Press conference, NSW Central Coast natural disaster support

EMMA MCBRIDE, MEMBER FOR DOBELL: Good morning, I’m Emma McBride, the federal member for Dobell, and I’m so pleased to be joined at the Emergency Operations Centre in Charmhaven today with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, and with Superintendent Viki Campbell. We know that emergency response in natural disasters is absolutely critical to keep our first responders safe and to keep our community safe.

We know communities like the Central Coast that we have been impacted by cumulative natural disasters - floods, bushfires, Covid-19. This is a top priority for the Albanese Labor government, and I am so pleased to have our Communications Minister here today to make a critical announcement about boosting the technology that will keep our first responders safe and keep our community safe.

Thank you so much, Michelle, for your strong and ongoing interest in our community and for being here today to make such an important announcement.

MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Thanks, Emma. And thanks for your ongoing advocacy for your community not only in terms of support during natural disasters but also the mental wellbeing of your community. And thank you so much, Superintendent Campbell, to you and your team for everything you are doing. It feels like this has been a rolling series, unfortunately, of natural disasters that seem to be more frequent and more intense.

I’d like to really thank Superintendent Campbell and her team for everything they’re doing, and also to emphasise that the first priority of the Albanese government is to keep Australians safe. And we know that during times of natural disasters access to reliable communications services can mean the difference between life and death. And for our first responders, including our fire service, that means being able to disseminate information not only to their crews but also to the general public to keep them safe as well.

So I’m very pleased that we have coming online here on the Central Coast as part of the Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters program, or STAND, an uplink service to the NBN Sky Muster satellite for occasions when the ground communications goes down.

One of the biggest challenges that is faced in terms of having reliable communications is when a fire or other natural disaster goes through and takes out the power or takes out the infrastructure itself. This can mean that there is no communication sometimes at all. But what this technology enables is a direct uplink to the NBN Co satellite. It means that this Centre will continue to be able to function and to do what it needs to do, and it will automatically click over to that service.

I’m very pleased to say that it has been tested. It is operational. We do hope, of course, that it won’t be used in a hurry. But we know that it is there if it is required. And this is one of over one thousand STAND projects right around Australia. The reason why this is in place is because after the Black Saturday bushfires and a number of inquiries that were conducted, this was one of the key findings – that access to reliable communications services needed to be improved.

And we know that unfortunately the types and the severity of natural disasters means that not every situation can be made absolutely proofed against disasters. But this will go a long way to providing that confidence and to making things better.

And, as I said, this is the top priority of this government. And improving resilience in comms services will continue to be a very great focus of myself as Minister and our government overall.

JOURNALIST: How new is this technology? Is it only just starting to be rolled out?

ROWLAND: It’s a variation on existing technologies. And, of course, we’ve had the NBN Sky Muster satellite in there for some years now. But it is one that’s been specifically designed for particular situations such as this. So we know that it’s reliable. We know that it works. But it is also one that kicks into play when it’s needed.

So in that sense, whilst it’s not entirely a new type of technology, it is one that works and one that can be made quite bespoke for individual situations and individual dishes and locations.

JOURNALIST: And in terms of its installation, for example, here on the Central Coast, has that been in the pipeline for a while?

ROWLAND: Well, this came out, as I said, as one of the findings of the Royal Commission. So it’s been gradually rolled out across the country. And we actually expect all of these sites to be completed by November.

JOURNALIST: How many sites are there Minister, that will be rolled out across the country?

ROWLAND: There’s over a thousand. But I think it’s important to also note that this has been, and the locations have been chosen, in conjunction with the Department and with state first responder teams as well. So the locations of these sites have been done under a consultative process.

JOURNALIST: And are they just RFSs or emergency services? I understand some evacuation or future evacuation centres are also part of this?

ROWLAND: There are some in evac centres. There’s even another stream for where there’s remote locations where there’s been particular – how should I say it – vulnerabilities identified. So places that are popular with tourists but quite remote. And in those cases they are a type of sort of community-wide service that will kick in for, you know, a small range but, again, enable that connectivity to occur.

JOURNALIST: I know this is a really obvious question, but for someone that’s just a Central Coast local, what does this mean for them?

