Rebuilding communities after Australia’s bushfire season
Instead of a New Years of smiles and shrimps on the barbie, my family, along with so many other Australian families, were choking on smoke.
Anxiously, I was refreshing my newsfeed to see where the fires were that day, that hour, cross-checking with the weather conditions. Calling family and friends across New South Wales (NSW) to check-in. Hoping with each dial tone, that everyone was safe. In the face of disasters like the Australian bushfires, our own plans suddenly seem insignificant.
The destruction and displacement the bushfires have left in their wake — lost lives, lost livelihoods, lost animals, lost bushland — is devastating. I think most people feel that at times the response from the Federal government was somewhat lacking. In fact, the Federal government is suffering from twin challenges in their response to the bushfires crisis — they are not bringing effective results its citizens expect, and they are suffering from a legitimacy crisis. Communities affected by the bushfires feel left behind, frustrated and disconnected.
The fires contrasts two different mindsets about public management. Fighting the fires is a technical challenge where top-down control, expertise and best practice are no doubt very valuable. Enabling communities to recover from the bushfires, and helping prevent them in the future, is an entirely different challenge requiring empathy, engagement and an open mind.
What’s clear from the bushfires is that the old ways of working no longer work. The old fashioned centralised decision making structures are at least partly responsible for failures that made the impact of the fires so much worse for Australian communities. Decisions over budget, resources and materials taken in the Federal government are now shown to be part of the problem, and not part of the solution.
Create inclusive conversations to recover, restore and rebuild towns
What is needed is a Federal government that not only actively listens to local communities, indigenous communities and most importantly emergency fire and rescue professionals, but includes them in its decision-making processes. If the Federal government doesn’t adapt fast, I fear we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
At the Centre for Public Impact, we’ve learnt that governments who make decisions with the principle of ‘think systemically, act locally’ take a place-based, citizen-led approach to public services and community development.
The Wigan deal from the United Kingdom is one of the best examples of a new form of leadership that is emerging in the public sector. One that places greater emphasis on enabling the conditions from which better outcomes are more likely to emerge, as opposed to focusing on improving technocratic management.
The Wigan deal was an agreement between citizens, city leaders, public sector, community groups and local businesses on how to create a better local authority while managing large cuts to its budget imposed by central government. It has been successful in many ways: Wigan Council has reduced its expenses, improved certain services, frozen council tax, and improved health outcomes for citizens.
Human-positive government
Putting people at the heart of public services, and listening and valuing vulnerable local leaders, was at the heart of Donna Hall’s leadership in Wigan.
The NSW State government is drawing from a like minded citizen-first approach with its recent announcement of the Service NSW Bushfire Customer Care program. Bushfire-affected families and businesses can now access all available assistance being offered by local councils, the State and Federal Government through Service NSW. Cutting through the complexity of dealing with the system and the red tape, Customer Care specialists will operate like case managers — putting those affected by the bushfires in touch with the services they need — including accommodation, mental health and wellbeing services, clean-up services, financial assistance, insurance and legal support, and replacing lost ID documents.
Australians value mateship, humility and authenticity
Our towns and suburbs are tight-knit, and we take care of each other in times of crisis. The simple and straightforward nature of helping your neighbours restart their car battery, jumping over the fence and helping to bring their cattle in, or halving what’s left in your pantry with the kids whose parents are volunteering to fight the fires — are the untold stories of support networks and kindness across NSW.
If we can extrapolate these values up to the way Federal government deals with national disasters, then indigenous people, locally elected representatives, frontline staff, local governments, service providers and lower-ranking civil servants will all have a seat at the decision-making table. Communities themselves will be in the lead when making decisions about what happens next.
This season’s bushfires highlighted how complicated it is to address something on this scale both in the short, medium and long term. It involves tackling climate change, providing efficient public services, the right level of budget, but also allowing local communities to be involved in the decisions and management of critical public services like fire and rescue, and as well as listening to local communities and indigenous groups about how to manage the land, and our climate better and more sustainably.
At the Centre for Public Impact, we believe a starting point is with incorporating shared power principles into decision making putting those impacted front and centre. By doing so, we’ve seen that outcomes can be improved, but perhaps most importantly citizens feel empowered and engaged too.
