Episode #38: The National Emergency Management Stockpile (NEMS)

Joe Buffone is the Deputy Coordinator General at the National Emergency Management Agency or NEMA, and we are talking about NEMS, the National Emergency Management Stockpile. So a little bit about Joe. As I’ve just mentioned he’s the Deputy Coordinator General of Emergency Management and Response for the National Emergency Management Agency in Australia or NEMA. Joe has been with the Australian Government since December, 2016. During this period, he’s held several positions and was the last serving Director General of Emergency Management Australia. He has more than 40 years experience in security and disaster management with direct involvement in coordinating and responding to major emergencies in Australia and internationally. Now, I won’t share too much about his current role at NEMA as I’ll let him do that instead.

Now originally from Melbourne I first met Joe about a decade ago when he worked at the Country Fire Authority or CFA, and I instantly loved talking with Joe about all things emergency management.

What we talked about most was his passion for helping communities impacted by disasters and how government and corporates could work better together to support relief and recovery efforts. Back then, I was working for the Australian National Postal Service or Australia Post. So we talk about what help during disasters looked like from a volunteer perspective and a donation perspective. I still remember a coffee we had at Collins Square in Melbourne where Joe shared his vision of how the sector needed to change to ensure Australian communities hit by disasters, get access to lifesaving resources. And I’m really excited to be talking with Joe today on exactly that. Joe, thanks so much. I love talking to you. I’m so excited to have you on a podcast.

Joe Buffone

Renae, great to be chatting and, and thanks for all the work that you do as well. You know, you’ve been sort of driving the resilience and connection into the corporate sector for many, many, many years, and it’s great to see that actually getting some traction. So, it’s my pleasure to be here today.

Renae Hanvin

Oh, Jo, that makes my heart warm and fuzzy. Thank you. So let’s start with in the introduction I mentioned a bit about you and I haven’t really met many people in the emergency management sector who don’t know who Joe Buffone is, like, let’s be honest.

1. But for those few, could you just give a little overview about what your role is at NEMA and what does NEMA do?

Joe Buffone

Yeah, thanks Renae. A little bit, embarrassed by that sort of intro, but, I probably just, ’cause I’ve been around the sector for quite a long time. But, look, my role, I’m the Deputy Coordinator, one of the Deputy Coordinator Generals here at NEMA. I look after emergency management and response. So that’s really from a national perspective. Preparedness, response coordination, exercising lessons and national capability building. So really anything, any crises that requires national participation and coordination, at like NEMA. NEMA has a role in that and I lead the group that basically do all of that work, including the national situation room, a crisis coordination team, you know, our exercise team, et cetera.

Renae Hanvin

Gosh, so you’re obviously not very busy ’cause there’s so much happening, in and around Australia these days.

Joe Buffone

Well, absolutely. You know, I often talk about consecutive, concurrent and compounding events. you know, we had the summit that actually ran the scenario that sadly is very close to what is actually playing out right now. And, you know, we’re fortunately, well, we had a category five cyclone impact on Western Australia, but, you know, thankfully not huge amount of damage, but still communities that are being affected. And, you know, I think a bit of the theme for today’s not losing sight of community at the center of what we do, and Renae, I know that that’s been a passion of yours, you know, through this whole sort of journey. And I think that that’s important that we don’t lose sight of community

Renae Hanvin

A hundred percent, Joe. And I think I mentioned in my intro that you and I, we met over a decade ago and we really quickly found a mutual passion. Again. I remember us meeting, at Colin’s place and we were talking about volunteers and, and help and, you know, getting donated goods to communities. And I think, you know, it’s, it’s really important that we get the right help to the communities as fast and as effectively and as efficiently as possible after a disaster event. And as you mentioned at the start, I came very much from the corporate side, you of course, from the government and emergency services lens. And I’m so excited to be talking to you today about the National Emergency Management Stockpile or NEMS with you because it’s kind of, you sort of evolved what we’re talking about 10 years ago into this amazing thing that’s there for every community.

