Resilient Australia #3 - Disaster Resilience at Home and Abroad

As climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of disasters, resilience has become a core element of national and regional security. From bushfires and cascading infrastructure failures in Australia to climate-driven humanitarian crises across the Pacific, disasters are reshaping how governments, communities and institutions prepare for, respond to and recover from disruption.

This event brings together leading voices from policy, defence, academia and media to examine the challenges and opportunities of disaster resilience through an Australian lens. The discussion will explore how effective resilience can strengthen state capacity, social trust and regional influence, while considering how infrastructure failures can amplify human suffering, economic disruption and political instability.

Resilient Australia is an event series exploring how Australia can strengthen its national resilience in an era of growing geopolitical uncertainty, technological disruption, climate risk and strategic competition. Through conversations with experts, UNSW Canberra explores the challenges and opportunities facing Australia’s security landscape and how we can build a more self-reliant, adaptable and future-ready nation.

This event follows UNSW Canberra’s World in Transition Policy Roundtable #2: Disaster Resilience at Home and Abroad, which brought together experts from industry, defence, government and academia to examine disaster resilience as a matter of Australian statecraft.
Our Speakers

Moderator: Sarah Ison, Senior Political Reporter, The Australian
Sarah Ison is a Senior Political Reporter with The Australian, based in the National Press Gallery in Canberra. She reports on federal politics, public policy and the national issues shaping Australia’s future. Sarah is a regular commentator on Australian politics and has appeared on programs including ABC Insiders, Triple J’s Hack and Sky News’ Afternoon Agenda. She has also created accessible political commentary through her previous YouTube and podcast projects, Politics Made Okay and Bubble Pop. She has also created accessible political commentary through her previous YouTube and podcast projects, Politics Made Okay and Bubble Pop. She has been a guest panelist on national and international TV stations including the BBC and is regularly featured on The Drum and Sky News.

Speaker: Mitch King – Founder & CEO HADR Institute
Mitch King is the Founder and CEO of the HADR Institute (HADRI), an Australian NGO delivering humanitarian coordination, protection, and capacity strengthening across the Indo-Pacific. As a former Australian Army officer, Mitch served as an infantry officer commanding multinational force protection and quick reaction forces in Iraq. He also served as an intelligence officer across domestic disaster relief, international humanitarian evacuations, transnational crime and border control, regional elections assistance, and strategic contingency planning for large-scale conflict in the Indo-Pacific. He received the Chief of Defence Force Silver Commendation for his intelligence leadership as the Joint Intelligence Officer during COVID-19 Joint Task Group (JTG) operations.

Since founding HADRI in 2022, Mitch has led programs spanning disaster response and regional preparedness across the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and the broader Pacific, and humanitarian protection, aid delivery, and human rights monitoring in conflict-affected Myanmar, the Myanmar/India border and the Thai-Burma border, working alongside local civil society partners in some of the region's most complex and high-risk operating environments. He holds a Master of Laws in International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law from Flinders University, a Professional Certificate in Data Science and AI from Harvard University, and completed the Foundations of Directorship program with the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Speaker: Prof Jason Sharples, Director - UNSW Bushfire Research Group, UNSW Canberra

Professor Jason Sharples is a Professor of Bushfire Dynamics at the University of New South Wales and a globally recognised expert in extreme wildfire behaviour. His research focuses on the interactions between fire, weather, and terrain, with particular emphasis on dynamic wildfire propagation and extreme wildfire development.
His work has contributed significantly to improving how wildfire risk is understood and managed, informing both operational fire management, education and training, and broader international dialogue. He collaborates extensively with national and international partners to develop advanced modelling approaches and enhance community resilience to increasingly severe fire regimes.

Professor Sharples is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering and the Royal Society of New South Wales.

Contact

For more information or if you have any questions, please reach out to the the UNSW Canberra External Engagement Team at [email protected] or on +61 2 5114 5017.

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