Tony’s Trek

In this episode, I'm talking with Tony Pearce about Tony's Trek.

Tony shares his inspiring journey of raising awareness for mental health in emergency services through daring treks, including walking from Melbourne to Brisbane, Everest Base Camp, and paddling the Murray River. Discover how community engagement, early intervention, and systemic change can improve mental health support for responders and their families.

Subscribe now and join us as we explore smarter, stronger, and more connected ways to prepare for the future. 

Transcript

Renee Hanvin (00:07):

Hello and welcome to Doing Disasters Differently: The Podcast with Renee Hanvin, which is all about inspiring you to start thinking and doing disasters a little bit differently too. In today's episode, I'm talking with Tony Pierce about Tony's trek. For those of you who haven't met Tony before, he's the former Inspector General for emergency management in Victoria and I've been very lucky to collaborate with him on a number of projects since he's gone to consulting. With decades of leadership across ambulance, SES, and national emergency management, Tony brings deep expertise in crisis coordination and resilience. He's also the driving force behind Tony's Trek, a powerful initiative raising awareness of mental health and wellbeing in emergency services responders. Now, I always like to start with where we met. So I met Tony over 10 years ago when I was working at Australia Post. He was a speaker at an ECM program and I was so impressed by his approach that I wanted to hear more.

(01:20):

I did what I didn't normally do back then. I asked him for a coffee and he kindly said yes. I'm going to be honest, I was a little bit scared of people working in government back then. But we've been having those coffees for many, many years, over a decade now. And he has been an amazing informal mentor to me as I entered and have grown in the emergency management and resilience sector. I always love talking with Tony, so I'm very excited to be sharing something today with you that's really passionate to him. Before we dive in, a quick note that we are covering sensitive topics today, including mental wellbeing. So please prioritize your wellbeing and listen when you are ready, or if you need help, reach out to the appropriate services. Tony, welcome back. So good to chat with you again. So let's start with, all righty, what is Tony's Trek?

(02:14):

What have you done before today and what is coming up very, very-

Tony Pearce (02:17):

Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's something that sort of started ... Well, started back in 2023. The first Tony's Trek started then, but it was about a year before that that I was sitting around ruminating about a whole range of different things. And there had been a bit of a rash around that time of emergency service workers who had been affected so badly by their mental health, not only in Victoria, nationally. There'd been a bit of a rash that had taken their lives and had been social media had sort of recorded the fact that those events had happened. And that's only the ones obviously that we know because they were reported, but of course behind the scenes there are others that you just don't hear about. And as I sat there just watching that unfold over a period of time, I thought to myself, there's got to be a way to better raise awareness within our community about how difficult emergency work can be and what an impact it actually can have on the mental health of our responders, volunteer and paid.

(03:14):

And I was thinking about it from the perspective that emergency responders are not abstract entities. They are actually members of the community and they are members of people's families and they are those things first. So from that perspective, I thought people really don't understand unless they live with an emergency service worker who is unwell, just what an effect this can have. So I thought, what can I do to try and do something about that and raise some awareness about it? And at the time I was the chair of the Emergency Services Foundation. I've stepped down recently, but I'm still a director. And I thought, well, you're in a position of privilege. You have a bit of a reputation, people know who you are, you work with all of the agencies and a lot of community areas through the foundation, use that as a platform to actually start raising awareness.

(03:58):

And then that's all well and good because the next question I asked myself was, how do you actually do that? And I thought, well, there needs to be something that's going to be big that people will ask you, why would you do it? Because that then opens the door for further questioning and further dialogue. So I thought, well, I'm going to go and do a really, really big walk and I'm going to walk to Queensland. I walked from Melbourne to Brisbane was my plan and that was the top of it.

Renee Hanvin (04:18):

Why not? Yeah,

Tony Pearce (04:20):

That was it. I'll go and walk from Melbourne to Brisbane without putting any thought into it at all.