2. Can you share with us, like, what is NEMS?

Joe Buffone

Yeah, absolutely. Look, just, just a bit of a context as well. Obviously, you know, over the years and in particular post Black Summer, but even before that, like Black Saturday was really the catalyst in Victoria. And people forget about that. 173 people died in six and a half hours, more than 2000 homes, you know, were lost, you know, communities absolutely raised, huge impacts and in some ways still communities recovering. And this week was actually the anniversary of Ash Wednesday. So 1983 and even going back then was the storm, you know, the dust storm, which was the, you know, the leading into Ash Wednesday, which just showed the dryness around the country. So we’ve seen more frequent, more intense, sort of events. And not only that, obviously defense play continues to play a key role, but we’ve also identified that, you know, the geopolitical environment sets some, you know, different priorities.

Joe Buffone

So we’ve been very, very focused now on making sure that we’ve got capabilities across the nation. And NEMS, the National Emergency Management Stockpile was pretty much born from those concepts. You know, how do we actually build a capability that fills the gap and is in a timely way that can support communities through the states and territories. And I’ve gotta be really clear, you know, we’re in a federation and the states and territories lead in that environment, but our job is to support them to support communities. And I always talk about speed to action, speed to decisions, because that is the differentiation in a crisis that’s gonna help. So NEMS has really a multifactor, so the first part of it is an actual physical stockpile. So we’ve got, you know, actual assets that we own. And probably our biggest one is the emergency shelter, which is Humanihut.

So it’s, it’s, you know, hard walls, totally self-contained, you know, has sewage, has you know, water, has air conditioning, has cooking, and you know, and, and it’s a very, very comfortable mobile facility that can actually house up to 700 community members or could have 1400, sorry, emergency service workers. And always say that’s not because, you know, we sort of have different standards for emergency workers, but you know, for community, they’re actually living there. That’s their home. They’ve gotta actually live there. Whereas for the emergency services, they’re sort of in, if they’re placed to rest and recoup and then they’re back out on the job. So, you know, different objectives. And we deployed that to, tropical Cyclone Jasper. And I actually went up there and slept in it myself and it was the first time that it was deployed.

And I’ve gotta say, it was, very, very hot. Very, very humid. And I was very, very grateful to have a, you know, stretcher. The other thing is that’s really important with that it’s accessible for people with disabilities as well. So we’ve got a pod with a shower pod, you know, and even into the, you know, into the rouse, it’s designed for accessibility as well, you know, and I’ve got a great team, Bronze Sparks that I know you’ve already, you know, that, you know very, very well. You know, they’ve done a great job on that. The other part of the actual physical stockpile is we’ve got power generation. Not, not huge. I mean, it’s something that we’re building on, but we’ve got two, you know, very, very large generators. A smaller one, and then a couple of smaller generators as well.

And again, it’s really designed to fill that gap until we can source other capabilities. ’cause we can deploy those immediately. And then you might look at commercial arrangements or other arrangements as well. We’ve also got water purification. ’cause these are the things that are really under stress, you know, straightaway, number one shelter. The second thing is, is water, you know? Yep. So generally we need, well, sorry, you know, straightaway, shelter, power generation, then water, you know, they’re sort of the basic human needs that you need on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So a really important part. Then we’ve also got some flood barriers, you know, so, and we’ve specifically got those again to supplement what the states have already got. So we’ve looked at what they’ve got and then we’ve actually matched that. So physical barriers that can actually assist them. We’ve got a range of different ones there.

Some are what they call the defense cells, which are like big bags that they fill full of and they were used during the 2022-2023 floods. And South Australia did an amazing job down the Murray and protected many communities with them. We’ve got a stockpile of sandbags, and you might think, you know, how does that happen? Well, in actual fact, in in 2022-2023 there was a shortage of sandbags. [Oh, wow.] And we actually, you know, we actually filled, filled that sort of that gap there as well. And then we’ve got a range of sort of other, you know, sort of, you know, consumables. So, so that’s the, that’s the first phase of the actual physical stockpile. The second part that we’ve got is what we call, it’s like a virtual marketplace. So we’ve gone out to tender, people have tendered and they’re on a panel.

