2019-20 bushfire season submissions

Details: Released: 20 March 2020

ACCAN has made submissions to various state-based inquiries regarding the 2019-20 bushfire season, including the NSW Independent Bushfire Inquiry, the SA Fire and Emergency Service Commission's independent review into South Australia's 2019-20 bushfire season, and the Inspector-General for Emergency Management's inquiry into the 2019-20 Victorian fire season. We have also submitted to the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements and the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee. ACCAN’s submissions focused on the impact of bushfires on communications infrastructure and reliability, and how this affected communications consumers.

In our submissions, ACCAN raised the following key points:

There must be greater collaboration to protect and restore communications infrastructure during national disasters, and important discussions must occur regarding network redundancy and resiliency;
Greater consumer education is required to ensure that consumers are aware of how power or communications outages will affect their access to phone and internet services;
Emergency broadcasts and communications with community members must occur in a timely and accessible manner, across a range of different accessible technologies and formats;
All consumers must have equal access to the emergency call service (000, 112 and 106);
Research and trials should be undertaken into how Sky Muster satellite services could be expanded to keep small businesses connected and support local communities through outages; and
The Regional Connectivity Package and the Mobile Black Spots program could help support bushfire ravaged communities get back on their feet.

New South Wales

Download: ACCAN NSW bushfire inquiry93.02 KB
Download: ACCAN NSW bushfire inquiry306.28 KB