(04:23):

And my wife Carol said to me, "Maybe you need to rethink that a little bit because firstly, you're a Victorian from a Victorian organization focusing on Victorian emergency workers. Once you cross the New South Wales border and then the Queensland border, they're probably not going to be too interested in you at all. And as far as you raising awareness goes, that may well drop off." And I was also looking to raise money as well to fund some of our programs, particularly our residential wellbeing program. So anyway, she said, "Look, why don't you refocus that and think about how you could do it within Victoria, the boundary of Victoria." So in 2023, did a 1,506 kilometer event around the fire affected areas from the 2019, 20 fires because our amenity workers were still struggling with their mental health for that. So that was the first event.

(05:07):

As a result of that, we raised $240,000, which was fantastic and we were able to fund six pilot residential wellbeing programs. So then after that, somebody else contacted me from another group who do some awareness raising as well side by side they called and said to me, "Hey, listen, we're thinking about going to Everest Space Care. Do you want to do that as a Tony's Trek event and come with us next March?" And I went, "Yeah, why not do that? " So in 2024, 25 emergency workers all up with 25 of us plus myself went up to Everest Basecamp and we got everybody up and everybody back, raised another 40,000 Ks, which was fantastic and that was that one done. Last year I just did a 4,000 kilometer thing, 365 days just doing a walking or running and shuffling or whatever every day. I did 4,000 Ks just to start raising awareness about this year's event.

(05:57):

And then to get to the last part of your question about what's coming up very soon on Sunday, so we're talking now on Friday. On Sunday morning, I will be departing a place called Brigham Brong in New South Wales on the Murray River in a kayak and I will be paddling 2,400 kilometers to the mouth of the Murray in Gulwa over 53 days again to raise awareness of the mental health issue and also to raise some more money to run another residential wellbeing program. So there's a very long answer to your very short question.

Renee Hanvin (06:25):

Mate, Tony, you are just so inspiring and I guess there's so many ways to raise awareness and funds and you absolutely go to the extreme, but I mean the passion behind it, I've known you for a long time and it's obviously an area that you're really, really passionate about. So I just love listening and waiting for what's next because as soon as you're on that adrenaline from finishing one of them and then it's like, oh my gosh, what's next? What's next? And I love to the Everest. I mean, I've done Kilimanjaro and that was a massive, massive trek, but Everest is a whole other level. But I love that you did that one with people from the sector and emergency services people as well. So that must have been so, I guess, different and exciting because the other ones that you've done and including the big paddle that's coming up is just yourself.

(07:09):

So you'll be cruising down for many, many, I think it's like almost two months that you'd be just cruising along by yourself. So that's going to be interesting. Lots of self-reflection. And as we were just talking about before cutting off IT, which will be nice as well. You can connect with nature and the trees. Now you mentioned that the moment or the experience that I guess pushed you to start Tony's track was hearing some of the stories. And I've been to many of the Emergency Services Foundation conferences and they're really amazing and quite confronting in terms of I guess the experiences and the mental wellbeing and the impacts that those experiences from emergency services workers help. You have a background in emergency services as well. So I guess how's that helped your decision to want to support this area?

Tony Pearce (07:56):

Yeah, look, excuse me, as I said, I guess I understand I've been in our sector now for way too long, very old, over 45 years. So I've been with it in a lot of organizations. I've worked with a lot of people in a lot of different scenarios and agencies and I've come to see over that period of time firsthand just how badly people could become affected by their mental health. So take away just that mad rush in 2022 that I was witnessing where it sort of triggered my mind to think about what can I do. My whole life has been witnessing and experiencing these things in others and also at a certain stage myself. Early days, of course, not realizing or understanding anything about what was going on, just accepting it for what it was and it was what it was. And you hear that, did you hear someone did this?

(08:48):

And we won't be seeing him again and you go, "Gee, that's terribly sad." And then don't even think about why or the cause of it, just move on as part of the job. But as we've become more sophisticated, I guess, and as we've got to learn a little bit more and have better understanding, I've also realized that for all of the efforts that go into and trying to help people with this, it doesn't seem to be having the level of impact that we would really like it to have. Having worked for many organizations over many years, as I said earlier, I have seen a lot of people suffering with their mental health and they were struggling, but not really understanding what that was, what it meant, why it happened, and even having any idea at all about what we could do about it. But as we've progressed over those years, we've become a lot more sophisticated as a sector and society has become a lot better with regards to understanding what is happening and how to potentially try and have a positive impact on those that are struggling.

