So, you think you can manage an emergency?
All over the Northern Rivers, amateur crisis response co-ordinators have filled a vacuum left by under-resourced and under-prepared official agencies.
Most community volunteers have felt little other choice and getting paid for the pleasure of helping their neighbours is unlikely to enter their minds.
But doesn’t hard work deserve decent pay? Like, around the $100K mark?
Perhaps it’s time we reconsidered a disaster response system based largely on volunteerism, especially when studies in recent years show fewer and fewer Australians have time to volunteer thanks to work and family pressures.
Emergency work in paradise
Enter: the NSW government’s Emergency Management Coordinator.
It’s a newly advertised position with a starting salary of around $99K plus super.
An ad for the full time Local Land Services job position earlier this week said it included responsibility for the central & North Coasts including Newcastle, the Hunter Valley, Port Macquarie, Lismore and the Far North Coast.
The job location was negotiable, the ad said.
‘Imagine living where the rest of the world goes on holiday,’ the ad read.
‘Spend endless days on uncrowded beaches, and explore the pristine volcanic hinterland, or take a hike through ancient rainforest.’
Customer service skills required
No doubt there are many hospitality and retail workers on the Northern Rivers who have found themselves coordinating disaster relief and it seems those customer service qualities could earn them significantly more in the bureaucratic job.
The ad said the the ideal candidate would be ‘customer-focused’ and ‘able to deliver results’.
‘You will revel in developing and maintaining collaborative engagement with stakeholders, the community and customers’, the ad read.
Volunteer rescue and recovery responders could also put their honed quick-thinking skills to a better remunerated use.
The Emergency Management Coordinator would have to be adept at ‘functioning in an operating environment of change where risks and issues require challenging responses’, the ad read.
Other requirements for the role were:
- demonstrated experience in emergency response management situations;
- an ability to negotiate with stakeholders and customers;
- an ability to plan and make recommendations with respect to preparedness for, response to and recovery from biosecurity and natural disaster emergencies impacting landholders;
- previous experience in managing and undertaking a range of projects and associated activities with a view to achieving outcomes.
The successful candidate also needed a current NSW Driver License and an ‘ability and willingness to travel throughout the North Coast Region, including overnight stays’, the ad read.
The new Emergency Management Coordinator would have to report to the government’s ‘Team Leader Partnerships’, form productive relationships with regional stakeholders and provide advice to landholders.
How to apply: contact Grant Lewis
A role description was available online as well as an online video explaining Local Land Services’ role in Emergency Management and the way the organisation worked with other agencies.
Interested or know someone you think is qualified?
‘Applying is easy!’ the ad said, ‘simply submit your resume and a cover letter online and tell us why working as the Emergency Management Coordinator is for you’.
Potential candidates were advised to contact Grant Lewis, Business Manager, on 0428 291 829 or via [email protected].
I do not think this position is adequately remunerated considering responsibilities.
A good idea. A decade or so late, of course.
An ability to speak truthfully without bs should be added to the desirable qualities.
If we had a paid Civil Defence Force (RFS + SES+?) organised on the same lines as the Army Reserve at the disposal of this person it would also help.
If we spent some of that submarine and F35 money on flood boats, planes to combat bushfires and use in time of floods the government could say it is ‘keeping Australians secure’. (Remember when the RAAF Caribou used to fly over low in flood time dropping food and fodder to flood stricken parts of the North Coast?)
Ha ha ha! I am loving your quietly tongue in cheek sense of humour with this one, Echo. What about we flood them with applications from every single person who stepped up and took on co-ordinative care roles in the midst of great danger and trauma this past week? There are some stand-outs of course (sally Flannery and her spontaneous flood rescue triage team for instance) but really could a paid co-ordinator ever, ever match the anarchistic flow-power of a community in dire straits and a tonne of adrenaline?
“Anarchy is order”!
🙂
Except they do no or understand emergency management. First there are no mandatory qualifications. Yes there are degree programs and have been for decades and secondly, the focus on emergency services personnel. Emergency services is not Emergency Management and neither is managing an incident. The first is part of the industry but denotes response, the focus of which is why Australia is in the place it is now and the second although they sound similar managing an incident is only a small part of EM. The core benefits are preventing and mitigating these types of events. Not responding or revering from them. As for the salary, I is about on par with other coordinator level roles at state government, it’s a shame we keep allowing people with an inadequate grasp of EM to write descriptions and manage the EM function. There is so much more that can be done but they hold the industry and the qualified Emergemcy Manager back from really making a difference.