“We save lives too!”

Created date

Friday, June 7, 2013 - 11:38pm

The Bushfire CRC, along with Victoria's emergency services agencies, met recently with Bob Jensen, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the United States Department of Homeland Security, who is visiting Australia as a Fulbright scholar.

Jensen’s most interesting insights were into the role of communications during times of heightened alert. He explained why public affairs officers were critical to the core business of emergency service agencies, and not an afterthought or add-on.

“We save lives too,” he told participants at the Emergency Media and Public Affairs conference in Brisbane. He said we are part of operations too. If we warn enough people, that’s less people to rescue. The Commissioner of the NSW SES Murray Kear went one step further at the conference by stating that information is now more important than response for agencies. Recent examples were cited in support of this where attempting to subdue the forces of the natural hazard (bushfire, flood, cyclone) were secondary to warning and assisting people in its path.

At the Bushfire CRC communication is also a whole of organisation priority, not just for us communicators: whether it is through this newsletter, other publications, our website, social media interaction, email lists, and our conferences and workshops. If we don’t get the new learnings from research out and about amongst our partners then we are not helping them save lives.