(09:44):

But what amazes me is that for all of that effort and governments and agencies here too, I'm not here to bag governments and agencies at all. They put a lot of time and money and effort in to try to help people with mental health issues, but we don't seem to be having an impact on the numbers and we don't seem to be having an impact on the severity that some people actually experience once they do get really ill. And I think part of the problem there is that

(10:10):

Once you're in our sector, once you are ill, then all of a sudden there's a lot there to help you. There's a work cover system that jumps in and starts to support you. The agencies have their programs to support you. You go off on leave if you need it, et cetera, et cetera, and that's all really good. However, you're cook. That's

Renee Hanvin (10:27):

Where

Tony Pearce (10:28):

You are, you're cook. There's a big long part of some people's careers and a lot shorter part, unfortunately for others where they're actually not cook and they're in the job and they're doing it, but they're starting to get, as we refer to it a bit, wobbly and they don't know why they're feeling the way they are and they don't know what's going on. And I don't think our system yet has progressed to the stage where it has mechanisms in place to recognize that that's happening and to allow people to start thinking about what does this action mean and what can I start to do now that may prevent me from getting to a point where I do get sick down the track rather than wait till they get to the edge of the cliff, fall off and then everybody's waiting there for them at the bottom of the cliff with all sorts of support, that's good enough.

(11:09):

So yes, we need that, but we need to start investing far more heavily at the front end. And much like disasters, as you well know, if you start thinking about prevention and preparedness rather than just responding all the time, you will get better outcomes and it's no different than mental health in our sector. So that for me is something that I realized was problematic. And as I said, I've witnessed many good friends and I know I still have many now who are struggling and suffering. And they go right through into retirement with this too. It's not like they finished the job that's all over. And in fact, for many of them, it actually gets a hell of a lot worse once they leave the job and those people get left behind. I just think there is more that we can do and we are a sophisticated modern society.

(11:53):

We're a well off country. We must do better than we currently do now. And this is probably just my little bit of trying to do what I can to help assist that a little bit. That's all.

Renee Hanvin (12:04):

I think it's so interesting what you say because we've often talked about one of the problems, I guess, with the disaster space is that so much of the funding is put in the after as opposed to into the before and the preparedness or the readiness per se. And it's interesting to reflect on what you just said there in the sense that it's the same for supporting the emergency services workers and the volunteers and the paid staff, but also their families, I guess, to an extent who get impacted by what happens, but putting some founding and some foundations and funding into the beforehand so that the impacts at the end are not as big. I mean, it's the same. It's the same conversation, isn't it, really? And I guess how do you bring awareness to that? So you set up some crazy tricks that get people talking about it in a different way, which is really inspiring.

(12:54):

And certainly I think from observing has definitely, I guess, evolved the focus and the conversation about mental health challenges for emergency services in Victoria. And obviously if anyone's listening and you do have or you think you might have some challenges or difficulty in the work that you're doing, please, please do reach out for help and support because it certainly is out there. So during your past trek, what were some of the most powerful conversations or stories that you heard from first responders about their mental health journeys? Again, probably from your Everest Trek but others Yeah,

Tony Pearce (13:28):

I think there's a couple and you actually just, you just hit on a point which actually came out in the first big trek, which was the walking one, if you like, that I did over in the fire affected area. Over the period of that 50 days that I took to do that, there were around about 140 odd people who jumped in for 5Ks, 10Ks, some did a whole day walking with me on the side of the road as I was doing the trek and most of those people, or sorry, not most, many of those people were people who were actually suffering with mental health problems in emergency services. So they had taken the opportunity to come. And when I was talking to them initially, I said, "Why did you decide to walk with me? It's a bit uncomfortable and you're going to get blisters and that sort of stuff.