ROWLAND: This means that if the mobile or other land communications are taken out by a natural disaster your first responders will still have the ability to communicate with their teams to get people out there and to ensure that they can continue to do their jobs.

JOURNALIST: It is on communications, and I'm not sure, Minister, whether you’re fully across this – I you know Emma mentioned it to you before – but in terms of the ABC being the emergency broadcaster here on the Central Coast, it’s such a big area, so many residents. The signal that the ABC has isn’t very strong and it does need to be turned up. And it’s something that has been raised with previous ministers. I’m not sure whether you have much of an understanding of that, but, you know, can you maybe give a commitment that you’ll perhaps look into it, because it is a real issue that people can’t hear the emergency broadcaster, being the ABC here on the coast, when there has been times of emergency.

ROWLAND: Absolutely I’ll take that up with the ABC management right at the top as well. Because, you know, as we get into what is unfortunately a disaster season we need to make sure that we are as resilient as possible, and that includes the ABC, our fantastic emergency broadcaster.

JOURNALIST: On other things, Minister, we noticed around the Central Coast that the pits and pipes around the Central Coast are being prepared for something. Is the government still committed to revisiting the fibre to the premise policy that you announced during the election?

ROWLAND: We certainly are. And we made a commitment prior to the election to expand the fibre accessibility right around Australia, and we’ll be making an announcement about that very soon.

JOURNALIST: Excellent. Thank you. That’s it. I’d love to hear something from Viki.

VIKI CAMPBELL, SUPERINTENDENT: Certainly.

JOURNALIST: Viki, what does this new technology mean for yourself and this Centre here?

CAMPBELL: It’s fantastic redundancy for us. Obviously here at the Fire Control Centre at Charmhaven when there is a local bushfire event this is the hub where we coordinate not only the response but also formulate all our important communications to the community. So by having redundancies that fail over into satellite technology ensures that any time that we are performing operations we can make sure we’ve got that in continual service to our crews on the fire ground, continual information updated as needed to the community so that we can keep everyone safe.

JOURNALIST: I imagine it would really make a difference. Operationally, as you described here, this place is a hub of activity in times of an emergency. Would that ease stress at all knowing that, you know, there is that constant flow of information that will be able to get out there even in the worst-case scenario?

CAMPBELL: Absolutely. I mean, as emergency services, we’re always, you know, having to make contingencies when things go awry. But obviously this is just one less contingency that we have to worry about, when it’s an automatic transition over to the satellite technology. And it is. All the technology that we use here is absolutely about combating the incident and keeping the community safe. So the fact that that is redundant and not likely to fail on us is an absolute bonus for everyone involved.

JOURNALIST: How likely is something like that going to happen, where you are going to need to call on technology like this?

CAMPBELL: I think the 19-20 season saw quite a number of communications networks go down. Obviously, it is a priority for our combat agency to try and protect those, but sometimes there’s just nothing that you can do in that space. So the fact that we’ve got this redundancy to actually go to satellite, I know there were certainly plenty of instances during 19-20 and obviously it was something from the Black Summer bushfires as far back as 2009. So its really good that this capability is here keeping residents on the Central Coast safe.

JOURNALIST: And Emma, you must be very pleased that the Minister has taken time to come up here and look at the Central Coast again. We’ve got a big problem with a lot of telecommunications. Does it mean something to get the Minister up here today?

MCBRIDE: It does. I’m so pleased that Minister Rowland is here on the Central Coast. As the Minister Michelle has such an interest in the regions and is a frequent visitor to the Central Coast. And the regions are priority for the Albanese Labor government to make sure that wherever you live across Australia,  you’ll be able to be safe. And that’s in, you know, a natural disaster or an emergency as Viki has described. We know that residents of the Central Coast can now be confident that their first responders will have access reliably to the information that they need. And that information will be able to get to the community in the time they need it to keep them safe.

So I’m so pleased to have Minister Rowland here on the Central Coast again showing the firm commitment of the Albanese Labor government to the regions and particularly to the Central Coast.

JOURNALIST: Emma, I was interested when you were talking about wearing your mental health hat but taking that over to emergency services and the mental health of emergency services volunteers and staff. Can you explain a bit about that - what you’d like to see?

