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

Minister for Emergency Management has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question.

(1) A significant enhancement to the existing national telephone-based emergency warning system (Emergency Alert and Western Australia's StateAlert) will be delivered through the location based capability.

The existing system sends warning messages to landlines and to mobile phones based on the customer's registered service address. The enhancement will enable emergency services agencies to send SMS warning messages to mobile phones based on the last known location of the handset.

The upgraded system will enable state and territory emergency services agencies to elect to send warnings to mobile phones based on the registered service address and/or based on the last known location of the mobile handset. Sending the SMS warning message to the last known location or the registered service address, or both, will be an operational decision in each case.

Negotiations with telecommunications carriers are being led by Victoria. The Victorian Government (on behalf of all states and territories) has signed a contract with Telstra Corporation to deliver this enhancement. It is understood that Telstra has committed to Victoria to deliver location based SMS warnings to mobile telephones on their network in time for the next disaster season (November 2012).

Negotiations with the other telecommunications carriers, Optus and Vodafone Hutchison Australia, are ongoing.

(2) The Emergency Alert system is designed with full redundancy and the project schedule is designed to minimise any operational impact.

(3) Emergency Alert has an intuitive and sophisticated drawing tool which is used to define the geographic boundaries of the emergency warning message area on a detailed map (for example, a region, town, street, block or shopping centre) by drawing a polygon.

Using the drawing tool, the polygon can be created using a variety of techniques to increase or decrease its size or create a customised shape through nominating desired boundary points.

(4) Primary responsibility for the protection of life, property and the environment rests with the states and territories in their capacity as first responders. Emergency Alert is a state and territory capability and as such states and territories manage the operation of the capability. Accordingly, the Commonwealth will not issue guidelines to the state and territory emergency services agencies for training and/or the operation of Emergency Alert and StateAlert prior to the location based capability enhancement being implemented.

Victoria holds the Head Agreement with the service provider for Emergency Alert, Telstra. The Victorian Department of Justice has issued a Recommended Use Guide and developed National Telephony Warning System Guidelines in consultation with jurisdictional users of Emergency Alert. The Recommended Use Guide is part of the Emergency Alert Training Manual and will be updated with the necessary information prior to the implementation of the location based capability. This information will continue to be available via the Help Tab on Emergency Alert's live environment and training website.

We understand that further training will be made available by Victoria to all states and territories ahead of the implementation of the location based enhancement. The training for the use of the system is based on the 'Train the Trainer' model. Each jurisdiction will provide the appropriate number of suitably qualified trainers to participate in the 'Train the Trainer' program who will in turn then train their jurisdiction's users. Telstra as the Service Provider of the Emergency Alert system (which will include the user interface for the location based enhancement) has been contracted to run multiple 'Train the Trainer' sessions.

Qualified users will also continue to have access to a separate stand alone training environment, the Emergency Alert Service Desk, Victorian Government project team and good practice learnings.

(5) Funding to establish the location based capability for telephone-based emergency warnings has not been announced, so as to not prejudice ongoing negotiations with the telecommunications carriers.

It is stressed that while the upcoming upgrade to the Emergency Alert and StateAlert systems is an important addition to emergency warning systems capabilities, telephone-based emergency warnings are only one means for emergency services agencies to warn the community.

Communities should not rely solely on receiving a telephone-based emergency warning. Once a decision to warn communities in an emergency has been made, emergency services agencies will determine what method will be used—for example radio, web, or television—and whether a telephone alert needs to be issued.