Learning Lessons from Disasters: Alternatives to Royal Commissions and Other Quasi‐Judicial Inquiries

Abstract

With over 50 inquiries in 75 years, Australian communities continue to suffer from the impact of extreme events whether fires, floods, cyclones, or other emergencies. Einstein is reported to have said 'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results'. The insanity may not lie in responding to fires and emergencies the same way, and facing another tragedy, but in reviewing these events in the same way and expecting the quasi-judicial process to identify how to prevent the next one. This paper argues that it is time to do the post-event review in a different way and suggests some possible options for new approaches to learning lessons from tragedy.

Leverage points for sustainability transformation

“…Both formal and informal institutions may reorganise, and indeed decline, in the face of changing environmental or societal conditions. A key lever therefore lies in ensuring institutions are designed to be open to the potentially transformational learning and adaptation opportunities invoked by crises (Eburn and Dovers 2015). One example of such built-in decline is the usage of 'sunset legislation', i.e.…”

Extreme floods and river values: A social–ecological perspective

“…The recommendations from inquiries and the public and political attention on the disaster may then lead to substantial policy reform (Bubeck et al, ; Johnson, Tunstall, & Penning‐Rowsell, ), such as that which occurred following Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005 or the Black Saturday Bushfires in Australia in 2009. These policy innovation phases are part of lessons‐management cycles in emergency management (Eburn & Dovers, ), but for river scientists, they form important windows of opportunity to initiate policy‐relevant research on the ecological values of the event (Lindenmayer, Likens, & Franklin, ; Meitzen et al, ). Postdisaster policy reform may also introduce structural mitigation or flood risk management practices that address social values of loss and mitigation but which are detrimental to the ecological values of rivers (Bubeck et al, ; Jeffries, ).…”

“…First, scientists need to be prepared to act following an extreme flood disaster because disaster policy is often developed in a stepped manner. Inquiries follow disasters, to examine how the disaster occurred and how to prevent future losses (Eburn & Dovers, 2015). The recommendations from inquiries and the public and political attention on the disaster may then lead to substantial policy reform (Bubeck et al, 2017;Johnson, Tunstall, & Penning-Rowsell, 2005), such as that which occurred following Hurricane Katrina in the United States in 2005 or the Black Saturday Bushfires in Australia in 2009.…”

Values and Complexities in Assessing Strategic‐Level Emergency Management Effectiveness

“…• got much right, but they also got too much wrong (conflicted success). Eburn et al (2015) make the point that reviewing the outcomes of events in quasi-judicial inquiries is unlikely to identify how to prevent future ones from happening and that there is a need to establish a basis for undertaking performance review in a different way.…”

“…Examining the challenges faced by actors working at a strategic level is important because, despite the pivotal role these senior agency personnel play, their activities and challenges are rarely examined in the research literature. In contrast, most research is either focussed down on what Reason () has been called the ‘sharp and pointy’ end of emergency response, that is, those responders operating either on the incident ground or locally directing their response efforts (see McLennan, Holgate, Omodei & Wearing, ; Rake & Njå, ; Schraagen, Veld & De Koning, ; Wolbers et al., ) or on crisis leadership roles of leaders (Boin et al., , Boin et al., ) or focussed on crisis management policymaking (Eburn & Dovers, ; Howes, Tangey, Reis, Grant‐Smith, Heazle, Bosomworth & Burton, ; McConnell, ).…”