MCBRIDE: Well, we know that there is an impact on people’s mental health and wellbeing, and that impacts the first responders. Many of those first responders are part of those communities. They’re people whose homes might be at risk themselves, and we know that there is a lag and that we see that over time that the mental health and wellbeing of first responders can be impacted.

What we want to make sure is that we have protective measures in place so that first responders can be well-protected at the time of the natural disaster, in the period afterwards and ongoing to make sure that their mental health and wellbeing is protected and that we have wraparound support services for them.

I think it’s critical that we have the physical rescue and recovery, but also have a strong emphasis on the mental health and wellbeing of our first responders and our wider community.

JOURNALIST: What would you like to see that take – what form would you like to see that take?

MCBRIDE: I’ve had some initial conversations with Minister Watt, who visited the Central Coast in the recent floods, to make sure that we have a mental health response that is integrated and embedded into our wider emergency management response. I know that individual services often have services available to their volunteers and to their staff and to make sure that reliably and consistently that is available and that people also feel confident in being able to seek that help if they need it.

We know that first responders go headfirst into danger whilst others of us are going in the opposite direction. We need to make sure that they have all the right support and training in order to keep themselves safe so that they can continue to protect our community.

JOURNALIST: And, as you say, so it’s actually embedded in the whole management; it’s not just, “Oh, it’s here on offer,” type thing, but it’s actually part of the entire approach?

MCBRIDE: Yes. And we know that there are some really good examples of where this has been embedded into volunteer services, into rescue organisations. What we want to see, as Minister Rowland said, the top priority of the Albanese Labor government is to keep everybody safe. And an important emphasis of that is people’s mental health and wellbeing to know consistently and reliably that’s available to a volunteer – to a surf lifesaver, like myself, to someone from the RFS, to someone who’s, you know, in any volunteer organisation that’s involved in first response.

JOURNALIST: Superintendent, what do you think about that?

CAMPBELL: I think it’s absolutely important. It’s certainly been a big focus of ours. And we continue to support our members post that 19-20 season. We’re implementing a range of services within our agency. But we also know important aspects of the event, having people attend the event, actually taking the time to look after the crews at the event, doing adequate debriefing with our crews and then keeping following up with them and making sure that those services are available. They’re all part of the arrangements that are really important to look after the mental health of our first responders.

JOURNALIST: Can you give some insights perhaps in what some of the challenges that volunteers like, for example, the RFS, do face after they go to these catastrophic fires? Have you got any sort of –

CAMPBELL: Yeah I mean, obviously they’ve put themselves forward to support their community, which they do fantastically. And in the heat of the fire fight, you know, there’s obviously a lot of adrenaline going, there’s a lot of things happening. They get in and do what they do. It’s not until afterwards when things sort of slow down and the emergency is not there so much anymore that the events of that start to, you know, come back to them and they have to start processing everything that they did and what they went through sort of thing. So it’s really important that we, you know, not only acknowledge that at the time but then continue to follow up, because with a lot of these things it’s later that they really start to evolve and start to get triggered by other events, so.

JOURNALIST: I imagine that it’s not only those on the frontline, it’s those working here in the Control Centre where it is really high stress and they’re hearing what’s going on.

CAMPBELL: Absolutely. Everyone that’s involved, you know, certainly takes ownership of the response and is involved and is there to try and help the community. And absolutely when things don’t go right, I mean, firefighters are absolutely there to try and protect streets, and when you drive into a street like what happened in 19-20 and there was twenty houses alight, you know, and you had to select either protecting people or selecting some houses that could be saved, then it’s a really challenging decision for firefighters. So, yeah, we need to look after them.

JOURNALIST: Last question: are we getting a greater awareness now of mental health in terms of in the emergency services, like the volunteers? You know, you’ve been involved for a while; have you seen things change in the approach to how it’s managed?

CAMPBELL: Absolutely. I mean, I’ve been in emergency services for thirty-one years now and there’s absolutely been an increase in the awareness and support services available. There’s still lots of work to do, though. There’s still people that are adversely affected. We need to make sure that we try and minimise the number of people that slip through the net and make sure that we support everyone.

JOURNALIST: Great, thank you.

MCBRIDE: Thank you so much.

 

CONTACT: ARLEY BLACK

E: Arley.Black@mo.communications.gov.au