AFAC Q&A
PERSPECTIVES FROM THE SECTOR Chief Executive Officer, AFAC
Right Stuart Ellis addresses delegates at the annual AFAC Conference and Exhibition event. 44
In this regular series, AFAC CEO Stuart Ellis usually interviews a senior AFAC leader. However, on the cusp of Stuart’s retirement, AFAC President Paul Baxter has turned the tables and asks Stuart to reflect upon his career, his professional observations and the future.
You’ve had a highly distinguished and dedicated career spanning 40 years of service to Australia as both a Senior Executive Leader and Senior Defence Officer. What have some of the highlights been? The sense of service is something I have been very comfortable with and proud to deliver. Much of that service both in Defence and with emergency services has been, to some degree, out of the spotlight. This provided me the opportunity to build levels of preparedness and readiness, which is a great contribution to our way of life in Australia, ultimately generating community resilience. Perversely, some of the career highlights for me have been reviewing events that were disasters: the Defence Inquiry into Black Hawk collision in 1996; the review of Canberra bushfires in 2003; the Victorian Black Saturday Royal Commission in 2009; and the review of Christchurch earthquake in 2011. Deploying overseas with Defence was also significant and my time in
FIRE AUSTRALIA
ISSUE FOUR 2021
Somalia left strong impressions. The last nine years with AFAC has been an honour, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. You’ve witnessed a great deal of change in the fire and emergency services industry. What are some of the most significant, and what do you think some of the key changes will be over the next 40 years? We are a conservative lot and find change challenging. Projecting 40 years ahead is quite an ask. Over the last ten years we have progressed our national arrangements, through the Commissioners and Chief Officers Strategic Committee, the AFAC National Resource Sharing Centre, improved aerial firefighting capabilities, better integration with Emergency Management Australia and the Federal Government as examples. We need to become more engaged in generating community resilience and I see that as a future trend—shifting more to mitigation and integration into community. Technology will present opportunities over the next 40 years we have not yet imagined and so we PHOTO: AFAC
STUART ELLIS AM
need to become more comfortable with change, while remaining focused on community safety. The recent Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements (RCNNDA) ‘forensically’ inquired into AFAC’s role in emergency preparedness and response. What do you think were the takeaway lessons, and what do you think AFAC members should be proud of? I doubt AFAC has undergone greater scrutiny than during the RCNNDA. We came through that largely unscathed. While the Commissioners were clearly uncomfortable that many of the functions undertaken by AFAC were not occurring in government, in the end they made no recommendations for this to change and the Federal Government endorsed the current arrangements. AFAC works very well drawing together 33 agencies across nine jurisdictions and, when it is appropriate to do so, progressing national projects, initiatives and responses. AFAC maximises the opportunities for the fire and emergency sector, and we should be proud of that.
