reliance on phone and internet;
- communications with other wholesale providers including on matters dealing with compensation;
- public notices, such as the use of prominent notices on websites, explaining the outage to customers and clients outside the affected area; and
- the use of recorded voice announcements to inform incoming callers of the outage.

The Australian Government, in consultation with consumers and other relevant federal, state and territory agencies, develop a national communication strategy for consumers to be used in the event of an infectious disease outbreak.

The committee recommends that Australian governments specifically address issues of compatibility and capacity to facilitate the most effective interoperability of emergency service organisations and their key personnel, especially for fire services.

Increased automation and outsourcing of observations

The committee recommends the government consider granting public broadcasters priority access to fuel during times of emergency for the purpose of broadcasting emergency warnings and information, and in a way that does not impede the ability of emergency service organisations to access fuel.

NOPSA’s prohibition powers should be extended such that a prohibition notice can be issued where a NOPSA Occupational Health and Safety Inspector believes, on reasonable grounds, that an activity is occurring or may occur at a facility involving an immediate threat to the health or safety of a person.

The Commonwealth Government work with the states and their agencies to ensure consistent terminology is used when communicating with the public.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government establish a National Coastal Zone Database to improve access to and consistency of information relevant to coastal zone adaptation. The National Coastal Zone Database should be an online portal that allows ready access to:
- ‘first pass’ National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment data
- state and local Digital Elevation Modelling
- National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility reports
- federal Local Adaptation Pathways Program reports
- state and local coastal vulnerability assessment results

The Committee recommends that the Department of Climate Change share all data collected through vulnerability assessments undertaken as part of the Australian Government Local Adaptation Pathways Program on the proposed National Coastal Zone Database (see also recommendation 42).

The Committee recommends that the National Coastal Zone Database be expanded over time to include information on environmental data and management and planning information relevant to the coastal zone.

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, through the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ensure that:
- accurate and consistent methods of measuring the numbers and the impact of tourists and other non-residents in coastal areas are undertaken to enable resources to be better matched with demand for infrastructure and services
- improved data on long-term demographic trends in coastal areas is made available to assist in coastal zone planning and management

The ANAO recommends that the Attorney-General’s Department, in consultation with the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the National Counter-Terrorism Committee, seek to create systematic mechanisms for better targeting and evaluating inter- agency coordination within the National Capability Development Exercise Programme and continuous improvement cycle.

The Working Group recommends that Emergency Management Australia (EMA) facilitate national discussions into the capability of States/Territories to ensure thorough collaborative systems and plans for inter-jurisdictional resource interoperability exist, and where this has not already occurred at State/Territory level and appropriate agencies, committees or government departments can be identified, they should be tasked with progressing specific issues in the following areas:
• Communications equipment
• Landline and mobile telephones
• Response equipment
• National registration of health and other professionals
• Legal consistency in State/Territory disaster/emergency legislation and any other legislation that impacts upon the ability to deliver a national response to catastrophic disasters
• National resource sharing arrangements
• Acceptance and utilisation of international resources.

The Working Group recommends that the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department hold discussions with the Commonwealth Department of Communications, Information, Technology and the Arts regarding the Integrated Public Telephone Network Database (IPND) being made accessible for use in times of emergency where the need to disseminate community information and warnings to telephones within a specified area is identified. Discussions should also be held between the Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department and with the Federal Privacy Commissioner’s Office to identify any impediments to the use of the IPND in such circumstances. 

The Committee recommends that the 1:100,000 national mapping program be accelerated to achieve an average life of no greater than 10 years with priority given to those areas most susceptible to national disasters.

The Committee recommends that Emergency Management Australia be required to participate in the development and delivery of spatial information systems as part of a national approach to emergency planning and management data. The first priority in policy development and of systems should be related to bushfire hazards.

The Committee recommends that the Australasian Fire Authorities Council’s suggested evacuation protocol be adopted by all of the Australian States and Territories.

The Committee recommends that Geoscience Australia take responsibility, in conjunction with Emergency Management Australia, for developing a national spatial data policy to coordinate the development of data systems, the collection of data and the sharing of data between all the emergency response agencies across Australia, and that both agencies participate in the development and delivery of spatial information
systems as part of a national approach to emergency planning and management data. The first priority in policy development and of systems should be related to bushfire hazards.

The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth investigate, and where necessary, require the urgent enhancement of the provision of emergency power and telecommunications services for the purpose of
restoring essential services expeditiously in areas affected by fire or other natural disaster and where necessary to place licence requirements on telecommunication providers to do so.

The Committee recommends that the state and territory bushfire agencies ensure that, on a district basis, communications are addressed within the district operations plans and that the plans are capable of easy adoption to incident action plans.

The Committee recommends that Emergency Management Australia and the Australian Communications Authority work with state and territory bush fire authorities to ensure that that district communication plans
have regard for the amount of radio traffic that may be generated under the most severe conditions.

The Committee recommends that:
- As a short term objective, the use of ‘40’ channel UHF CB equipment be adopted for coordination and interoperability of communications at fire ground level.
- As a longer term objective a national communications plan be developed and incorporate the provision of low powered VHF channel allocations for the purpose of ensuring compatible fire ground communications between all agencies on a national basis.
- That the use of UHF CB between units on the fire ground be included in communications planning for intra-state and interstate deployments.