So that means both states and territories within the Commonwealth, we can access quite specific equipment that, you know, or services that can actually, you know, support the states in the same way. So it’s using the commercial system to actually provide that sort of support. And there’s a range of, lease, lease own or also holding capability. So we actually hold specific capability that we can access in a priority, you know, so, and there’s a range of factors, including some of the things like mortuary services, if you think about. You know, large scale, you know, fatalities and, and hopefully we never have to deploy it. But, you know, we’d rather have those services ready. And, and, Renae, our focus is very much on the severe catastrophic end. Yeah. This is not focused on the day-today, you know, the states and territories do an incredible job, on the day-to-day sort of capability, the hazard management, ours is very much severe to catastrophic. So, so that’s that, that, that model. And we’re into the second tranche of those, you know, of the national emergency management stockpile and the panel. The third one is leveraging off existing capabilities that normally haven’t been tapped into. And we are still working through this, but an example is, our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, you know, have got their stores for humanitarian offshore capability. And, you know, that’s, that’s designed specifically to deal with that. But we are having negotiations and we actually did this during black summer where we needed generators ’cause we didn’t have our store there. So we reached in and we basically borrowed their generators to deploy domestically, whereas normally they would be deployed, elsewhere. And so, you know, so we’re actually working up an MOU so that we can do that really efficiently. And in particular because if people move into different roles, you know, it was as you know, system runs off relationships.

Renae Hanvin

Correct.

Joe Buffone

But, you know, as people move through though, if you don’t have that relationship, if you haven’t built that trust, well then the MOU provides a foundation so that we can access that really quickly. Then also we’re also exploring, we’re also exploring other areas that have got capabilities like, NCC or the National Critical Care and Trauma Center in Darwin. They’ve got an amazing capability that, you know, and not impacting on their capability, but they’ve got any latent, you know, it could be generators as well, and particularly for Northern Australia. We’re just working through some formal arrangements to access that. So our role is, you know, so obviously defense is a go-to place for us, but now NEMA has the National Emergency Management Stockpile. We’re looking at the commercial sector, how we can access them. We are looking at, you know, other existing capabilities that are either funded or owned by the Australian government so that we can access it. So you can see a multi-dimensional model.

Renae Hanvin

I love it. It’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s like the ecosystem, like you are solving and looking at the holistic ecosystem as opposed to a couple of, I guess, outputs that you can kind of tick the box and move on. That’s what I’ve been most impressed about, the whole NEMS sort of thing as I’ve been watching it, over the past year or so. It’s like, it’s really, really, really strategically well thought out and offers opportunities for everyone in Australia to get that help.

3. So how does it work with the states then? So they decide if they need the help and then they come to you to ask for ask for it? Is that kind of how it rolls?

Joe Buffone

Yeah, absolutely. So no changes to the arrangement. So we operate under, the Australian Government Disaster Response Plan, which is known as COMDISPLAN. And within COMDISPLAN, there are criteria that have to be set. So, you know, a state or territory, you know, has to have, either fully utilised or exhausted its capabilities. And, you know, that’s, you know, there’s a bit in that. So that means that if, if you are sort of got a whole lot of capabilities that are even on standby, well then that means that they’re fully utilised. They, they can come to us also if it’s about timeliness. So, you know, they might be able to access it commercially, but by the time that you negotiate, you know, the arrangement, you know, get the procurement, all of that, well then they can either access the panel or alternatively they’ll come to us and we can deploy very, very quickly. So it’s under those. So they ask and then we support through them to get to community.

Renae Hanvin

And the panel idea, I love, I mean as you know, you know, I come from a corporate side of the fence and there’s often that sort of, you know, different ends of the spectrum corporate and government. Can we trust each other? Can we work together? And of course we can and we should. And Joe, this is such a great example of, you know, preparing and presetting and establishing some ways that we can work together to the betterment of, as you said right at the start, the communities come first.

4. So it’s about setting up the processes so we can all help communities, as best as possible. So have you got a couple of examples? You sort of alluded to some of where it’s worked really well, like who, it’s a couple of disaster situations or communities whereby you’ve actioned NEMS.

