Press Conference in Brisbane, Queensland

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
BRISBANE
MONDAY, 10 JUNE 2024

SUBJECTS: Opening of Disaster Relief Australia’s National Operations Centre; Coles limiting egg purchases. 

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thanks everyone for coming along today to the official opening of a really important addition to Australia's natural disaster response and recovery set of equipment and personnel. I'm really pleased to be joined here today by Geoff Evans, the CEO of Disaster Relief Australia, and all the many volunteers, staff of DRA, along with many officials from the National Emergency Management Agency at the official opening of Disaster Relief Australia's national headquarters right here in Brisbane.
 
Obviously, as a proud Queenslander, I'm very pleased that DRA has chosen Brisbane and Queensland to headquarter its site. But it makes a lot of sense when you think about Queensland being the most prone-to-natural-disasters-State of anywhere in the country. Ever since the Albanese Government was elected about two years ago, we've been investing heavily to make sure that Australia is much better prepared for natural disasters and is able to respond much more quickly than we've seen in the past. And these official headquarters for DRA, right here in Queensland, are another important investment by our Government, in partnership with DRA to make sure Australia is disaster ready.
 
I've had the really great privilege of meeting many DRA volunteers out in the field in disasters, right back, actually, to when I was still in Opposition, when they were active in recovery from the Lismore floods. And since then, I've seen them in the field in several different states in Australia, including over the most recent summer, where we saw DRA personnel out helping Australians recover everywhere from Far North Queensland to the Gold Coast hinterland. And even today, we see DRA volunteers out helping people recovering from the tornado-style storm that we saw in Gippsland in Victoria. So can I pay tribute to the all the many volunteers and staff from DRA who are here today. It's a sign of the times that some of you I've actually met today for the third or fourth time, because you have been so present when Australia is going through disasters.
 
But as I say, DRA is choosing to headquarter itself here in Queensland, and adding to its capability with these fantastic premises, with storage, with drones, with mapping equipment that you've seen in operation, all of this means that Australians can be confident that we are much better prepared for disasters in the future and also much more ready to respond when they do hit. I'll hand over to Geoff Evans to tell you a little bit more about what this means to DRA and then we're happy to take questions.
 
GEOFF EVANS, CEO OF DISASTER RELIEF AUSTRALIA: Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to the opening of Disaster Relief Australia's National Operations Centre. You are standing in the centre of a hub and spoke model that reaches out to 10 disaster relief teams around the nation. That's roughly 4000 volunteers standing ready to serve the country. Here, this facility in particular will house around 20 of our operations staff and around 800 volunteers. Disaster Relief Australia is increasingly being called upon right across the country. It is unusual for us to be continuing operations throughout winter, but even as we speak right now this operation centre is live, and we are monitoring and coordinating operations in Gippsland as we speak. This National Operations Centre allows us to connect to the National Situation Room so we can coordinate a national response when required. And of course, we can run operations independently from this location. It is a command, control and communication centre, as well as a logistics and training hub. We're extremely grateful to the Minister and the support of the Australian Government. And I'd like to particularly acknowledge the National Emergency Management Agency and their support, collaboration and willingness to see Disaster Relief Australia succeed. Happy to take any questions.
 
MURRAY WATT: Any questions on this issue before we deal with other things?
 
JOURNALIST: What does the new disaster relief centre mean for relief management in Australia?
 
MURRAY WATT: Sure, I might get Geoff back up to talk about what it means for DRA itself, but I can certainly say for Australians, this means that we are much better prepared and much more able to respond quickly in disasters than we have been in the past. One of the terrific things about DRA as an organisation is that it largely draws on our veteran community. Many of the volunteers here, who I've met today are veterans themselves, and it obviously provides real help to Australians in their time of need, but it also provides a lot of purpose and a sense of purpose for the volunteers who come from a veteran background and are still looking for a way to serve their community. Even the people that I've been speaking with today have talked about that sense of purpose that they have from being able to help their fellow Australians in their hour of need. This provides really practical support to Australians with better facilities, better technology, better equipment, and ready to go at a moment's drop, but it also provides a really important sense of purpose to the people who are working here as well.
 
But Geoff might like to add - actually, I might just add one other thing; this is part of a $3(8) million investment from the Albanese Government that we announced in our first Budget back in October 2022. As I say, I first had contact with DRA as an organisation when we were still in Opposition, and it was very clear to me that they could really add a capability to our national disaster response that the country desperately needed. We all know that we are going to be facing more natural disasters in the future due to climate change. And what that means is that Australia needs to step up a gear and be more ready than we have been in the past. We will always rely on the Australian Defence Force in particular emergencies, for evacuations, for rescues and things like that. But we do need to recognise that we need to be providing other alternatives to support the ADF, and DRA is a really important alternative that is growing each and every day. But Geoff might like to add as well.
 
JOURNALIST: Just what it meant for disaster relief in general?
 
GEOFF EVANS: Disaster Relief Australia is actually a fairly new organisation, we're eight years old. And at the last election, the Australian Government invested $38.3 million into what was called the Volunteer Uplift program. Now we've got 4000 volunteers spread out over 10 disaster relief teams around the nation. But we've never had a central command and control node, so there's been no central place to coordinate our operations. This facility provides that opportunity for us to conduct command, control and communications of all of our operations nationally. And as we move forward and conduct operations that provide an alternative capability to the Australian Defence Force, we see that combined with disasters becoming more frequent, more and more intense, that Disaster Relief Australia will be incredibly busy. And this facility provides the information, communication and technology, as well as personnel infrastructure to conduct operations in a consistent, coordinated manner.
 
JOURNALIST: Would these crew deployed globally or just Australia?
 
GEOFF EVANS: Yeah so Disaster Relief Australia absolutely has a role to play, particularly across the Southeast Asia region. We're not currently funded to do that, that is definitely a discussion we'll be having with government as we move forward.
 
JOURNALIST: My other question is on bird flu. So Coles is now limiting egg purchases because of the outbreak in five farms in Victoria. Is that something other states should be concerned about?
 
MURRAY WATT: I'm very confident in the work that the Victorian Government is doing to control and contain the bird flu outbreak that we are seeing in Victoria at the moment. As you say, it's now at a point where we do have bird flu in five different poultry farms across Victoria, but frankly, it would have been a lot more if the Victorian Government, supported by the Commonwealth, hadn't moved as quickly as they had. The restriction on egg sales from Coles is obviously a precautionary measure, and I would certainly encourage everyone to be respectful when they're shopping. But the very quick action that Victoria has taken, backed by behind the Commonwealth, has meant that this outbreak has not spread further afield, and we're confident that we can get on top of it quickly.
 
JOURNALIST: Should regular people be checking their eggs or what can they do?
 
MURRAY WATT: No, Australian consumers can be very confident that the eggs they're consuming are safe. The work that the Victorian Government is doing to euthanise poultry on those farms means that there's no risk of contaminated eggs getting into the system, the supply system. It's also important to remember that the strain of avian flu that we see in Victoria is not the particularly deadly strain that we have seen in other countries around the world. That's the way we intend to keep it, and we'll be working very closely with Victorian Government to keep it that way.
 
All good? Thanks all.

ENDS