Review of Victoria’s emergency management sector preparedness for major emergencies

All hazards

Risks spanning across multiple hazard types and across the emergency management system.

Biosecurity

Exotic animal and plant disease outbreaks and pest incursions can have significant economic, community and environmental impacts.

Bushfire and other fires

Bushfire and other fires have potential consequences including loss of life and property, and damage to infrastructure and environment.

Climate change

Risks include more days of extreme heat, harsher fire weather, less rainfall and rising sea levels.

Communications disruption

Communications services are crucial in keeping communities safe, connected and informed before, during and after emergencies.

Cyber security and ICT systems failure

Risks relating to the confidentiality, availability, integrity of information and data and disruption of services.

Energy supply disruption

Reliable energy supplies are critical to many social and economic activities.

Flood

Major flood events have occurred in Victoria every 10 to 20 years, with much of the increasing risk created by human settlement.

Hazardous material incident

Potential risks relate to many places where Victoria’s hazardous materials are manufactured, stored, transported, used and disposed.

Heatwave

Heatwaves are considered to be the ‘silent killer’ of extreme weather events and are the leading cause of weather-related deaths in Australia.

Public health emergency

Risks may relate to the delivery of public health services, with impacts on community health and wellbeing and potential for loss of life.

Supply chain disruption

Geopolitical, environmental, economic, societal and infrastructure-related shocks can expose supply chains to wide ranging consequences.

Terrorism and extremism

Attacks carried out by individuals or non-state groups with ideological, political or religious goals can result in loss of life, severe injury and/or material damage.

Water supply disruption

Risks include collection, storage, treatment, delivery, availability and allocation of water for consumption and environmental, recreation and cultural uses.

Workforce and resourcing

Risks may relate to human resource supply and skills to support emergency management operations.

Review of Victoria’s emergency management sector preparedness for major emergencies is a system-wide review identified in the Inspector-General for Emergency Management’s (IGEM) 2015 Annual Forward Plan of Reviews, and is conducted under section 64(1)(b) of the Emergency Management Act 2013.

The objective of this review was to identify opportunities to enhance Victoria’s sector preparedness for major emergencies.

The review explores possible pathways for Victoria to strengthen preparedness for major emergencies that recognise and reflect the current emergency management arrangements. However, the IGEM acknowledges that much of the work supporting the reform of Victoria’s emergency management arrangements was under development or in the early stages of implementation at the time of this review.

As Victoria's emergency management sector does not have standards or a baseline to measure sector preparedness, this review presents an example model of preparedness for emergency management activities including reporting and assessing.

Progressing work on the development and application of a preparedness model will require extensive engagement and consultation with the emergency management sector. The preparedness model and associated maturity matrix presented in this review provides a sound starting point for such a discussion.

Government's response

Government released and responded to this report on 5 May 2017, accepting IGEM's recommendation.

Read government's response at emv.vic.gov.au (External link)

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