Joe Buffone

So I think the one Jasper is probably the biggest one. First time that we had to deploy the emergency shelter, we had just received it. So, you know, and probably one of the most challenging, places, locations so far North Queensland. So we had to truck it, we had to barge it, we had to crane it, then we had to, actually the location. And there’s a whole range of other factors around actually the site setting. And there was some challenges because it was all so wet. then we had to, once we, they actually configured it in an unusual configuration and we learned a lot from it. The other interesting fact that we had to put a fence up because there was a potential for crocodiles as well. So, you know, just to sort of add to the add.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah, no.

Joe Buffone

But you know what, the deployment, that deployment originally was going up for community, then it was decided that for a whole range of very valid factors, it probably community, you know, wasn’t gonna work in, you know, you know, for a whole range of quite complex sort of issues. Then we ended up using it because Disaster Relief Australia were deployed up there. And they were just living under mosquito nets originally, which then was quite a challenging environment. So we established it for them. They operated out of there for about three weeks and made, you know, that meant that they could sustain their operations and that was direct support to community in terms of cleaning up, moving, you know, it was incredible support. And we actually, sorry, the other one I should have added was actually Disaster Relief Australia too, because it’s effectively part of our, deploying capability under the NEMS banner is that again, when they reach the same threshold, instead of normally we probably probably would’ve deployed defense personnel or others, we actually deployed Disaster Relief Australia under very specific guidelines, to do the task again for the jurisdictions.

So there’s two examples where we actually deployed that capability. The other ones that we’ve looked at, has been, for a number of events where there’s been power outages and whether the, you know, generators would be deployed. But in a way, in some ways it’s actually positive that it hasn’t been deployed as many times because what we’re saying is that means that states and territories have significant capacity and capability and we haven’t quite reached that threshold of severe to catastrophic at the national level. And that’s really what we’re focused on preparing. And Renae, if I could just add something, because I do, and I know you come from the corporate sector, but one of the things that we have done, and it’s not so much through NEMS, but through the national coordination mechanism, is engaged with the private sector in a way that we’ve never done before.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah.

Joe Buffone

Basically with the Queensland floods around, you know, building sea, like sea bridges for supply chains, you know, connecting elements of the private sector. And you know what I love about it, and it’s incredibly powerful, as you said, government can’t do it all. And not only that, we, we think we understand logistics. We’ve got no idea about logistics in comparison to, you know, your previous, background with Australia Post. [Yeah.] You know, you know, the supermarkets, you know, the freight and logistics companies, I’m not gonna name any of them ’cause I don’t want anybody to think that I’m sort of giving ’em a plug. [Yeah.] But I’ll shout out every single one of those because when we bring them together, they roll up their sleeves and again, we call it, it’s about impacts on community. [Correct.] And to get through supply chain challenges, which we, we’ve had last week in Queensland in particular, but previous to that South Australia flooded, you know, knocked out North West South let me say that again North South East West, you know, supply chains to both Western Australia and Northern Australia. It was actually the private sector that come up with the solutions there. All we did was brought ’em together facilitated. Incredibly powerful. Incredibly powerful. So, you know, and so when you look at it, and, and NEMS is one part of a broader ecosystem that we’re actually coordinating in a way that has not been done before in Australia. And we actually still haven’t found anything globally that is actually running the same concept of a system of systems.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. I have to say again, you know, I go back to 10 years ago when you and I had coffee and you know, we’re just sort of talking about the opportunities and it’s, it’s changed so much in the last 10 years and I think you’re so right. The private sector have a lot to offer, and a lot of it’s good intent, but you know, yes, they’re commercial businesses, so there’s that kind of balance as well. But I mean, there’s, you know, if you need to get things to communities, the organisations that are on the roads every day, getting things to communities obviously are really key points. So working together I think is, you know, it activates the notion of shared responsibility that I’ve always been a big fan about since 2011, that we all have a role to play. So, you know, if we can all foster and, and collaborate together on those roles.

5. So for my corporate friends, how can they maybe get onto the panel? Is it open a couple of times a year? Or what, what’s that process?

