The new system is among one of 80 recommendations made by the Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements last year.
“The process for pursuing national consistency has taken far too long,” the report said. “Progress to develop and implement... the Australian Warning System (AWS) - since it was first proposed in 2004,has been glacial.”
Former Fire and Rescue NSW Commissioner Greg Mullins was relieved to see the recommendations as he felt they would make a difference in future natural disasters. He said the need for national consistency was highlighted during the 2019-20 Black Summer bushfires when there were different emergency warnings issued for border towns.
“There were different apps,different colours... it was confusing,” he said.
States and terrorities are slowly rolling out the system in their own time. Victoria was the first state to adopt it last year,while WA is moving towards its implementation. Meanwhile,the NSW RFS adopted the proposed three-tier warning system back in 2009 and updated the alert colours in line with national standards last year.
The NSW SES said it had introduced components of the system and would complete the full transition by the end of the year.