Background/Objectives

Faced with the need to adapt to an increasing range of intersecting threats, often without a complete appreciation of the vulnerabilities their cities face, communities globally are looking to fundamentally identify and comprehensively secure what underpins their societies, and their societal resilience.

In Australia, the federal government, motivated by a series of cascading disasters, including a 2016 state-wide blackout in South Australia, 2019 to 2020 Black Summer bushfires, 2020 to 2021 COVID lockdowns and supply disruptions, and an increasingly insecure regional geopolitical environment, mounted a series of policy initiatives to strengthen the country as a whole. At the same time, the Australian Department of Home Affairs legislated the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act, which mandates a basic level of vulnerability and hazard awareness, threat and risk mitigation for all designated critical infrastructure.

Approach/Activities

In response to a greater need for societal resilience, the Australian federal government has engaged GHD Advisory to assist with three major pieces of policy advice over three years: a 2021 study into water treatment chemical supply chain resilience, a 2022 study into emerging vulnerabilities in the national energy grid, and a 2023 study into potential options for a national strategic fleet, or merchant navy. Simultaneously, we have assisted critical infrastructure owners and operators establish compliance with the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act.

This presentation will synthesize common and distinct lessons learned across these projects to distill key approaches and methodologies for policymakers, leaders and managers to apply in their pursuit of urban and societal resilence, drawn from  framing, prioritising and recommending suitable interventions. This will highlight the importance of understanding supply-chain hazards as a universal threat, and mitigating them as a common opportunity.

Results/Lessons Learned

While global responses to a need for greater societal resilience include the Resilient Cities Network, which targets capacity-building in metropolitan governance, and European responses include the Swedish Government's booklet 'If Crisis or War Comes', which targets households to establish a basic level preparedness, the central theme of the Australian approach has been to identify, define and strengthen society's critical infrastructure itself. Following closely are efforts in the US (through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), the UK (through the National Protective Security Authority), Canada (through Public Safety Canada) and New Zealand (through the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet). 

Other national efforts stand to benefit from key lessons learned from working closely with Australian government departments and agencies, such as:

• Legislative interventions are particularly effective when they shift agency and accountability for essential services provision back into the community, particularly with transparent federal consultation, clear guidance and support.
• Interdependencies among different categories of infrastructure, and overlaps among hazards, are the weakest links in the entire societal system, and the most difficult to address.
• National security relies on national collaboration, and national resilience relies on community resilience.