Disasters spark call for special response force
Former Australian Army boss Sir Peter Cosgrove, who led the response to Queensland’s Cyclone Larry, says relying on the military in disasters is unviable, and states need a paid, highly trained civilian emergency response force.
The debate over the military’s role in disasters comes amid a decline in traditional emergency volunteering, with a major research project warning of high turnover rates, older volunteers, and growing levels of burnout, due to more frequent disasters.
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is increasingly called upon in crises, including the recent Black Summer bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic. However, defence experts warn that too much reliance upon the military in these events is stretching it too far and distracting from its main focus, which is defending Australia’s sovereignty.
Cosgrove – also a former governor-general – said he did not think it was viable for the military to develop a disaster capability, and warned against diluting their focus on their key job.
He suggested that the states develop, but the Commonwealth fund, a standing emergency response force made up of civilians but modelled on the Army Reserve.
‘‘They would be people who would learn [disaster relief skills] and would have to keep them current,’’ he said. ‘‘They are skilled, equipped, and they are readily available at a drop of the hat.’’ They would work with existing state emergency services.
Another former Defence Force chief, Admiral Chris Barrie, also said reliance on the army was no substitute for rigorous climate change action and a nationally coordinated, civilian-led government response.
Professor John Blaxland, a former intelligence officer and military historian at the Australian National University, said the ADF had been ‘‘stretched thin’’ by responding to consecutive emergencies.
‘‘The ADF has a degree of spare capacity for responding to crises. But if you constantly use it for that, you will erode its ability
to do its principal function, which is to fight in defence of the nation,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve got a Defence Force that is now actually seriously strained.’’
Blaxland said a voluntary national and community service scheme could be established through an agreement between the states, territories and federal government, incentivising young people to join state emergency services and defence forces.
The debate comes after a major research project by the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre said the traditional model of volunteering, which underpins organisations such as the State Emergency Service (SES), is
declining. In one SES, the annual turnover rate was 20 to 25 per cent.
The shift was due to the changing nature of paid work, lifestyles and values, and the social impact of technology, the report said. There was more competition for volunteers’ time, and growing levels of volunteer burnout, with many volunteers being older.
The 2020 Royal Commission into Natural Disaster Arrangements, held after the Black Summer fires, found there was a public perception that the ADF was always readily available to be deployed in a crisis. ‘‘This is not, in fact, the case,’’ it said. ‘‘Nor is it a reasonable expectation of the ADF.’’