The Rhetoric and Reality of ‘Resilience’: Rethinking Disaster Recovery Responsibility in Queensland

The legal framework associated with disaster risk reduction involves a complex network of laws and policies, which prescribe roles for federal, state and local governments as well as specifying responsibilities for a range of actors involved in disaster recovery. This research applies Carol Baachi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ (WPR) method of discourse analysis, to examine the way that disasters have been problematised within Queensland law. The Baachi method provides for a deeper understanding of the limits of solutions that have been created by legislation and policy, while also uncovering assumptions underpinning various legislative documents and frameworks. This analysis found that the Queensland disaster legislative framework: 1) defines disasters as short-term crises/emergencies; 2) prioritises the need to develop technological capacity to predict and understand disaster risk; 3) frames disasters as logistical problems; and 4) locates the solution to disaster in building ‘resilience’. The assumptions underlying this framing are that: once physical infrastructure is rebuilt and services restored, the disaster response is complete; disaster recovery therefore equates to a recovery of economic losses, with a preference for losses central to restarting the economy of the area; people who suffer disaster are of financial means (typically home-owners with adequate insurance); and the charity sector and/or volunteers will provide assistance to supplement state responses (despite their under-resourcing to undertake such activities). This analysis found the following gaps and silences in the Queensland disaster legislative framework: disaster loss extends beyond economic losses and damage to infrastructure; the impacts of disaster persist for a long time after the initial response and recovery effort physically concludes; volunteers are impacted by the trauma experienced during recovery processes; there is a documented risk increased of gender-based violenc