(14:07):

Why did you decide?" And they said, "Firstly, I decided because I thought, oh, well, if he's doing it, I should jump in and give a hand, et cetera, et cetera." But once I got started talking to them, inevitably they all came back to the same thing and without explicitly saying it, it had obviously created an opportunity for them in what was for them at that time a safe place to talk about their issue. And it wasn't only to talk about them. I said a minute ago, you hit on something else. The bit that you hit on was the family side of it. They are the silent sufferers. You can have someone in your family, an emergency services worker who's struggling with their mental health and yes, they're sick and yes, it's sad for them and it's unfortunate for them, but at the very same time, their families are suffering too and the longer it gets and the worse the situation gets, the longer and worse it gets for those families as well.

(15:02):

So that is a problem and there is absolutely not enough there support for families

(15:08):

That's done. There are attempts and there are some resources available, but there is not enough and it's not consistently available enough. The other thing too is families in the same way as the individuals themselves often don't want to just simply jump up and say, "Hey, got a problem, need some help. How do I address this? " So on one hand, people say, "Oh, but there's things that they can do. They can ring here, they can go there, whatever." That's all well and good, but that requires them to reach out and go and do something. Systemically, we should be able to create an environment where it's normative for people to say, "Hang on a second, this is difficult for us at the moment. I know there are these things available and I feel comfortable enough to go and make this approach or otherwise." But in the same way that the individuals themselves struggle often to speak up and step up, families are the same so that's a problem.

(16:02):

Where in the bigger disaster sense that becomes more problematic for us is as I said before, these are all community members.

(16:11):

So their communities, particularly in regional remote areas, their communities become affected by the fact that the people who are there, who are the anchor for their community, who are going to help them and save them when everything goes terribly bad and help coordinate them and so on, when those people get sick and they can't function in that way, communities then start to worry about that as well. So they become affected. So for me, I say to organizations all the time, yes, you have your legislative obligations to support your people and look after them from the health and safety perspective. That's great. Yes, you do that. But what you need to do is to think about doing that is only a small part of how you are enabling community resilience because the bigger impact there is on larger numbers of people struggling with their mental health, the greater the impact on community resilience that we have.

(17:02):

And that's something that is thought about anywhere near as much as it should be because the focus obviously is on the here and now and the individual right in front of you, but what does that mean in the systemic sense? And you only have to look at the emergency services to look at the terrible numbers and I don't have them right on top in front of me at the moment, but the numbers are very, very significant for those in our organizations who are baffling mental health issues at the moment, that has to have an impact on community resilience. And if you can't get them through it for their own good too, then you're also going to have an impact on the way communities then are impacted further down the track by events. So I think it's not just about the individual, it's about their families in the first instance, and then more broadly, it's about community as well.

(17:48):

So

Renee Hanvin (17:49):

Do you think from your perspective then, do you think that's one of the biggest gaps, I guess, that exists in terms of how we support the wellbeing of emergency services workers? I guess we've touched on that it's, I guess after the fact funding and focus as opposed to before or during, and then it's also kind of the individual that has been impacted as opposed to the families and the communities. I mean, is that one of the main problems that the sector needs to kind of look at and try and reduce those impacts and change?

Tony Pearce (18:21):

It is. It is. But this is the thing, the sector, most people, if you say sector will think, oh, well, that's the emergency service organizations. The entities with these people in them who do what they do day in, day out and who are being affected. So yes, the sector has to, but the sector's part of a much bigger system.

(18:40):

So our systems including government as in elected government down for all of ... And as I said, I'm not here to bank government or others. I don't do that. I know they do what they can with what they've got, so that's the first issue and you can't address every single thing. But from a risk management perspective, if that's all it is, then I think more has to be done at the front end. That's the first thing. Work cover claims are through the roof and the emergency services. They are through the roof. So there is a tangible dollars and cents reason to do more if we can find ways to do more. Unfortunately, what that often means is you have to fund things. So again, it goes back to that early prevention and preparedness thing I talked about. You need to invest some money up the front end to save a lot of money down the track.

