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:
- document a process for annual administrative updates that provides a consistent approach including ensuring appropriate records of engagement and input are maintained; and
- ensure significant issues are documented to be considered in comprehensive reviews of the AGCMF

The National Emergency Management Agency document its consideration of Crisis Arrangements Committee advice on gaps and priorities for whole-of-government exercising, as well as the annual analysis undertaken to review and update the list of identified hazards under AGCMF, to inform the development of the annual national exercise program. This should include ensuring that exercises consider both natural and all-hazard scenarios.

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

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 deliver National Climate Risk Assessments through the National Climate Service on a regular program, aligned to the Intergenerational Report.

That the Australian Government establish a mechanism within the National Climate Service to track user experience and satisfaction which gathers user needs and preferences, to guide the development of future products and services.

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 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 Australian Government task the Climate Change Authority with a regular review of the National Climate Service against the KPIs

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

That the Australian Government regularly monitor against the new Statement of Expectations (refer Recommendation 4.1 and KPIs in Box 7) to ensure the National Climate Service is meeting expectations.

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 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 Australian Government publish all National Climate Service strategic documents by default to provide transparency on the National Climate Service’s program and timelines for implementation.

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 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 Australian Government require the National Climate Service to develop and publish a climate services roadmap, describing how to build to a national capability with explicit and ambitious time frames.

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.

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

The Committee recommends that insurers report case management key performance indicators to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.

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 for each declared event, insurers be required to report the number of unresolved cases after 12 months to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the overarching strategy for resolving these cases. This report should include the total number of outstanding claims and the most common reasons for the delay.

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 the Australian Securities and Investments Commission publish quarterly insurer and brand level data on their performance on the metrics recommended in Recommendation 51.

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 Committee recommends that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission develop and define key outcomes measures for the consumer experience, including:
- Communication (outcome measures)
o Overall customer satisfaction, such as a customer satisfaction score o Consumer comprehension of communications (random sample)
- Claims processing
o Average time taken to respond to a customer after first making an enquiry or initiating a claim
- Vulnerable customers o Proportion of customers identified as vulnerable (BAU, quarterly)
o Proportion of customers identified as vulnerable (designated events, monthly)
- Internal dispute resolution o Proportion of total cases that involved internal dispute resolution
o Average time taken to resolve internal dispute cases
- External dispute resolution
o Proportion of total cases that were referred to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority
o Success rate at the Australian Financial Complaints Authority
- Cash settlements
o Proportion of resolved cases that are final cash settlements
- Claims acceptance rates
o Percentage of claims acceptedPercentage of claims closed (at key points in time, for example 6 months, 12 months, 18 months)
- General Insurance Code of Practice Compliance Breaches of the General Insurance Code of Practice per thousand claims by clause, insurer, and brand.

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 Commonwealth should use reporting established by the Outcomes Policy to inform requirements associated with international obligations (e.g., the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction).

The Commonwealth should embed regular sharing of lessons learnt from program outcomes between state and territory governments, and the Commonwealth, to develop a continuous improvement culture.

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 Committee recommends that the Australian Government propose that road asset infrastructure resilience planning and investment frameworks be made a standing item on the Infrastructure and Transport Senior Officials’ Committee meeting agenda.

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 National Emergency Management Agency establish monitoring and reporting arrangements that demonstrate performance against the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements’ principles.

The National Emergency Management Agency:
a. establishes targets, monitoring and reporting for the time required to complete the assurance and acquittal processes; and
b. develops procedures for finalsing claims when requested information is not provided in the timeframes established under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements 2018 ministerial determination

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.

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

The next iteration of NEMMM’s Five Priorities for Action should be explicit and measurable, bold but achievable and focused on national outcomes, rather than outputs. They should:
- Be formulated in terms such as “By 2026 we will have established…which will have reduced…”, etc.
- Be developed through a process that includes consultations with key stakeholders, including First Nations organisations, civil society, the private sector, foundations, and key entities active in the emergency management space, such as Australian Red Cross and the National Council for Fire and Emergency Services (formerly the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council or AFAC).
- Be highly compelling for each jurisdiction, large and small.
- Directly address our rapidly accelerating disaster risk environment, in which we can anticipate yearly, national-scale disasters with preparedness, response, recovery and resilience occurring simultaneously, year-round.
- Include at the approval stage the initial estimates of the resourcing required to achieve the outcomes and the sources of the funding.

At least once each year, coinciding with the production of the ANRR, the National Cabinet should evaluate progress in bolstering national resilience.

The Commonwealth together with the States and Territories should identify their shared high-level resilience objectives and develop indicators to monitor national progress in achieving them. The ANRR should also provide annual updates on progress in achieving the objectives.

The ANRR should be a National Cabinet product focused on climate and disaster risk as well as other key resilience risks agreed by the Commonwealth and the jurisdictions.

The First Secretaries, on behalf of the National Cabinet, should oversee (via a subordinate Deputy Secretaries Group) the development of an annual Australian National Resilience Report (ANRR) that combines the Ministerial Council resilience reporting, existing resilience strategies in jurisdictions and new initiatives.

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

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

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. 

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. 

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

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 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. 

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.

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.

The ANAO recommends that the Department of Defence take steps to strengthen the priority afforded by Defence units to meeting these reporting requirements.

The committee recommends that the ATSB prepare and release publicly a list of all its identified safety issues and the actions which are being taken or have been taken to address them. The ATSB should indicate its progress in monitoring the actions every 6 months and report every 12 months to Parliament.

The committee recommends that in relation to mandatory and confidential reporting, the default position should be that no identifying details should be provided or disclosed. However, if there is a clear risk to safety then the ATSB, CASA and industry representatives should develop a process that contains appropriate checks and balances.

