Political Impacts
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Voters can blame the incumbent when things go wrong on their watch or praise their actions in the response
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Voters approve of extra government spending during a response, but tend to be less supportive of spending to prepare for a disaster
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Loss of sacred and protected sites
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Loss of heritage-listed buildings
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Loss of significant cultural objects
Cultural Impacts
Social Impacts
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Effect individuals, families, local communities, businesses and governments.
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Social impacts are complex, interrelated and difficult to quantify
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Includes impacts to health and well-being, family violence, unemployment, education disruption, and crime
Economic Impacts
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Natural disasters cost $9 billion annually.
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This will rise to $24 billion by 2050.
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For every dollar spent on pre-disaster resilience, up to $8 is saved in recovery.
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Ten times more is spent on recovery than on resilience.
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Increasing resilience investment is the only sustainable response to the increasing cost of natural disasters.
Framing the Issue
Australia is highly prone to natural disasters, including floods, cyclones, storms and bushfires. Every year these disasters cost dozens of lives, destroy property and infrastructure, bankrupt businesses, threaten physical and mental health, and undermine communities.
Including child-centred disaster risk reduction education into the school curriculum is a way to affect short- and long-long term change to community resilience. It’s highly participatory education that crosses all subjects and encourages problem solving.
Therefore, our goal is to enable a more resilient future for Australians by incorporating the disaster resilience education message and activities into Emergency Management and Education Programs and Plans.