Joe Buffone

Yeah, so we’re, it is open. AusTender is the place to look out for or, you know, reach into NEMA, into the NEMS group. So Bronze Sparks, as I said, heads up that group, reach into that to get advice. But really at the end of the day, it’s AusTender. it goes up, you know, companies, the corporate, actually apply for it. It’s a very strict, you know, it complies to all of the property rules, all of that sort of stuff. So it’s really, really important both for the transparency, but also to get the best outcome [Yeah.] And give all companies and, and corporate groups an opportunity to actually, you know, apply for it. So, and we do encourage, the commercial groups to actually do that. But as I said, do we do engage, you know, in times of crisis across the board.

Joe Buffone

So it’s not like you have to be on the NEMS panel to participate in the NCM or any of the other coordination activity that’s got nothing to do with that. That is purely when we’re actually commercially buying, or leasing something. The other arrangements are actually brought in when we actually have equity and we engage with for those that are concerned, with the ACCC as well, because obviously making sure that, you know, we, we, you know, ensure that it is a totally transparent and that we protect everyone in engaging again, we go back to our key thing so that everything we do has direct, you know, like direct impact and support to communities that are, and individuals that are probably having the worst days of their lives.

Renae Hanvin

A hundred percent. It’s so great to hear Joe. Again I’m so excited. And you know, something that you’ve been leading and I know being very, very passionate about is amazing. So I’m not gonna ask what’s next, because no doubt you can’t tell me and we’ll see what’s coming up next.

Joe Buffone

Yeah, really there, there are two things and one is, continuing to expand the concept of collaboration as opposed to command and control. And that extends all the way down to community. So, you know, a collaboration model that directly engages at the community level because, and it’s hard, right? Because you know, who do you engage with? But it’s so important that that local input, the feeling of empowerment and agency for community. So that’s the first one. And then the second one is that at every level, the transition from response to recovery, that there is no gap. And unfortunately globally, and I’ve done a lot of research on this globally, you know, and you actually see the diagram, you know, you’ve got the, you’ve got the response curve and then you’ve got, you know, recovery starts at the same time.

But there’s actually an intersecting point on transition where there actually is a gap and there’s a change in tempo and there’s a slightly different approach. And in that gap and change in tempo, there is a direct impact at the community level. Because the community do not care. They don’t run in phases. They don’t go, oh, I’m now in preparedness. I’m now in response, I’m now relieving, I’m now in early recovery and now I’m in longer term recovery. Oh, they’re going, I’ve been smashed. I don’t care what level of government, yeah. I don’t care what badge you wear on your uniform. Can we just work together and can we actually minimise, you know, the red tape that we have to deal with? Can we actually get some outcomes? You know, and that’s for everybody. I’m not pointing that at any, you know, at any sort of, government or anything.

It’s actually the system and it’s the same internationally. Because I’ve done significant work internationally. So for me, the more that we can close that gap and that takes, again, collaboration and also a different thinking around how we operate. And I, my mantra is early recovery should run at the same tempo as response. [Yeah.] Should run at the same tempo and response. So for me, they’re the two things that I actually believe can make significant direct difference. And I’ve gotta sneak in a third one because it’s a bit of a plug and we’re actually, we are doing some work on, you know, let’s understand risk better. [Yeah.] And have it in a way that can be communicated that it can be digestible by everybody. Not just our scientists, not our emergency management people, but something that can be digested to everybody. Because the better informed you are about risk the better you respond to it. So that risk communication, risk engagement and risk understanding for me is a key factor to building resilience.

Renae Hanvin

Oh, it’s so critical. And that’s, I mean, Resilient Ready is all about translating government policy and academia into everyday behavior changes. Because you’re right, we need people just to live it, live a risk adverse and a mitigated role every day without necessarily using the word. They just have it as a culture. So yeah, I’ll join you on that one. Joe, thank you so much. Joe Buffone, Deputy Coordinator General at the National Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA, he’s been talking to me about NEMS or the National Emergency Management Stockpile. So thank you so much, Joe for talking to me. Really appreciate it.

Joe Buffone

Thanks, Renae. Keep up the great work on sort of that corporate edge, you know, sort of poking into the broader system because we all have a role and all all have a role in building resilience and all have a role in particular, you know, when we actually are preparing, responding and recovering from all types of crises.

Renae Hanvin

Yeah. Love it. Thanks Joe. We’ll talk soon.