This is AIDR calling

It was a reminder of how important it is to rest and recharge. Two weeks of riding, reading, hiking and unbroken sleep was exactly what I needed to recharge the batteries and if you haven’t already planned a break, I recommend doing so now. Standing on top of a mountain gives you a 360-degree perspective and a long-distance view. Nearing the end of my first year in this role, it was excellent to take stock and reflect on where we are.

My first week back at work was a blur. On Monday 24 November, we hosted the National Resilient Australia Awards in Melbourne. As usual, the quality of the applications and shortlists were outstanding. It was fantastic to see the joy on the faces of the winners having their projects recognised by their peers. It was also fantastic hearing the conversations afterwards, where people were connecting with others about the work they are doing. We now have another round of excellent practice to showcase to the sector.

I was honoured to be invited to take part in Fire to Flourish’s Showcase panel. Putting community at the centre of programming has been a tower of groundbreaking work, as well as driving thinking about how to change the system. Now, our challenge is how to ensure that it is embedded in all our learning and practice, and it is one we look forward to.

The Australian Disaster Resilience Conference (ADRC) 2026 program committee met to confirm the theme for next year. The committee is more than ‘just’ a committee; it represents some of the finest minds and practitioners in the host state and beyond. We are excited to build on Mami Mizutori’s call to action at this year’s AFAC Conference in finding the right mindset and recognising that mindsets matter. I often think we remain stuck in a linear approach to disasters: surprised when they strike and then scramble to deal with the consequences. I am really looking forward to seeing how people respond to the challenge of the theme.

We have been working through the decommissioning of the Australian Emergency Management Library. It is a sad time for us – and the sector – as the library has been in place since 1955. Sadly, it has not been used (73 borrowings in 3 years), and we are looking to reinvest the costs of maintaining a legacy library into making knowledge accessible in new ways. We are checking each of the 11,000 items to ensure they are held in a collection somewhere. Those that are not, we will look to retain so they are not lost to the sector. Days have been spent in the library looking at some gems of wisdom.

I’m really pleased with how the review of the Recovery Handbook is coming along. This is no mean feat as it is one of our most complex and popular handbooks, with many people invested in it. So much practice has evolved since the last review.  We have a fabulous working group, and the team is expertly navigating the passion being generated around the handbook.

We participated in a roundtable hosted by the Community Broadcasting Association of Australia. Community radio is an important resource for society and should be seen as part of our social infrastructure. They reach around 8 million people a week and, importantly, are driven by volunteers. I’m looking forward to engaging more with the association as we move forward.

Next year is the 40th anniversary of the Australian Journal of Emergency Management. I have taken on the task to produce a review of content for each of the decades. I have just completed 1986-95 and it’s been a fascinating process. Much of what we now take for granted in our knowledge and practice began to emerge in this first decade: psychosocial understanding of disasters, risk-informed approaches, planning for exotic animal disease, health disaster planning, understanding disaster narratives, the emergence of the threat of climate change, and  the insight we could learn from First Nations peoples about the history of hazards in Australia and how to manage them.

The Ecological Society of Australia hosted its conference in Adelaide, and as we know, the natural environment is one of the pillars that we need to plan for in our work. I have a couple of units of 40-year-old ecology knowledge from my first degree, and what struck me first was how much the field had developed. As a conversation with Sarah Hoyal from Natural Resource Management Australia in Resilience Lane at ADRC25, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a workshop with natural resource managers to help identify how to better integrate natural values into emergency management. This is an area we are very keen progress. I also attended part of the conference learning new terms such as ecosystem engineers, insurance populations, translocations, and refugia (the last sounding like a good name for an acid jazz combo).

Sadly, I have just heard that another titan of disaster research, Kai Eriksen has died at the age of 94. His book, Everything in Its Path I believe is one of the most profound studies of the social impacts of disaster where he examined the Buffalo Creek Dam Collapse in 1972. Eminently readable and confronting, he shone a light on the social inequities of disaster. It’s certainly something I have pushed onto new starters in the sector. He will be missed.

There is much to celebrate coming to the end of our 10th year. In this new contract, we have a clear remit set from the National Emergency Management Agency to focus on the non-traditional EM sector, local government and agencies, risk reduction resilience and recovery, and to ensure we continue to highlight those most at risk. We are now at full capacity, with a talented and passionate team settling into the tasks. We have delivered another successful ADRC, National Resilient Australia Awards, 12 highly attended webinars, 10 well-regarded masterclasses, had over 500,000 people visit the knowledge hub, and published the Tsunami Emergency Planning Handbook. Not a week goes by without someone asking to partner with us. Amid all this, we are planning and reviewing what comes next.

It’s been an exciting – and exhausting – time. We are already in the higher-risk weather season, which means many anxious days and nights for the people we work with and support– and for those they support – to stop hazards becoming disasters. This is what drives us: ensuring they have the best available knowledge. The team have worked hard over the course of this year to help deliver a high-quality set of activities as well as shaping a new direction, and I pay tribute to them; Katelyn, Blythe, Mayeda, Lauren, Ivan, Janet, Isabel, Oshanna, Melissa, Natalie, Ange, and Simone.

I’d like to wish you all a quiet and restful festive season, for those who celebrate, and a happy holiday season if you are taking time off, and I look forward to an exciting 2026.

The new album from Australian jazz trio, The Necks, a triple album no less, is well worth getting immersed in over the summer. Lots to get lost in.