Disaster resilience is the ability to anticipate and resist the effects of a disruptive event, minimise adverse impacts, respond safely and effectively, maintain or recover functionality, and adapt in a way that allows for learning and thriving.

The nature of disasters in Australia is changing and governments must review how they assess risks and minimise harm.

The ACT Disaster Resilience Strategy was published in September 2024. The strategy was developed following consultation with stakeholders and the community and aims to ensure a strong, capable, connected, diverse and inclusive ACT that protects what we value.

We ran a series of workshops and focus groups with government, industry and community groups to help inform ideas around the strategy.

During February and March 2024 we asked you to have your say by completing the survey or posting a comment or idea on the board.

Consultation and strategy documents

To find out what we heard through our consultation and engagement read the Disaster Resilience Strategy Listening Report.

Read the ACT Disaster Resilience Strategy.

Every year, Australian communities face devastating losses caused by disasters. Bushfires, floods, storms, other hazards and their associated consequences have significant impacts on communities, the economy, infrastructure and the environment.

The challenges that the ACT potentially faces into the future requires significant investment in developing a disaster resilience capability that strengthens the ACT community, government, infrastructure, and environment to cope and recover from the challenges that climate change, national and international security situations and emerging hazards and threats will expose us to.

The Disaster Resilience Strategy is intended to provide an overarching policy approach building whole of society resilience to disasters.

Your feedback helped the ACT Government develop a coordinated and strategic approach to implementing disaster resilience initiatives in line with national policy and best practice approaches, and to embed this work as part of continuous practice in the ACT.

The development of the Disaster Resilience Strategy will leverage existing community consultation undertaken through the development of the:

• ACT Climate Change Risk Assessment
• ACT Social Recovery Framework
• Climate Change Resilience Longitudinal Study.

This will be an important step towards making the ACT a more resilient and safer community.