(19:27):

Let's be totally honest, most of everything we do in a funding sense nowadays revolves around election cycles. So therefore what you get is what is, I guess, most attractive over that period of time

Renee Hanvin (19:41):

And

Tony Pearce (19:41):

Is going to get the biggest return on investment. And that means generally that small organizations that work in this space in the early intervention space just simply don't have enough funding to do what they've got to

Renee Hanvin (19:53):

Do.

Tony Pearce (19:55):

And as I said before, not everybody can have everything they want, absolutely not. But how much longer do we keep on throwing bucket loads of money at the after side of things when people are so crooked that you've got to invest billions of dollars in trying to get them back before we start recognizing that doing some lesser spending at the front end, but upfront is going to get you a much better outcome. I think that is one of the issues for us.

Renee Hanvin (20:18):

I think too, I guess even in the generational kind of, not saying evolution, but the generations coming through of emergency services, particularly volunteers, is we know that the numbers are sort of shrinking a bit, so there's not as many coming through. So if you've got the generations being impacted because they've experienced different situations in different disasters and they're not functioning, I guess, as good now, then it means there's less people to, I guess, help the community when disasters occur and also less young people coming through because they're seeing the impacts of what it might happen. So I guess it has a bigger systemic problem as well.

Tony Pearce (20:58):

Yeah, it does. And the other thing too is looking at our volunteers, I think the volunteerism in itself has changed. The way in which the country responds now to volunteering centers has changed significantly. If you go to some of these, there's more remote and regional areas and talk to the people who've been volunteering for 50, 60 years in our emergency services, that's how it used to be. And people got in and they stayed there, you had numbers, you had support and a lot of them, the support really came from within if you like. But things have changed. The way in which the events are now, the complexity of them, the concurrent nature of and the severity of them and so on, it's not what it was a few years ago and these people are getting hammered

(21:45):

Left, right and center. They don't have the capacity or the capability to be able to manage the impacts of that on themselves in the way that they used to. The other thing too is changing demographics. If you go out to a lot of regional places now, I would almost say to you, if you were to sit down and say, "Okay, then this rural community had last year had 280 people between the age of 18 and 25, or sorry, 10 years ago had that. " Their population numbers haven't changed that much, so therefore it's pretty much the same as it was. However, the numbers of those age people left in those communities now is right down. So those who are still there from the old days and the days gone by are the ones who are still having to carry the load because younger people have to move away for employment and for a whole raft of different reasons.

(22:34):

So they are not there any longer. So that ability to help turn over and to take some of the pressure off and relieve some of the stress that individuals suffer is being denuded all the time just by life.

Renee Hanvin (22:49):

And also adding on the, we're having more frequent, more impactful, more compounding extreme weather events than whatever else it might be. So the need is getting higher as well.

Tony Pearce (23:02):

Yeah.

Renee Hanvin (23:02):

And the

Tony Pearce (23:02):

Other thing, I'm talking remote and regional there, but even within our cities and our inner urban areas, there are significant number of areas that are catered for by volunteer emergency workers, even close. And the difficulty there is that as a sector, we've got to figure out how do we make volunteering in this environment more attractive when you know that what they're going to experience is going to

Renee Hanvin (23:28):

Be

Tony Pearce (23:28):

Less attractive even than it used to be. So

Renee Hanvin (23:31):

People have

Tony Pearce (23:32):

The right motives for joining and so on, but are they going to stay there for a long time based upon the way in which the system is set up and its attraction or are they simply going to get there and go, hang on, why am I putting up on this? I don't need to do this anymore, so I'm not going to. So all of that has an impact on community resilience and it all then bangs back to those people who are left behind still trying to run the whole show. They

Renee Hanvin (23:57):

Are

Tony Pearce (23:57):

Still under those huge pressures. So those things do have an impact on people's ongoing mental health as well.

