The Hon Josh Wilson MP
AusAlert trial in Goomalling DANA HAMILTON (HOST): Right now, though, this new national warning system is called AusAlert. It's rolling out across Australia in June and will be tested in Goomalling this week. So, if you're in the area on the day with a compatible mobile device, your phone will vibrate and play a siren-like warning sound for about 10 seconds, and an AusAlert message will appear on your screen.
So, the test is one of many being rolled out across the country this month, so the technology can be finalised before peak emergency season. Federal Emergency Management Assistant Minister, Josh Wilson says it's important to protect the community. JOSH WILSON: It uses technology to push out an emergency message to compatible mobile devices.
It can obviously do that on a geolocated basis, so that the emergency warning can go to people in an area who might need to know about an emergency that has arisen – that could be a bushfire, or a flood, or a cyclone, or a public health emergency – and when the alert occurs, their phone, if it is switched on, and do not disturb has been taken off so it can receive the usual sound alerts, it will buzz, and there will be a siren, and it will either say that there's a critical or a priority alert, and it will give some information about the nature of the emergency.
So, it might, for instance, say about a particular location, there's a bushfire approaching said town, or a particular intersection, and if you're there, you need to consider your circumstances, you need to leave the area if you can, or take protective steps if that's the best option. It will essentially give us, at the national level, in a coordinated way, the ability to provide that kind of information to people, in addition to the ways that we've communicated those things in the past through radio and various other kind of media.
PIPER DUFFY (REPORTER): Phone reception and service is unfortunately a massive barrier for people, particularly living in regional areas across the country. Is phone service needed to receive these alerts, and is this something that's being closely monitored when those tests do occur in regional locations? Well, that's exactly right.
So, yes, mobile service is required. It is coordinated through all of the different providers, so it won't matter which kind of provider you happen to be with, you will get that alert to an eligible mobile device, but there must be some mobile service, and that's one of the reasons why this trial is happening between the 10th and the 21st of June in a range of 9 different locations around Australia, and then that leads up to the big national test that will be in July.
And after these tests do roll out, is there any sort of timeline for when the system will be in place officially? We're hoping that it'll be in use for the higher risk season, which is from spring into the summer, at the end of this year, that's why the national test will occur in July, but we do these tests precisely to make sure that it's working in the way that we want it to work.
We think it's an important new kind of functionality. It just means that where there are these circumstances, and of course they're going to be very, very rare. You'd like to think that in many cases, in many communities, this sort of alert system wouldn't need to be used at all, or hardly ever.
But where you have a really, really dangerous situation, and getting information to people, so that they can consider their circumstances, potentially, you know, in the face of a dangerous bushfire, then having the ability to bring that to people's attention, allow them to then go and take some consequent action, turned on the radio, go on to the relevant website, and see exactly what's going on.
We think that that is an important new kind of function in helping to keep Australians safe. The tests that are running in the next two weeks are a priority alert only, so in that case, if you have your phone set on silent or do not disturb, it won't make a noise or buzz, so the test in Goomalling, for instance, which is at 12 o'clock noon on Friday, the 19th of June, will be a priority alert, and the national alert on the 27th I believe, will be a priority alert as well, rather than the critical alert, which is the one that cuts through.
The point of the test is to see that when we geolocate, when we pick a township like Goomalling – it's also being tested in Launceston in Tasmania, and Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, and Geelong in Victoria, and all of these different locations – we're wanting to make sure that the test actually gets to eligible mobile devices in order to be reassured that that AusAlert is serving its purpose.
Reporter Piper Duffy chatting to Federal Assistant Minister for Emergency Management about the AusAlert test, which will occur in Goomalling this Friday at 12pm. For more information about the alert, you can go to ausalert.gov.au and it is something that will be rolled out right across the country, as we heard there.