Reframing responsibility-sharing for bushfire risk management in Australia after Black Saturday

Abstract

In the context of risk, the concept of responsibility incorporates the notion that certain parties have a prospective obligation to undertake actions to manage risk. However, differences in judgements about which parties are responsible for which aspects of risk management often lead to social conflict. This paper uses the heuristic of a ‘responsibility continuum for risk management’ to highlight how judgements of the obligations of different parties to manage risk are underpinned by particular ways of framing responsibility-sharing. It then uses the heuristic to examine the case of a Royal Commission enquiry into Australia's deadliest bushfire (wildfire) event, known as Black Saturday. It argues that the Royal Commission reframed responsibility-sharing away from an emphasis on the self-reliance of at-risk communities towards a greater degree of responsibility for government emergency management agencies. This is particularly the case when fire conditions are extreme and where vulnerable people are at risk. This position runs counter to an international trend in policy towards placing greater responsibility for risk management on at-risk communities. However, the Commission's analysis is strong for the distribution of responsibility across government and between government and communities, but is weaker across the government–private sector interface and where the factors underlying vulnerability are concerned.

Keywords:

• Black Saturday
• risk management
• shared responsibility
• Victorian 2009 Bushfires Royal Commission
• wildfire

Acknowledgements

We thank the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre for funding this research in conjunction with the Centre for Risk and Community Safety at RMIT University. Our appreciation goes to those who provided useful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of the paper including Dr Richard Thornton and Lyndsey Wright of the Bushfire CRC; Mick Ayre of the Northern Territory Police, Fire and Emergency Services; the Editor of Environmental Hazards, Prof Edmund Penning-Rowsell; and three anonymous referees.

Notes

Subsequent references to the Commission's final report will include volume and page numbers only (e.g. vol. 1, pp. 17–19).

However, collective action is not necessarily centrally directed (see Ostrom, 1990, pp. 182–185). As our simple heuristic is limited to modelling responsibility-sharing between those at risk and those in authority, it does not encompass scenarios of self-governed collective action within these groups.

The figure of $90 million was estimated by media and research personnel directly involved in the enquiry and communicated in person to the authors.