Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) EMA has not increased in size to staff the CCC. The CCC is staffed from existing resources.

During the Steady State the CCC operates with approximately 22 AGD officers (business hours) and six shift staff (after hours). The Steady State refers to periods of time when the CCC is not responding to a specific major incident, however continuous monitoring and assessment of all-hazards both nationally and internationally is maintained.

The Crisis State refers to when a major incident has occurred or is emerging and a CCC incident team is stood up to coordinate Australian Government actions. The CCC has been established to manage up to three concurrent incidents at a time and can house approximately 100 officers from the Australian Government or states and territories. Any relevant Australian Government or jurisdictional agency can be represented within the CCC with incident teams tailored to respond to the actual event/s.

(2) All elements of the CCC are active; there is no particular functionality that is yet to become operational.

(3) The new facility that houses the CCC has been designed to provide more physical space for Australian Government and state and territory officials to work together, to allow better connectivity back to those official's home agencies and appropriate systems to coordinate information of all classifications. The new facility provides a direct link to the Parliament House Briefing Room (PHBR) and direct connectivity to First Ministers' Departments through the telepresence suite and other secure video teleconferencing connections.

The PHBR provides the Prime Minister and Cabinet access to ICT systems of all classifications and videoconferencing capabilities, which allow for remote participation in meetings, the participation of state and territory First Ministers, relevant Australian Government agencies and with diplomatic posts and selected foreign leaders. The PHBR is supported by the CCC during domestic incidents.

The CCC develops briefing and decision support materials of all classifications including Geospatial information. This can be transferred to the PHBR via a number of ICT systems that connect the two facilities. The PHBR is also supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) crisis management arrangements during international incidents and the Department of Defence for military led operations.