Natural disaster recovery and resilience

Why this is important

The Victorian floods in October 2022 had devastating social and economic impacts across several Victorian communities. It is estimated that the floods caused $432 million in damages across affected areas.

The event and the ensuing months highlighted the obstacles faced by communities when recovering from a natural disaster. The 2023–24 state Budget reported $2.1 billion over 5 years in operational funding to meet the immediate emergency response and recovery needs of flood affected communities. Many regional communities are still grappling with lasting impacts to their social, economic, built and natural environments.

Emergency management in Victoria takes an ‘all communities all emergencies’ approach, emphasising that emergency management is a shared responsibility across all of Victoria's diverse communities. Emergency Management Victoria is responsible for the State Emergency Management Plan, which identifies 'recovery' as an emergency management phase. Emergency Recovery Victoria, established in October 2022, is focused on building stronger and more resilient individuals, communities and regions through community recovery.

For people living in regional communities, recovery can be complicated by centralised decision making, critical dependence on local infrastructure and reduced access to recovery supports and services. Victoria's emergency recovery frameworks need to demonstrate they can adapt to the unique needs of people living in regional Victoria and offer a place-based approach that supports the recovery of resilient communities, regardless of the level of coordination (local, regional or state).

What we plan to examine

We plan to examine whether governance arrangements described in Victoria's Recovery Framework effectively support recovery efforts in regional communities following a major emergency. The October 2022 floods will be the test case for the effectiveness of the governance arrangements.

Who we plan to examine

Department of Justice and Community Safety including Emergency Management Victoria and Emergency Recovery Victoria and selected local councils.