Renee Hanvin (24:03):

So looking ahead, what's the legacy that you want Tony's track to leave? Why are you doing this and where does it end or what is the thing? I mean, I know you're raising awareness and you're raising funding to deliver the wellbeing workshops and things.What's the dream? What's the end goal?

Tony Pearce (24:24):

I think for me, it's no idea where it is. I think for me it's about conversations and it's about triggering conversations. The more we can do, whether it's what I'm doing, whether it's what you do or others do, it doesn't matter, but the more we can do that has part of its intended outcome to create conversations, the better we are going to be in the longer term.That's really what it is. As I said, I was staggered in that 2023 event by how many people walked with me who I said to one guy, a fellow who a young bloke who was really struggling and on his first blotch, when I first met him and everything, he was bubbly, he was vibrant, he was ready to go and everything. About two and a half hours into the walk, all of a sudden the reality of what was for him was right there in front of me as I was talking to him and I'm no clinician, that's just not why I'm just a black having a bit of a crack, but it was obvious to me then that this was something significant.

(25:25):

And I said to him at the end of it when we sat down at the fire station that he finished that were having a cup of coffee and I said to him, "So mate, what do you think about today? How's your feet and everything?" And he goes, "Oh yeah, my feet are bloody sore." He said, "However," he said, "I can tell you now," he said, "I don't know you from a bar of soap." He was just a young volunteer. He said, "I don't know you from a bar of soap." H said, "My captain suggested it might be good if someone came and did a bit of a part of the walk." He said, "But if I met you in a pub, I would not have talked to you about the things that I talked about today." He said, "I don't know you. " He said it personal.

(25:56):

And he talked about his family, sort of the impacts on his family. He was worried about some of the impacts on his young wife. He said, "I wouldn't have talked to you about that anywhere at all. " He said, "However, I felt comfortable." He said, "I felt safe doing it. " And I came back after that track and when I met with all the agency chiefs in a couple of forums when I was sort of talking, giving presentations on the track, I said, "The one thing I've learned is if we open the door and create a safe space, they will fill it. " And that for me is, I reckon if you can just do that alone, then you can be as aspirational as you like about all the things you'd love to achieve, but you've got to get the starting point. And I think the starting point is creating the space and opening the door.

(26:36):

And if we can all do that, then I think we'll be enough far better place down the

Renee Hanvin (26:42):

Track. So Tony-

Tony Pearce (26:43):

It's not actually rocket science at all. I've got no great way to how do you fix this. It's not so much about how do you fix it, but it's about how do you create the opportunity for it to get better for people?

Renee Hanvin (26:55):

But I think you bring the attention and some light and maybe we just put you on the road every day and you just walk around the hole of Victoria 365 days a year and people book in and have that moment to talk. I know our coffees that we've been having for 15 years, you've certainly solved lots of my problems and been an amazing ear to listen to. So I mean, that's I guess a bit like me, I wake up every morning just wanting to help a small business person stay in business or a community to connect more. I mean, it's the same for you. If you can help one person who's dedicated a lot of their life to helping save communities and respond to disasters, just help them make their days better, then that's what it's all about. So my final question's always two things you'd like to be done differently in the disaster space.

Tony Pearce (27:45):

There's a couple of things, I guess everything you do that's positive impacts on mental health, but they're not mental health issues at all. They're totally unrelated to that really. So I think the first thing is, again, with my history of employment and the things that I've done, I think one of the things I would like to see is down the track a move from community engagement to genuine community lead decision making. That's one thing I'd like to see. We've done a lot and we've come a long way now in better understanding how do we engage with communities, but I think we've got that part nailed. I think the mechanisms and the structures about how you do that are quite clear, but now it's about how do you then move that to genuine community led decision making and why would that significantly improve safety? I think with community led decision making, your improvements would be partly because people act on what they understand and what they own and not on what they're told.

(28:44):

We're really good for all the right reasons at telling people things and then expecting they go away and in some way they use it or benefit from it. But I'm not so sure that when you tell someone something they necessarily understand it properly and we've got to make sure we know that they understand it because if they understand it, they will then act on it and they'll own it.

