Highly Commended – Culture of Learning Category
Phil Maher – Director Disaster Response and Recovery – Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Phil Maher and his team manage the development and coordination of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries’ (DAF) natural disaster framework to align with Queensland’s disaster management arrangements. Phil facilitates required linkages between DAF and disaster management agencies, by representing DAF on various disaster management groups, inter-departmental and inter-governmental forums.
Phil has initiated a culture of continuous improvement in disaster preparedness and recovery for primary producers, via the design and implementation of a range of exercises within the department, with industry and other agencies. He has been influential in promoting innovation in disaster management through the development of contemporary projects encouraging self-reliance including a recently completed Natural Disaster Resilience Program “Flooding Mapping, Mitigation and Management Plans for Primary Producers” – delivered in partnership with industry.
Phil also leads a multi-agency project trialling the use of remote sensing and machine learning as tools to inform impact assessment post-disaster to support accurate establishment of damage estimates to primary production.
Phil has fostered a more inclusive, whole of agency approach to disaster management through the development of networks and relationships with key staff within his agency, including incident response staff from Biosecurity Queensland. This has resulted in the development of a DAF on-line training package for incident/disaster management.
His efforts to support continuous improvement have included undertaking evaluations and reviews, such as a review of DAF’s involvement in the 2019 Monsoon Flood Event. Recommendations from this review have been implemented and included in the Department’s staff annual preparedness training program.
