Press conference - Parliament House, Canberra

MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Good morning. Keeping Australians safe is the top priority of the Albanese Government. We know that in times of natural disasters and other emergencies, access to the highest quality communications services can mean the difference between life and death. That is why Minister Murray Watt and I have been working closely on two very important aspects that we are pleased to announce today, that go to that very issue of keeping Australia safe and helping our agencies and our first responders to do their jobs.

 

The first announcement is a new cell broadcast National Messaging System. What this will enable is getting real-time updates to Australians, irrespective of where they are, about particular disasters and actions that they need to take. This is instantaneous messaging – a stepped change on the current system that is being utilised primarily through SMS technology.

 

Cell broadcast technology can be described as follows: a radius can be drawn around a specific area that every device within that area is capable of receiving an instantaneous, real-time message. It could be alerting people they need to leave a particular place, or stay away from a particular situation. We know that in some 20 countries, this technology is having real results. That is why this Government is implementing these measures here because we believe that Australians and our first responders, deserve the very best of this technology.

 

The second announcement relates to a new system for Public Safety Mobile Broadband. Many Australians would be surprised to learn that there is a lack of coordination and seamless communications between various agencies and between various States. As the Royal Commission into the bushfires pointed out, this is an area in serious need of reform. That is why this Government, in our Budget next week, is committing $10.1 million towards establishing what is called this PSMB capability.

 

Working with the States and Territories, the Commonwealth is taking a lead role in this area. That is because we need seamless, state-of-the-art and a step change in how we deal with emergency management. I will hand over to my colleague, Minister Watt, to go through some other details and to introduce some of the guests we have today. 

 

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thanks very much, Michelle, and thank you for your leadership, along with your team, in getting today's very important announcement up and over the line.

 

Before I just comment on the announcement, can I also just acknowledge that overnight there have been two firefighters seriously injured in a factory fire just south of Brisbane. They're currently hospitalised and, of course, we all wish those firefighters, their families and colleagues the very best in what must be a very difficult time. And it's a good example of the kind of danger that our first responders and Australians continue to face each and every year as a result of natural disasters which are, of course, becoming more common.

 

As Michelle has said, today's announcement will make a significant difference to Australians and first responders who face natural disasters in our country. And can I also thank for joining us today, NSW RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers and the Deputy Coordinator-General of the National Emergency Management Agency Joe Buffone.

 

In a disaster situation, every single minute counts and the faster we can get information to Australians and to first responders, the more lives can be saved, and the more properties can be saved and that's what today's announcement is all about. As Michelle has said, we have two big announcements that we're making today in the disaster communication space that will make a real difference to Australians and first responders being able to access information quickly in an emergency situation. So the announcements that we've made, that Michelle has taken you through, are really about upgrading the communications technology available to Australians in a disaster and also to first responders when they're facing fires, floods, and other disasters as well.

 

The National Messaging System that we will be creating in partnership with the States and Territories, will allow, for the very first time, instant real-time targeted emergency information to be provided to Australians who are facing disasters and, I have to say, on a personal level, I've lost count of the number of times that I've been to disaster communities who say - and one of the biggest complaints is - they just don't get emergency warnings fast enough. That is what this National Messaging System is designed to fix. We'll be able to override phone systems, no matter what phone carrier you're with, no matter where you are, to make sure that you get the emergency warning that you need to give you the power to make decisions about your safety and your family's safety. And when it comes to the Public Safety Mobile Broadband System, that's really about giving our first responders the tools they need to be able to respond more quickly, to keep themselves safe and, of course, keep Australians safe as well.

 

That technology is particularly designed to make sure that our first responders can make use of some of the new imagery, video imagery, satellite imagery, video technology that is coming online but at the moment, the systems that are used by our first responders are radio based and they don't speak to each other depending on what State they're in.

 

As Commissioner Rogers will be able to tell you, this makes a real difference on the ground in a disaster situation because we saw in the Black Summer bushfires that we had different firefighters from different states fighting fires together but their radio systems didn't speak to each other and that put their lives in danger, and it limited their ability to help Australians as well.

 

So I will hand over to Commissioner Rogers to tell you a little bit more about what this means on a practical level, but today is another step in the Albanese Government's plan to make sure that Australia is much better prepared for future natural disasters and can respond a lot more quickly and more effectively. Thank you.

 

ROB ROGERS, NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE COMMISSIONER: Thank you Ministers. As Minister Watt said, during that 2019-20 bushfires we had so many communities at risk at the same time. We were sending out emergency alert messages to more than a million people. And to get those messages out, sometimes it took hours and by the time that happened, the fire had moved. Fires move very quickly and they're quite unpredictable. Getting this messaging out and alerts out instantaneously is an absolute game changer, and in my view it will absolutely save lives. I have no doubt about that.

 

Communicating with communities that are in instant danger is absolutely part of what we do. It's a core responsibility we have. So this move from the Federal Government is absolutely a game changer and it will help us enormously.

 

The PSMB - communicating with our colleagues across borders, being able to use video, share video of what's going on live at incidents from helicopters and things like that - again, it's a massive thing for us and it's a massive change. I'd like to acknowledge and thank the Federal Government for showing leadership in this area. States have been trying to get progress on this for some time and it's really good to see this actually happening.