Renee Hanvin (29:02):

That's

Tony Pearce (29:02):

Important.

Renee Hanvin (29:03):

I

(29:04):

Was going to say, just to reflect on that. So I've been doing some work with the community in the city of Casey actually, and I've been working with them sort of behind the scenes. I don't always promote everything that we do and we had our reflective catch up and there were a lot, actually a lot of CFA volunteers and CS volunteers as part of this group. So they are community as well. We did the normal survey reflection and I was like, "How did I help you, et cetera, et cetera." And they basically were like, "Well, you helped us grow." And I thought, I was quite touched by that because yeah, never ever would I ever go into a community and tell them what to do. And I think that's what you're sort of alluding to, that there's a lot of the sector and the space that goes into aim to tell.

(29:54):

But if we foster the community people to grow to build their capabilities so they can and identify solutions and programs to support their emergency services, mental wellbeing, et cetera, et cetera, that benefits them, then that's the golden outcome, isn't it? That's the best outcome for everyone.

Tony Pearce (30:12):

Yeah, absolutely. And you know as well as I do, that local networks consistently outperform formal systems in the early hours and days

Renee Hanvin (30:19):

Of

Tony Pearce (30:20):

Big events.

Renee Hanvin (30:22):

I have to hashtag social capital there, Tony, don't I? I wasn't going to mention it in this one, but I have to hashtag social capital. And so what's the second thing to be done differently in the disaster space? And I kind of think you might say something about the funding beforehand maybe. I don't

Tony Pearce (30:37):

Know. Well, I think I've already mentioned that a couple of times. Yeah, obviously funding's important. As I said, look, we all need money and we're all backing for the same pot of dollars. So I don't have a problem with the fact that not everyone can have everything they want. But in that sense, I think one of the issues that we do have is, let's be really honest, funding is not necessarily allocated on risk and/or need. If it were, then a lot of people would get a lot more money because the true value in the longer term would be evident from funding those sorts of things, but that's not what you get. So yes, I think if there are ways to find more appropriate ways to fund organizations based on true need, that would be very, very helpful. And the other thing I'd say very quickly, the one I was going to say, but you forced me down the funding track.

(31:23):

I think the other one I'd say is that turning lessons identified into true system-wide enforced James, and this probably doesn't surprise you that I would come from this angle, one

Renee Hanvin (31:33):

Of my

Tony Pearce (31:34):

Previous roles, but I think the gap, which is common globally too, it's not just for us, is not identifying lessons. It's actually not consistently implementing them across agencies and over time. And the agencies themselves, when government accepts recommendations from inquiries and reviews and so on, the agencies themselves will absolutely try to do their very, very best to implement what has to be implemented. But the problem there comes back again to a political will over a period of time that starts to drop off and also funding and funding availability.

Renee Hanvin (32:06):

Tony, well, for anyone who is listening and is interested, make sure you look up on Google or whatever your search engine is for Tony's Trek. Tony is spending two months paddling down the Murray to raise money and awareness for Emergency Services Foundation and the programmings that they create. So make sure you check it out. And I am so inspired as always by you, Tony. So thank you so much. Been awesome to talk to Tony Pierce about Tony's trek. We'll talk to you again soon, maybe in two months, Tony, once you're back on the land of the IT and tech again.

Tony Pearce (32:40):

Yeah, good on you, Renee. Thank you. And thanks for your support as always and thanks to anyone who happens to listen to this.

Renee Hanvin (32:45):

No worries. Stay safe and paddle fast.

Tony Pearce (32:48):

Good on you. See you.

Renee Hanvin (32:58):

I hope today's episode of Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast has inspired you to think a little bit differently about the role you can play before, during, and after disasters. Given the new era of more frequent and compounding disasters that we are now in, let's work together to build an all hazards disaster resilient future for all. Find out more about the work I'm leading as a social enterprise, building disaster resilience at resilientready.org. Don't forget to subscribe to Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast through your preferred platform. And we'll see you next time when we discover new ways of doing disasters differently together.