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 prepare a workforce plan and resulting recruitment and training to build strong capabilities in climate services, knowledge brokering, communication and user engagement.

That the Australian Government review ACS initiatives and work program and decide which should be continued to support the planned National Climate Service's scope and objectives. Start a phased wind back (over 4 years) of the funding commitments to ACS partners.

The Committee recommends that insurers devote additional resources to providing vulnerable customers with assistance. Insurers should evaluate the effectiveness of this assistance after each declared event.

The Committee recommends, in alignment with recommendation 3 of the 2023 Deloitte report, that insurers be required to build into their staff resourcing plans, strategies to adequately increase resourcing for key services, including call centre and claims management staff, when significant or catastrophic events occur.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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

Australian, state and territory governments should develop an Australian-based and registered national aerial firefighting capability, to be tasked according to greatest national need. This capability should include:
(1) a modest, very large air tanker/large air tanker, and Type-1 helicopter capability, including supporting infrastructure, aircrew and aviation support personnel, and
(2) any other aerial firefighting capabilities (eg Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), line-scanning, transport, and logistics) that would benefit from a nationally coordinated approach. 

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority establishes small offices at specific industry centres to improve monitoring, service quality, communications and collaborative relationships.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority changes its organisational structure to a client-oriented output model.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau transfers its safety education function to the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

The next Director of Aviation Safety has leadership and management experience and capabilities in cultural change of large organisations. Aviation or other safety industry experience is highly desirable.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority applies a project management approach to the completion of all Civil Aviation Safety Regulation Parts not yet in force, with drafting to be completed within one year and consultation completed one year later, with:
a. a Steering Committee and a Project Team with both CASA and industry representatives
b. implementation dates established through formal industry consultation.

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 Civil Aviation Safety Authority establishes a safety oversight risk management hierarchy based on a categorisation of operations. Rule making and surveillance priorities should be proportionate to the safety risk.

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. 

The committee recommends that all meetings between the ATSB and CASA, whether formal or informal, where particulars of a given investigation are being discussed be appropriately minuted.

The committee recommends that an expert aviation safety panel be established to ensure quality control of ATSB investigation and reporting processes along the lines set out by the committee.

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.

Licensees and rig operators should be astute in ensuring that corporate systems and culture encourage rather than discourage raising of well control issues. For instance, do performance bonuses or rewards actually encourage or discourage reporting of issues? Is there a system in place to enable anonymous reporting of well control concerns? What whistleblower protections are in place?

Supervision/oversight of well control operations (within licensees, rig operators and by regulators) must occur without assuming adherence to good oilfield practice. The opposite assumption should prevail: namely adherence to good oilfield practice may well be compromised by the pursuit of time and cost savings.

Achievement and maintenance of well control should be written into the job responsibilities of key personnel, at every level up to and including CEOs. That is, a functional line of accountability for well control must exist up to, and including, CEOs.

Achievement and maintenance of well control should be written into the job responsibilities of key personnel, at every level up to and including CEOs. That is, a functional line of accountability for well control must exist up to, and including, CEOs.

That National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority critically review its regulatory manning levels based on its current workload and the recommendations for additional areas of focus and increased auditing presented in this Report. To meet these requirements, we estimate that National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority requires up to 50 inspectors in total plus associated support staff to bring overall staffing from about 55 to 75. RET should help facilitate the necessary ongoing levy funding in consultation with industry.

That the officer responsible for the importation of horses ensure that:
(a) up-to-date copies of operating procedures or manuals setting out the procedures to be implemented are available both in soft-copy form on the AQIS intranet site and in hard-copy form at any premises where tasks associated with horse importation are ordinarily performed
(b) AQIS personnel involved in the importation of horses are trained in all relevant aspects of procedures relating to the importation of horses
(c) AQIS personnel taking up duties involving tasks related to horse importation and not having performed such tasks for more than 12 months undergo proper training in the relevant procedures before commencing their duties.

The ANAO recommends that EMA maintain the Internet site to ensure that material is appropriate, current and readily accessible for users.

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 Committee recommends that the Commonwealth seeks to ensure that the Council of Australian Governments implements arrangements in which greater flexibility is devolved to local brigade captains in the
issuing of permits to burn for fuel reduction and other purposes in the context of local fire management plans.

The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth seeks to ensure that the proposed Council of Australian Governments review of the bushfire management initiate with the states, as a priority, a review of the
responsibilities and potential liabilities of fire controllers with a view to developing principles of indemnification for reasonable, responsible and informed decision making. This review should extend to defining responsibility for occupational health and safety requirements in a way which allows practicable compliance where a reasonable degree of risk taking is urgently required to prevent the loss of life, property and environmental amenity from wildfire 

Effective planning, organisational and training capability be maintained at regional level and developed, as appropriate, for the future. [Reference paragraphs: 260 to 261]

There be a close integration of the responsibilities of the Minister under the State Disasters Act and the State Disaster Plan, thereby strengthening overall counter—disaster management, direction and control. To this end, the organisational arrangements shown in Annexures “J” and “K” should be adopted. The main features of these are:
• A Disasters Advisory Unit
• A State Disaster Committee
• A State Disaster Planning Committee, with an Executive Sub—Committee reporting direct to the Minister/Co—ordinator— in—Chief Ministerial responsibility for direction and control of counter—disaster preparedness, combat and relief activities. [Reference paragraphs: 264 to 285]