Public-private partnerships key to contain disaster and climate change impacts
Media Release
GOLD COAST: Emergency services must engage in partnerships with the private sector to contain the impacts of disasters and climate change, according to disaster response and coordination expert Dr Emily Chapman, speaking at a disaster and emergency management conference on the Gold Coast on Tuesday.
Dr Chapman, who is a presenter at the conference, specialises in partnerships and coordination during international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).
“It’s a privilege to speak at this important conference to share my on-the-ground experience, knowledge and research findings from my PhD on civil-military interaction during Australian responses to overseas natural hazards,” Dr Chapman said, who also works as a consultant for the Public Safety Training and Response Group.
“One of the key areas the conference is focusing on is ‘what does interagency collaboration and communication look like in the near future’ – and we know the cornerstone is public-private-people partnerships.
“Public-private partnerships are also the key to maximising resilience in the face of climate changes.”
Unsurprisingly to many Australians who have been impacted by our vulnerability and risk to natural hazards, the World Risk Report 2023 shows that Australia is globally in the top 10 countries with the highest exposure. Our closest regional neighbours such as Indonesia and India are also at high risk.
“Australia’s exposure rating means we should consider how we collectively decrease vulnerability and susceptibility, as well as increase our coping capacities and balance our risk of exposure,” Dr Chapman said.
“We consider partnerships that include all sectors of communities – public, private and communities themselves – to be the building blocks of effective disaster responses.
“We see the private sector progress shared responsibility through their actions during a response due to established partnerships or a commitment to such partnerships, which include providing specialised operational teams and equipment, and personnel that are not already in response workforces.
“It is vital that we build partnerships before a disaster or emergency to achieve shared understanding of each other’s knowledge, expertise and capabilities, because it is too late during a response to overcome resource and preparation shortfalls.”
The Public Safety Training and Response Group is headquartered in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, but has global experience in both public safety training and operations.
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4 comments
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Aubrey Meyer -
Phil Pryor -
Steve Davis -
Clakka
Return to home pageSubordinating everything to fossil fuel-fired growth blinds us to the damage it has been causing & where this ends: –
http://www.gci.org.uk/Andrew_Dlugolecki.html
Thanks to A Meyer for the reference above, and it foresaw the horrible inevitabilities of climate change disaster unfolding. We have no mechanism for fair and equal effort locally, nationally, internationally, for relatively fair and equal sacrifice, moderation, slowing change, sense in education and awareness about all this. World finance and business still has a core of fossil fuel carbon emitting wealth, need, opportunity for fossil fuels, and many still refuse to face facts, preferring a future then to a need to do essential things now. Now is the time for us to plan for then, but, our politicians reflect will, the will of donors, corporations, electoral success, facile appearance, tokenism.
From Prof john quiggan in the guardian today — “The end of the UK’s private finance initiative (PFI), the model for Australian public-private partnerships, is already producing huge problems. But it is now clear to everyone that dealing with these problems is better than persisting with the hopeless failure of PFI.”
I could be wrong, but I cannot see public/private partnerships working in dealing with disasters.
The private sector has different priorities to the public sector.
Employ private companies, sure, but partnerships — no way
Yer can’t trust ’em.
A good article, pleased to read. SD, on ought be aware of media jumble-up.
Having been involved (financially and technically), on the ground, in PPPs, and having extensively studied the evolution and implementation of PPPs worldwide, it is fair to say Oz over the years has become one of the most effective and efficient developers and users of PPPs. That is not to say there have not been numerous problems in the past relating particularly to the ‘concessions’ period valuations, and its structure of KPI’s and reward / penalty – these are highly complex, and involve assessment of all sorts of risks going forward often for many decades. But these have progressively been sorted out by implementing findings / recommendations of ‘Auditor General’s’ reports and the refining of valuation and risk frameworks.
Mostly, the ‘private companies’ have been co-operative in review and correction of such problems, as they wish to maintain the essential co-operative vfm relationship with the govts. A recent example, being the complete overview and correction of the massive Sydney road/rail network PPPs, to ensure that after decades of growth, the ‘concession period’ tolls are streamlined, integrated and reevaluated to ensure vfm across the now vast networks.
It is very important to understand that the ‘private’ sector (of contractors) has vast resources of plant, equipment, know-how, supplier / sub-contractor and manpower organizational capacities that govts don’t have, and don’t and ought not ignore. To that extent, the old days of ‘servant – master’ fixed price hard dollar contracting are long gone, giving way to various forms of co-operative alliances and PPPs. The main problems commonly reported in the media, are not in the infrastructure contractor’s industry, but in private commercial developments (eg apartment building), or in the sphere of political machinations (imposed by govt) that the contractors wish to stay out of.
It is fair to say that for both contractors and the govt (public service) the levels of technical / management expertise has improved exponentially. Albeit the ‘coalition’ small govt / free-market impositions have repeatedly obliterated the expertise and skill levels in the public service, which generated a nightmare for contractors, and lead to the nonsense politically-pumped diversionary cover of “Yer can’t trust ’em” . When in fact the main source of guile, deception and corruption is through intervention by and cover-off for ‘adventurous’ politicians. I have seen it time and again, and have tomes of evidence that would reveal that truth.
I might add that the UK is well know for wheedling with the ‘dark forces’ of the notorious ‘City of London Corporation’ and the wiles of the Lords et al. Prof Quiggin (an economist), is no doubt correct that the UK’s private finance initiative (PFI) is a dog – no surprise to me. But to suggest that it is / remains the model for Oz PPPs is utterly incorrect, Oz PPP contracting system has been developed via extensive international interaction, and substantial review, technical input and moderation from Oz, and is recognized as one of the best PPP contracting systems in the world. The real problem with the UK, and others including Oz, was being suckered years before by the neo-liberal adventurism into mass sell-off of govt utilities and services to grasping financial predators leading to ‘jobs for the boys’ (management & bean-counters), inappropriate thinning of technical skills, reduction of service and rampant profiteering – this is ‘Privatization’, not PPP contracting. It is a good thing that ‘Privatization’ is brought to heel, but difficult once the predators have their tentacles wrapped around the whole ‘Privatized’ caboodle. PPP contracting is entirely different, where the govt never confers ownership, and the contractor consortium participates in funding of detailed design & construction and after delivery spreads the cost via ‘concession’ rights of operation and maintenance over an up-front designated period, it also these days often includes provisions for incorporating technical advances (such as renewable energy), after which it reverts to govt O&M. In regard to this, the Guardian article is misinformation codswallop.
So, back to the story in the article above. I am 100% in agreement with the good Dr Emily Chapman. Govt, does not have the resources or capacity to tackle efficiently and effectively the pressing needs associated with climate change in both infrastructure, and disaster management and recovery (as could be seen in the US New Orleans cyclone / flood disaster). It is definitely wise to pursue urgently those matters through PPP contracting, unleashing the resources of private consortia, via properly designed modelling and frameworks fit for purpose, and ready to be deployed as and when needed. The sooner those properly designed models and frameworks can be developed and promulgated to putative stakeholders and participants, the better all will be ready to respond (competitively in tender), and deploy quickly to meet demand. Labor has done a great job with this in the renewables energy infrastructure development, and has shown that it can learn and respond to community concerns. As opposed to the BS dumb bulldozer approach of DeuteriumDutton, and the old bunch of pirates.