 Well it's my great pleasure now to welcome Wing Commander Leigh Ann Woon from the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Welcome to our conversations about this Lessons Learned Conference. You've just given a fascinating paper as part of a panel on multi-agency disaster response. A presentation about three disasters in New Zealand and some of the lessons you've learned from that. Just remind us of the three big things that have happened in New Zealand. Sure, well unfortunately we've had the Pike River mining disaster where 29 miners were killed on the west coast. Then we had the Christchurch earthquake. There was one in September 2010 and then the big one was really in February 2011 which is what I've presented on today. At the February 2011 earthquake it was typically actually an aftershock but it was a magnitude 6.3. Fortunately there were 185 people killed and over 30 different nationalities involved in that earthquake and a huge obviously impact on New Zealand and continues to be so today. And then the third disaster was actually the grinding off the arena, the Motivusil arena, the trawler and towering on a reef and that had a huge impact again as well. And as a result of those three major disasters we've actually produced at Headquarters Joint Force New Zealand, Humanitarian Aid Disaster Relief Book, Aide Memoir which has got all the best practices and lessons learned from those three disasters and how we would respond to those, the response options available to defence force. Yes this book, the Aide Memoir, what's the purpose of this book? The book is actually designed for Headquarters Joint Force New Zealand Defence Force planners so it assists us when planning for a response looking at the capability we've got available, the niche capabilities, our degrees of notice and what the response options are available to us. It also outlines the different civil defence responsibilities and the different structures so where we, as a supporting agency, what our roles are and also has a range of checklists for about 10 or 12 different functional areas so if you were assigned to be a liaison officer, for example logistics liaison officer at a certain area, you would actually turn to that chapter in the book and you would see a list of items to be checked against to actually questions to ask or things to be aware of before you actually get assigned that task. So this book is a giant set of lessons learned, it's exactly what this conference is about. Lessons learned from the New Zealand Defence Force perspective, yes and it gives you best practices on what worked well and what hasn't worked for us. And did you work with people outside of the New Zealand Defence Forces in the development of this Aide Memoir? No it's predominantly a Defence Force product, it's not a doctrinal publication so we're not saying this is a doctrine going forward, this is just best practices and lessons identified or sometimes learned on how we would do business differently going forward. So it's really to help our own people. It is available to aid agencies and other government departments but it's for a guidance only, it's not saying this is how you are to do business but this is a guidance so if they're interacting with us and some of the lessons we learned was a fear of working with the military, you know some one agency asked us you know would we take off our uniform and work with them so again it's breaking down those barriers and showing people you know how the military operate and what we would bring to the table as a supporting agency in a major disaster. That's a very interesting question, would you take off your uniform when you're working with us? What did you take from that query? I mean I assume you won't? No we won't, no because that's what we bring, that's the strength of what we bring. So again what we took from that is the way we perhaps arrive at an agency and work with them so it means we've got to engage more with agencies you know network with them, explain to them how we do operate and also understand their processes and practices, their culture, their ethos, you know we all will get there in the end but the way the military might do it might be quite different to a civilian or another government agency. I know you weren't personally involved in each of those three disasters but you've got three very different things, an earthquake, a shipping disaster and a mining disaster. Were there any common lessons that have been highlighted in your aid memoir? There is and what we learned in our Christchurch earthquake was personal tracking systems so we had a lot of people on the ground but we didn't actually know where they worked and so if they'd been exposed to potentially hazardous substance or like asbestos and that or had there been another earthquake you know who was actually where were they located in the in the city or at which parts so we were lucky for in some ways for Oparina the grounding of the motor vessel, the trawler. We controlled the entry point so when people arrived to actually do the beach cleanup or the oil spill or whatever part logistics whatever disaster relief provided assistance they provided we would actually sign them in basically and then we'd actually know exactly where they worked and what part of the recovery operation they worked on so that we knew who was who was there at any one time so we put in a system for that. One key lesson is tracking your people, people on the side. Is there another key lesson that you took away that's covered two or three of those disasters? Yes end to end planning so we work with them obviously government agencies for example for Christchurch again we'd evacuate a lot of people and we would send them on our C-130 a military aircraft saved from Christchurch to Auckland but we were just transporting people we weren't responsible for them when they arrived there and so for example you know if the elderly were being arriving there you know where their bed space is available was there an ambulance there to pick them up were family there for perhaps migrants or displaced personnel to meet them so in some cases you know we would have an aircraft lot of people arriving but there was no one at the other end to support them so we were left with managing that and we can do that but it's it's not really our job to do that. So end to end planning in a way that drives you into relationship with government and non-government doesn't it? Yeah but also understanding where our responsibilities are I mean we're not just going to put them on aircraft and leave them without any support so again that became our responsibility working with those agents saying you know this is what we can provide but when we get to the other end it's it's all your responsibility to then you know carry on with that support you know if they weren't ready for to receive the elderly. There was a gentleman on your panel from the United States who talked about evacuations in relation to I think a volcanic eruption and mentioned pets can you just speak to that what was that issue and has that a reason for you? His issue was when they had the Neo the non-combatant evacuations was actually evacuating the U.S. citizens but also taking care of their pets which they hadn't factored into their planning I'm not aware of that I'm selling from the Christchurch quake incident but for him it was like you know organizing a flight for pets and sort of pets were as a priority as much as a passenger because they were part of people's family and a very emotional issue so and from military perspective planning for that you know we might say oh pets we can deal with pets later but for obviously in that situation. Well he expressed it quite bluntly he said we can euthanize them but then they realised it was really a psychosocial or a mental health issue and that it may be in a disaster situation the last thing the person actually had with whom they had an emotional connection but again something you wouldn't necessarily think of without an interagency communication. Can I just ask you one or two of the big challenges that arose in this book that perhaps you hadn't thought about so much before are there any other significant challenges in multi-agency response? I guess it's just understanding the different cultures of different agencies in different ways of doing business for example for military we've very good at planning and running command and control situations so you might go to another agency it may appear to be disorganised but the way they do business may not be the way the military would not saying it's right or wrong we'll all get there and get the ends and achieve the ends in the objective but it might be a different way so it's very hard for military to step back and we are not the lead agency we're a supporting agency so we've got to be really cognisant that sometimes we've just got to let them go through their process and they'll get there and support them in their planning their coordination and of that. Just before I let you go Wing Commander what do you hope to gain from being part of all this? Sure well I'm actually new to the lessons learnt area so this is the first time I've been to this conference so for me personally an opportunity to learn how other organisations work and also create a lot of networks so that already through the presentation a lot of people coming up saying you know just setting up contacts with the New Zealand Defence Force and establishing those relationships so that we can share information and learn from each other we're very good I believe at identifying lessons but actually the learning is that systemic changes we need to be doing so it's been quite invigorating seeing some of the challenges we're facing in New Zealand Defence Force so a headquarters joint learning lessons is not unique to us so that's validating that but also looking at some of the systems the other agencies are using to learn lessons and do that systemic changes which really is cultural changes in some cases. Because I was thinking that it's about methodology and tools isn't it and at your senior level you'd be interested in what NATO is doing and what the US is doing or what Australia is doing. Looking at the doctrinal publications and we have actually taken a lot of the intellectual property from a headquarters one group adaptive warfare division in Australia and actually using a lot of their processes to actually set up our own lessons learnt philosophy and framework as well. Thank you so much thank you.