An independent review of Queensland’s response to the recent floods is to be undertaken by Inspector-General Emergency Management, Alistair Dawson.
Announcing the Review, Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said learning from this event would better prepare the State for the next.
Ms Palaszczuk was supported by Minister for Emergency Services, Mark Ryan who said that Mr Dawson (pictured) had delivered several key Reviews to the Government, including the2019-20 Queensland Bushfires Review and the K’Gari (Fraser Island) Bushfire Review.
“Whenever there is a major natural disaster like the devastating flooding event we have just witnessed in South-East Queensland, we will call upon the Inspector-General to conduct an independent Review,” Mr Ryan said.
“The role of the Inspector-General was recognised by the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements as a leading example of continuous improvement and best practice that has worked successfully,” he said.
Mr Ryan said it was an unfortunate reality that Queensland was the nation’s most disaster-prone State “and while we get a lot of practice responding to these kinds of events, we are always looking to see if we can do things better”.
“That is the Inspector-General’s job — to examine the response to the floods and see if there are any lessons that can be learned, or improvements that can be made to the way we deal with these events,” he said.
“As part of the independent Review, Mr Dawson will be inviting submissions from the public and will host some public forums.”
Mr Ryan said the terms of reference and further details about how to make a submission would be made available on the Inspector-General’s website.
