To protect Australia, the infrastructure sector must change
During 2019-2020, Australia faced the COVID-19 pandemic, a record-breaking bushfire season, extensive flooding and drought, geopolitical risks and cyber-attacks on critical infrastructure networks. These events showed Just how critical infrastructure is for maintaining community safety, biodiversity and a functional economy.
Australia's governments, communities and businesses are recovering from these compounding crises. They are trying to return to normality, reduce the impact of hazard events and rebuild the economy. This creates an opportunity to take stock of lessons learned and make communities more resilient and sustainable.
The compounding impacts of disasters that have impacted Australia over the last two years is a warning sign for the uncertainty and risk that lays ahead.
As shocks and stresses become more interrelated, they are likely to grow more severe.1 Stresses increase vulnerability to shocks and amplify their impact. If they are left unchecked, they can trigger shock events.
This country has experienced profound disruption in the past, with the impact flowing through to the economy (see Figure 2.1). However, the scale, pace, interconnectedness and uncertainty of shocks and stresses today are more systemic and threatening.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates global warming is likely to be 1.5 degrees higher than pre-industrial era levels between 2030 and 2052 if present emissions rates continue.2 If this were to occur, Australia would experience increasingly damaging East Coast Lows, more frequent and intense heatwaves, increases to peak wind speed and more extreme rainfall.3
Communities, businesses and decision-makers in government cannot continue to make decisions by default. Protecting Australians and preserving their way of life will involve transforming infrastructure planning, delivery and management.
Resilient communities have the ability to resist, absorb, accommodate, recover, transform and thrive in response to the effects of shocks and stresses in a timely, efficient manner to enable positive sustainable economic, social, environmental and governance outcomes. Sustainable infrastructure is planned, designed, procured, constructed and operated to optimise economic, environmental, social and governance outcomes over the life of the asset. This is done in a way that ensures it supports the needs of society today without compromising the needs of future generations. Sustainability focuses on better outcomes to improve and protect economic, governance, social and natural environments. It differs from resilience, which focuses on the ability to mitigate and adapt to future uncertainty so sustainable outcomes can be achieved.4 Shocks: Disaster events with an immediate damaging impact, such as cyber-attacks, extreme storms or flooding. Stresses: Chronic long-term or cyclical trends that undermine systems over time, such as rising inequity, ageing infrastructure or rising sea levels. |
Figure 2.1: Previous shocks have had significant economic consequences
Source: Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (2020)5