In Search of the 'Holy-Grail' of Effective Australian Disaster Management: the rise of the Intelligent Disaster Management System (IDMS)

Abstract

This study demonstrates that disaster is highly complex, and the means of managing disaster is by no means always clear. In this respect, disaster management is influenced by a wide range of socio-political-economic-organisational factors. Australian disaster experience identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with the counter-disaster system. Opportunities to advance the development of the system have been generally erratic, slow, and incremental in their realisation; particularly when one compares the state of disaster management and planning in other countries. Having said this, it is acknowledged that there have been advances in the capabilities of organisations directly responsible for "emergency" management and in the coordinating arrangements at State and Territory levels. However, it is the argument of this thesis, that Australia has been largely trekking at the edge of effective disaster management practice. This is to suggest that in 1996, we are no further nearer establishing a disaster-based counter-disaster management system, than we were in 1986. ... In order to combat the wide range of socio-political-economic-organisational impediments, the Australian disaster management system needs to become more "intelligent". Intelligence can be found in the design, development, and implementation of an Intelligent Disaster Management System (IDMS). ... A reconciliation of the rational and incremental approach to decision making will provide disaster managers with the necessary "self-learning" to adapt their behavioural and managerial style to effectively deal with disaster, and more importantly, boundary or turf conflict. It is these attributes of intelligent organisational design that provide a means of overcoming the socio-political-economic-organisational impediments that prevent effective disaster management practice. Moreover, these same intelligent attributes provide the means of attaining the benefits of centralisation versus decentralisation; stability versus dynamism; and uniformity versus diversity.