Nominations for the 2019-2021 FMA Office-bearers closed on 3 April. As one nomination was received for each position the nominees are elected.

Returning Office-bearers are:

President: Ian Dinham, Full Member Moree Plains Shire Council

Immediate Past President: Allan Ezzy, Life Member 

Technical Director: Danny Rose, Full Member Tweed Shire Council

Land Use Planning Director: Paul Grech, Corporate Member GLN Planning

Communications Director: Sue Ribbons, Professional Member

New Office-bearers commencing duty at the conclusion of the 2019 Annual General Meeting are:

Deputy President: Allan Gear, Professional Member

Queensland Director: Will Prentice, Professional Member

Executive Officer Glenn Evans offered his congratulations and appreciation to all nominees for volunteering for these important roles. He welcomed incoming Deputy President Allan Gear who returns to the Executive after having been FMA’s first Land Use Planning Director. Allan has also over the last few years been “FMA Ambassador” on visits to flood risk management colleagues in the USA and UK.

Mr Evans also welcomed incoming Queensland Director Will Prentice who would be well known to Queensland colleagues, and is a member of FMA’s Queensland Working Group. Will brings a wealth of practical experience in river and catchment engineering to the Executive.

Mr Evans acknowledged the contributions to FMA of retiring Deputy President Larry Bolitho and Queensland Director Dwayne Honor, both of whom did not seek re-appointment.

Larry has held the Deputy’s position since 2011 and in that time FMA has benefitted from his extensive experience in flood and insurance issues, as well as his Local and State Government connections.

In the two years of his directorship Dwayne has substantially strengthened the Queensland Chapter by engaging with regional Councils, initiating FMA’s first Quarterly Meeting at Rockhampton, and establishing the Queensland Working Group.

“The new Executive team with its great depth of experience and expertise across a range of disciplines will ensure FMA’s continued national growth and relevance over the next two years,” Mr Evans said.

 

The Queensland Government has released the Brisbane River Strategic Floodplain Management Plan which includes 52 recommendations for the Queensland and Local Governments to implement to strengthen the flood resilience of communities living, working and visiting the Brisbane River floodplain.

The work is the result of a partnership between the Queensland Government, Seqwater and the Local Governments of Brisbane, Ipswich, Somerset and Lockyer Valley.

Measures include structural mitigation, land use planning, building guidance, community resilience, disaster management and landscape management.

See the Plan and comprehensive supporting information at: www.qra.qld.gov.au/brcfs

Also released is Flood Resilient Building Guidance for Queensland Homes which provides information about resilient design and construction options for new and existing homes, flood resilient building materials and systems, and the economic benefits of flood resilient design solutions.

The guideline is available at: www.qra.qld.gov.au/
resilient-homes

FMA President Ian Dinham congratulated the Queensland Reconstruction Authority team on delivering these very significant resources which will help build the resilience of communities in the Brisbane River catchment, and also across Queensland.

“There is a huge body of ground-breaking work supporting the Strategic Plan and the Flood Resilient Homes guide and we look forward to learning more about these at the FMA Conference.”

The Minister for Emergency Management and North Queensland Recovery, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds CSC, has released the final version of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework.

Members would recall that FMA Queensland Director Dwayne Honor participated in last year’s co- design workshop in Melbourne which started development of the framework.

The Framework sets a new vision for reducing disaster risk in Australia. 

It leverages initiatives already underway and calls for further coordinated action to reduce existing disaster risk, minimise new risk and ensure decision makers have the capabilities and information they need to do this.

The document sets out four National Priorities Understanding disaster risk, Accountable actions, Enhanced investment and Governance, ownership and responsibility, each with their own strategies for action to 2023.

The next stage in the process is development of a five-year implementation plan to be released in 2019.

A positive outcome of the Framework is the announcement by the Minister of a commitment to deliver an annual statement of action on disaster risk reduction to the Australian parliament.

This month’s budget announcements by Treasurer Hon Josh Frydenberg included the establishment of “a new $3.9 billion Emergency Response Fund that will ensure additional resourcing is available to support future natural disaster recovery efforts”.

It is understood that the fund will allocate up to $150M per annum for natural disaster recovery and response initiatives above and beyond existing funding for severe and catastrophic disasters, and will not interfere with the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

The announcement makes no reference to funding for disaster mitigation, which FMA has long argued needs to be drastically increased if future natural disaster costs are to be contained.

Australia presently spends only 3% on prevention and 97% on clean up and recovery after each flood event, whereas the Netherlands spends 97% of its flood related expenditure on prevention and 3% on recovery.

While the announcement of dedicated funding to assist rapid recovery action after floods is welcomed, FMA will continue to campaign for appropriate funding levels for flood mitigation infrastructure and adequate pre-flood preparation.

 

FMA Corporate Member Risk Frontiers’ Andrew Gissing has advised that the results of a study on the influence of road characteristics on flood fatalities in Australia has recently been made available.

An analysis of published flood fatalities in Australia occurring between 1960 and 2015 reveals that 49% of 229 flood fatalities were vehicle related. 

The work by Risk Frontiers examines attributes of roadways that may have influenced driver decisions to enter floodwaters and the survivability of people in vehicles that did so, and concludes by discussing policy implications. 

Read the report at the Taylor & Francis website online here.

On a related topic Members may recall the August 2016 Sydney Workshop presentation by Grantley Smith on testing by the UNSW Water Research Laboratory (WRL) on how small and large cars behave when they encounter flood waters.

This was accomplished by replicating flood conditions faced by motorists at full scale in an especially configured test tank at WRL’s facilities in Manly Vale, in northern Sydney.

Members can access the presentation at the FMA website, Members’ Section.

 

 

Pictured: Dr. Stephen Yeo (Flood Focus Consulting Pty Ltd) with his FMA cap on a recent trip to New Zealand.