Distribution businesses annually attest to the Minister for Energy and Resources. The attestation should include specific reference to, but not limited to: Participation in Regional Emergency Management Planning Committees and Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committees to support response planning for areas at high risk of prolonged power outages.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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.

That the Department of Health & Human Services uses Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority Computer Aided Dispatch data to report ambulance emergency response time performance. 

That Ambulance Victoria:
- reassesses the current structured call-taking script
- develops a single structured call-taking script for Triple Zero calls.

That the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority includes Victoria State Emergency Service vehicle capability details in the Computer Aided Dispatch database.

That Emergency Management Victoria expedites the expansion of the Rural Mobile Radio network to all emergency services organisations.

That the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, assisted by the Inspector-General for Emergency Management and responder agencies, improves the process for changing call-taking and dispatch procedures by comprehensively appraising the costs, benefits and operational impacts of these changes and agreeing a plan for their implementation with all affected agencies.

That Emergency Management Victoria novates the head contract for the StateNet Mobile Radio network to the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority.

That Victoria Police implements the recommendations relating to protective services officers in the Service Demand and Dispatcher Capacity Analysis dated September 2013 and:
- works with the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority to implement revised Metropolitan Mobile Radio channel arrangements to reduce the impact of protective services officer usage on other police users 
- investigates the use of smart devices and applications for protective services officers to minimise their use of the Metropolitan Mobile Radio network for routine enquiries.

the state ensure that interoperable information management practices are developed and implemented by emergency management agencies. Common systems should be utilised to the fullest extent possible.

the state ensure that common and interoperable resource management systems are developed and implemented by emergency management agencies. Common systems should be utilised to the fullest extent possible.

the state commit to securing effective multi-agency interoperable communications as a high level priority and that all future communications projects and upgrades incorporate compliance provisions mandating interoperability requirements.

the state develop an efficient process to ensure that, during flood events, temporary construction of flood mitigation works, such as levees, is controlled so as not to unacceptably impact on flood intelligence.

the state ensure: • a common, functional and accessible system be introduced to enable effective Municipal Emergency Coordination Centre and Incident Control Centre communications • a regime of regular Municipal Emergency Coordination Centre exercising is introduced with oversight by an appropriate independent body. Such exercising should include testing of systems utilised for Incident Control Centre and Municipal Emergency Coordination Centre communications • those required to perform Emergency Management Liaison Officer roles have undertaken appropriate training; and • resource requesting arrangements are clarified and documented so that control and coordination functions do not overlap.

The Fire Services move towards a common and more disciplined approach to fireground communications.

The Fire Services introduce systems, procedures and operational training that promote information sharing and consistent situational awareness at every level, including to and from the fireground. This should include agencies such as police members on duty at roadblocks

The Fire Services investigate the reported technical communication issues for this fire

The Country Fire Authority review and improve its communications strategy as a matter of priority and develop a program for identifying and responding to black spots in radio coverage.

That when Incident Management Teams implement significant changes to objectives and strategies, these are effectively communicated to firefighters, fire ground supervisors and affected communities, and are incorporated into the broader organisational planning. 

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.

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.