Mark Mitchell: Emergency Management Minister on the Government's new long-term plan for disaster response

The Emergency Management Minister's motivated to strengthen the country's disaster resilience in the long haul. 

The Government's released a long-term vision for the system over the next five years, which includes creating a "whole of society" approach, and building the capability of the workforce. 

Mark Mitchell says recent weather events show the current system isn't fit for purpose. 

He told Mike Hosking there's a high-level of first responders across the country, ready to respond to emergencies. 

Mitchell says they need to be better supported by legislation, more training, and a bigger investment into systems. 

He says they've learned from events like Cyclone Gabrielle and is confident future disaster responses will be better. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
An insight into how we handle emergency management better now.
For years in this country, every time it's asked to strike,
so the artworkings tend to indicate that a lot of
people didn't do their job, or communication could have been better,
blah blah blah. Anyway, a new plan today. The Emergency
Management Minister is, of course Mark Mitchell, who was with
us good morning, Good morning, Mike. The broad claim and
we've seen this for years that when something happens in
an emergency status, we clean it up and then we

(00:21):
find out we didn't do a very good job. What
changes now?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yes, so that is true, and it hasn't always been
a lot of movement in terms of the recommendations have
come through. Although that's not entirely for you. There has
been some change, but you know, we are fully committed.
We realize and recognize that we're a country that's going
to be continued to be hit with these weather events.
We carry the risk of a tsunami or an earthquake.

(00:46):
We've seen three of those the last couple of weeks,
and so we've motivated to make sure that we strengthen
our resilience and our ability to be able to respond.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
To those So what does this mean? More money, more resource,
better people, what.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
All of those things? More training, more professionalism and the sector.
But I have to say that it always feels a
bit unfear when I sort of say that, because having
been around the country and having had six local states
emergency and a couple of them across regions, we've already
got outstanding people doing a job. We just got to
make sure that we better support them with proper legislation

(01:20):
that recognizes everyone's role throughout society in terms of how
we respond to these emergencies. More training and investment into systems.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
See I wonder, and you'll argue back about this, but
you're a nice guy. You go into the regions and
you meet fellow nice people, and they're all nice people.
But it's all Dad's army. And then that is the problem.
Is that fair or unfair?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
No, that's not fair. That's very outstanding. And the results
speak to themselves, is that there's been outstanding results. I mean,
in all fairness, after the lessons Leart, after Gabriel last year,
before we came into government, it was already responding, the
sector was already responding. And no, I just see extremely
professional people first responders, volunteers that always stand up, that's

(02:07):
well coordinated. That there's definitely they've taken lessons learned already.
The Port Hills fires was a clessic example when you
had a suboptimal response at twenty seventeen and then you
fast forward to the Port Fills fires that we had
this year. The fire ground, the management deal was outstanding.
The police are doing their job, the cedium controllers for
the communication with the communities that they that they serve.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
It was chalk and cheese, all right, So what about
the what I think it's why right? Correct me if
I'm wrong. The river Mouth situation where a lot of
the locals were very angry, they said, look, we know this,
We've told you, no one did anything about it. How
much of that is there?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
So that was down to the fact that the regional council,
I should have done some more wage around how that
was dealt with. The Rivermouth was dealt with the district,
the wire district council themselves. We needed a controller there.
All of their team outstanding response, just like when they
got with Gabriel. They've got good leadership there, a very
good team there. All the first responders are out. You

(03:06):
know when I founed wire straight after Gabriel, they were
running things out of the local Maria in North Flyde.
So the communities will respond of course. With WIRA, we
put a we put a Crown Manager and every quipment.
We've got Lawrence Yule and they're making sure that he
works between the WIRA Council, District Council and the regional
Council to facilitate and speed up the recovery and the

(03:30):
mitigation work that needs to be done.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
But you go in here now with what a high
level of confidence that we're not going to have the
sort of response we've had previously or not.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, I do have a high level of confidence in
our people at the moment around the country, without a doubt.
All the means of sharing leadership, the ces, our controllers,
all of our CDM teams, first responders, community groups, you know.
But what we have to do is we have to
be ready for a really big event across region to
make sure that we can respond to that as well.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
All right, good on you, Mark Mitchell, the Emergency Management Minister.
I reckon it's a top down thing. I think people
have just been looking for a little bit of leadership
marks their man and that's why you've seen the improvement
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