A series of briefing papers on natural disaster response and recovery in Queensland has been released by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from QUT's Centre for Justice.
The briefing papers cover some vital but little-studied areas such as the problems Brisbane's increasing high-rise populations face when their utilities and lifts fail during flooding of basements; the under-recognised resource of older people's experience, and the need to halt decline in Australian Defence Force members if the ADF is to be used in disaster response.
QUT Professor Rowena Maguire, from QUT's School of Law, said the briefing papers were based on research on the aftermath of the 2022 floods in South-east Queensland and northern New South Wales which caused $4.8 billion in damage.
"Queensland is the most disaster-prone state in Australia and vulnerability to disaster risk is escalating as result of climate change," Professor Maguire said.
"As finite government resources are unable to adequately cover Australia's vast regions all levels of governments, not-for-profit organisations, business, communities and individuals are increasingly aware, through experience, of the need to improve disaster preparedness, response and recovery."
A paper, Community-led disaster management: Insights form flood-affected communities across South-East Queensland, co-authored by PhD researcher Monica Taylor covers interviews with six community service organisations which identified how communities self-organise, their funding challenges, and tensions between community volunteers and the processes of local councils and governments.
"We interviewed staff from neighbourhood centres and grassroots community hubs which are local, place-based non-profits, typically with community development workers on staff, whose role involves supporting people with a whole range of things from food banks to no interest loans," Ms Taylor said.
"A constant theme was that community-led recovery is and must be individualised, person-centred and trauma-informed.
"One interviewee said government did not understand the reality of apartment living during disaster by pointing out that residents must leave when they have no power or basic utilities such as sewerage and water even though their apartments are not flooded.
"The problem is where can people go from a 20-storey building, let alone from the 90-storey blocks developers want approved, while liveability is restored to their apartment blocks."
Ms Taylor said another strong theme was that inconsistent funding of community service organisations undermined their effectiveness.
"Short-term funding limits organisational impact and can impede the creation of strong, deep roots with communities," she said.
Another paper, Sharing Responsibility for Disaster Justice, analysed submissions to the 2023 Senate Select Committee on Australia's disaster resilience to consider the role, impact and ongoing capacity and capability of the ADF, civil and volunteer groups, not for profits and state-based services in preparing for and responding to natural disasters.
Key themes were that disaster response was outside the ADF's remit and as legislation had not made it part of the ADF's core functions, policy barriers made it difficult for states and territories to request ADF assistance.
Also, a third of submissions indicated not for profits, community groups and volunteers played critical roles but were undervalued and poorly defined within the shared responsibility policy frameworks.
Ageing, vulnerability, and resilience in disasters applied the WHO's Active Ageing Framework to identify factors that impact the ways that older people experience both vulnerability and resilience in natural disasters.
It found older people offer significant resources to communities impacted by disaster - ABS figures in 2018 indicate that around one in six older Australians (living in households) had volunteered in the community in the previous three months (ABS, 2019).
Following a disaster, older people contribute to recovery through their long-standing local knowledge, draw upon skills and expertise as retired professionals and tradespeople during recovery phases, as volunteers in the community, and as carers.
Project team experiences of working with disaster affected communities looks at psychological hazards and well-being and is based on interviews with the project team who worked on the planned relocation of flood-affected properties in Grantham, 2011-12.
The paper, Exploring new dimensions of gender in disaster: sexual violence, reproductive health, and masculinity emphasises the role of masculinity in the emergency management sector and its impact on the sector, in particular, ignoring female-coded issues such as sexual violence and sexual reproductive health in disaster contexts. Further research must priorities gender equality and social inclusion in all aspects of planning and decision-making.
A human rights analysis of Queensland Disaster Management Arrangements calls for closer integration of human rights into Queensland disaster arrangements, after finding an absence of explicit connection between Queensland disaster management law policy and human rights law, both as relevant principles and as legal obligations.
Home ownership and mortgage obligations: Other impacts of climate change concludes it is time to prohibit any future development in at-risk areas. Land planning is primarily a function of state and local governments, however, they cannot be relied upon to make appropriate planning decisions, nor to provide adequate support after a climate change event. Continuing to approve homes to be built in at-risk areas perpetuates climate-change risk.
The capacities of workforces to 'surge' on demand: An unfolding disaster is concerned with paid surge workforces and the impacts of a depleted capacity across our social and health systems for communities, service provision and workers themselves during, and beyond, a disaster. It is a common government strategy to redeploy public servants, health and social care professionals and other paid workers to create a 'surge' workforce for assisting disaster-affected communities. The paper discusses weaknesses of this model including its being targeted only at the acute response phase of a disaster.
(Main Image: Getty Images Credit Michael Dunning, The Image Bank, Stock photos/flood)
