Commissioned by AFAC, the purpose of this project was to generate a high level and comprehensive description of the major recurrent categories of recommendations across multiple post-event reviews conducted since 2009.

Natural disasters and emergencies in Australia have been followed by formal, complex, post-event inquiries and reviews literally hundreds of times. These inquires vary in form and focus, however, their common objective is to identify the causes of disasters and their consequences and to identify better future practices. 

The outcomes of major inquiries in one jurisdiction sometimes have ramifications and lead to  reform  action  in  other  states  and  territories.  While  this  may  be  true  of  larger,  higher profile  events  and  inquiries,  there  is  a  foregone  opportunity  if  the  same  process  is  not systematically undertaken for the outcomes of less prominent reviews and inquiries. 

The  negative  hypothesis tested,  provided  to  the  review team, was:

‘There  are  no  common  themes  to  be  identified  when  comparing  and contrasting  major  post-incident  reviews  of  emergency  incidents,  and  the outcomes of those incidents and consequent recommendations turn on their own particular facts.’ 

In testing this hypothesis, the project sought to understand whether there is ongoing value for state and territory emergency services to consider the lessons from major reviews and inquiries  from  other  jurisdictions  within  their  own  context,  or  whether  lessons  are  too specific and lack broader import. 

A core element of this project was the development of a comprehensive and user-friendly database  of  recommendations  from  post-event  reviews  and  inquiries  that  can  inform agencies own lessons identification practise now and into the future. 

Read the final report here.