Populist politics, poor policy and dire disasters

Instead, here I will assess our strategic policies and institutional settings against the usual factors of rising disaster risk and climate change, but also divisive populism. Are our strategic policy settings resilient or vulnerable? This paper has five components. First, a characterization is presented of increasing levels of disaster risk and impact, against the vulnerability of key sectors. Second, populism is identified as a risk to Australian DRR capacities. Third, the tactics of populist politicians and commentators are identified (element of truth, promotion of singular options, selective media use, diversion and deflection, attention- and support-seeking, confirming support base bias, linking to other agendas). Fourth, our national DRR policies are assessed against established criteria for effective strategic policy, for robustness in the face of heightened disruption. Fifth, strategies for the sector to encourage constructive rather than destructive policy debate are presented.