 

So again, I think whilst there's a lot of work to do to get us to a point where it rolls out, it's a starting point and it's a really good starting point. And I'm looking forward to this new technology coming forward so that we can help keep our firefighters safer but we can also keep the community safer. Thank you. 

 

WATT: Happy to take questions.

 

JOURNALIST: How much are we expecting the NMS design, building, and testing to cost, and just in addition, what efforts will be made to fill the capability gap in the 18 months that process will take?



ROWLAND: We expect that this will take around 18 months. So, towards the end of 2024 this will be ready. But we are taking advantage of a number of learnings that have happened in other jurisdictions as well. I should also stress that a key component of that timeframe includes a public awareness campaign. This is very important because this will be a significant change from the typical SMS that Australians might be used to receiving. This is actually prioritising a message which will effectively take over a device for a short period of time and prioritise this emergency message above others.

 

In terms of the cost, it will be fully funded in the Budget. The actual amounts are actually not for publication at the moment because they are subject to commercial negotiations with the carriers, but I can assure Australians this is fully funded in the Budget. In the meantime, and I will enable Minister Watt to say something else as well, we are certainly stepping up our emergency management capabilities. We've also shown leadership in terms of the other areas of implementing some of those recommendations from the Royal Commission. But again, I stress these are two key parts of our agenda to enable Australians to have access to the best technology to keep us safe during these, unfortunately, ever-increasing and more intense natural disasters and other emergencies.

 

WATT: Thanks, Michelle. Just to elaborate a little bit further on what this National Messaging System will do. The problem we have with the current system, which is SMS-based, is that it doesn't take a very big disaster for that system to become overloaded, and as a Brisbane resident, which went through floods last year - early last year - one of the biggest complaints from Brisbane residents was that they just weren't getting the warnings quickly enough. Part of that was about the training of the operators to make sure that they knew how to use the system properly, but it also showed that the system just couldn't cope with a large number of messages being needed to get out into a confined area at the same time. So that's what this is designed to solve.

 

As Commissioner Rogers mentioned, this is an issue that States and Territories have been raising with the Federal Government for a number of years. In fact, the Public Safety Mobile Broadband network was first put on the agenda nationally in 2009 but, unfortunately, under the former Government, we had no progress on that over ten years until they finally commissioned a review of the system in their last year of office. Well we're getting on with it with by taking the first step today towards creating a taskforce to take this further. The review that was conducted into the PSMB showed that one of the things that had been missing was federal leadership and that's what we are providing.

 

The other detail I just wanted to give you about the messaging system; it will be really important, particularly for our increasingly multicultural communities in Australia. At the moment, the SMS system can only provide emergency warnings to people in one language, being English. The way the new system, the cell broadcasting system will work, is that whichever language a particular user has on their phone, that's the language in which they will receive the emergency warning. What we've found is that particularly multicultural communities in disaster areas sometimes are particularly vulnerable because they don't get the warnings in a language they can understand. This cell broadcasting system will fix that so, again, it's an important step to keeping all Australians safe.

 

JOURNALIST: Was there simply no capacity to be able to get it up and running for this summer? Is that just impossible?

 

WATT: I'm happy to get Joe Buffone from NEMA to take you through some of the steps that need to be taken but we are talking about bringing in brand new technology that has never been used in Australia before. There are about 20 other countries overseas that use cell broadcasting and we will be able to learn from their experiences. But we need to understand this is a big project but we finally got a government here in Canberra that's prepared to act on it.

 

JOURNALIST: Can I ask about another topic; about the reports overnight that there will be an increase to the JobSeeker rate for people over the age of 55. There might be people younger than 55 waking up to that news being quite alarmed thinking that the Government is abandoning them. What is the message to them this morning?

 

WATT: Well, of course, the Budget is now literally one week away and there will be many announcements made in that Budget which are not too far away for people to have to wait to get that information. But from the Prime Minister through the Treasurer, through Minister Gallagher, Minister Rowland, and others on ERC, we've made clear that our Government will do everything possible that we can to assist people experiencing hardship at the moment. Of course, our number one priority is to make sure that we're running the Federal Budget in a responsible manner, that doesn't add to inflationary pressures which are impacting on people's cost of living, but wherever we can take steps to help people with cost of living we will do so, as we have with cheaper medicines, more investments in public housing, and other things as well. But there will be more details about all these matters in the Budget next week.

 

JOURNALIST: I just have one on vaping for Michelle. It's my understanding that there will be a $63 million health campaign about the vaping going out for public information. Will there be a campaign through the Communications Department in the pipeline targeting young people about vapes and specifically just on platforms and content being targeted towards them, will there be a communications campaign in tandem with the health campaign?

 

ROWLAND: It's a really important point because one of the issues with vaping, of course, is the attractiveness that it poses for younger people. We know that these products are marketed to younger people in design. But when we have schools that are having to consider putting vaping detector machines in their bathrooms, we know that there's a serious problem.

 

Minister Butler will be making some significant announcements today. Of course, I anticipate that part of that will include a substantial public awareness campaign but also those areas where young people are more likely to be influenced - that includes on social media platforms. So, I anticipate anything that comes up from Minister Butler's discussions today, will necessarily include what we need to do to communicate with young people through those channels and to examine the effectiveness of that as well.