The committee recommends that where a safety action has not been completed before a report being issued that a recommendation should be made. If it has been completed the report should include details of the action, who was involved and how it was resolved.

To strengthen its oversight of Queensland reconstruction progress, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO)  recommends that the National Disaster Recovery Taskforce:
(a) monitor revisions to scheduled project completion dates, and raise with the Queensland Reconstruction Authority any issues and anomalies, as appropriate; and
(b) adopt a more pro‐active approach to requesting timely progress and completion reporting documentation from the Queensland Reconstruction Authority according to planned and reported actual completion dates.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) recommends that the Australian Government Reconstruction Inspectorate and the National Disaster Recovery Taskforce seek to maximise the benefits from their value for money review activities by obtaining more timely and comprehensive information on project progress and completion from the Queensland Reconstruction Authority, to enable the preliminary value for money assessments to be finalised based on the scope and cost of works that were actually delivered (rather than estimates).

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) recommends that the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sport improve its monitoring of the delivery of the Natural Disaster Recovery Work Plans for Queensland and Victoria by:
(a) seeking from each state the project level data that is required to report to Ministers on reconstruction progress in the manner required by each National Partnership Agreement (or as may otherwise be agreed); and
(b) undertaking analysis of relevant data that has been reported by each state over time to identify significant trends and other matters of importance, and updating this analysis as and when further data is reported.

Increased automation and outsourcing of observations

The successful installation of every barrier should be the subject of written verification within and between licensees and rig operators; and should be the subject of explicit reporting to the relevant regulator(s).

Licensees should be subject to an express obligation to inform regulators of problems which arise in the course of installing barriers, even if they consider that well integrity is not thereby compromised. The information should be provided by way of special report, rather than included in a standard reporting document (such as a DDR). The information provided should include risk assessment details.

In order to identify key business processes and provide for the regular comparative assessment of Maximum Allowable Outage periods (MAOs), the ANAO recommends that Centrelink:
(a) commission a formal Business Criticality Review of its operations, including National Support Office, Area Offices and its service delivery channels; and
(b) establish a process for the annual review and endorsement of MAOs determined by branches to ensure that they represent a collective view on the relative criticality of the services that Centrelink provides.

The ANAO recommends that Centrelink:
(a) develop performance measures against which its business continuity management preparation and response can be regularly monitored and assessed by the Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Security Sub-committee; and
(b) provide reports to the Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Security Sub-committee on the findings and implementation of there commendations of post–implementation review reports on business continuity incidents, including IT-related incidents.

The ANAO recommends that the Business Continuity, Crisis Management and Security Sub committee:
(a) endorse an annual program of scheduled testing for business continuity plans, including relevant Disaster Recovery Plans for all services and systems assessed by the agency as being business critical; and
(b) receive performance reports on the completion and key results of plan testing.

The current KPI measures used by the Regulator and industry need to be reassessed and the performance indicators need to be related to the risk profiles of the industry. The industry needs to develop the indicators, which need to be agreed and measured by the industry in discussion with other stakeholders. The KPI's selected should be published in comparison with the worldwide offshore industry and with other industries. NOPSA should continue discussions with Australian Safety and Compensation Council (ASCC) with a view to adopting their goals. 

That the officer responsible for the importation of horses prepare a report to the Executive Director of AQIS that:
(a) identifies (by category) all non-AQIS personnel involved in the importation of horses, including post-arrival quarantine, from countries other than New Zealand
(b) identifies the requirements in respect of biosecurity that AQIS has of those people
(c) identifies the source of those requirements—for example, by import conditions, agreement or understanding, whether formal or informal, with AQIS, and compliance agreement under s. 66B of the Quarantine Act 1908
(d) assesses whether compliance with those requirements can be and is adequately being enforced
(e) recommends measures to be taken to rectify any shortcomings.

That there be established the position of Inspector General of Horse Importation, the duties of that position being:
(a) to check, by inspection and audit at least once every 30 months, that operations and procedures at each approved pre-export quarantine premises are documented and being complied with
(b) to check, by inspection and audit from time to time at the Inspector General’s discretion, that import conditions covering the period until horses arrive at an airport in Australia are being complied with
(c) to check, by inspection and audit at least once every 30 months, that operations and procedures applying from when horses arrive at an airport in Australia until the completion of post-arrival quarantine are documented and being complied with
(d) to report in writing at least once every 12 months to the Minister responsible for quarantine on the results of such inspections and audits and such other related matters as the Inspector General thinks necessary.

The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) recommends that, in order to assist management decision making and to inform Parliament about performance, Emergency Management Australia (EMA) develop and report appropriate measures for its key emergency management activities and outcomes.

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 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 ANAO recommends that, to ensure the outcomes of evaluations are effectively used to enhance the national counter-terrorism arrangements, the Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet take appropriate measures to ensure:
a) the continuous improvement process for the counter-terrorism arrangements is strengthened and made transparent. Key areas for improvement in this regard include:
• a more strategic approach to the determination of desired outcomes,
• a more strategic and systematic approach to the setting of evaluation objectives and performance information and assessment mechanisms,
• increased analysis of actual performance against objectives, and
• amoresystematicmonitoringandfollow-up of evaluation outcomes and recommendations; and
b) sufficient and skilled resources are assigned to undertake the data management and analysis required.

The ANAO recommends that, to provide better information to contribute to strategic assessments, decisions and reporting, the Attorney-General’s Department, with input and guidance from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet:
a) centrally coordinate and amalgamate the issues and recommendations arising from the various reviews and exercises; and
b) provide strategic analyses of this information.

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 the Department of Transport and Regional Services review its record keeping practices to show the type of emergency for which assistance is provided through the Natural Disaster
Relief Arrangements.

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 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.