Communications sector prepares for the 2025-26 Higher Risk Weather Season

Exercise Disconnect & Reconnect, facilitated by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), was aimed at strengthening emergency response to telecommunications outages – including impacts on the Triple Zero network – by identifying gaps, testing coordination, assessing alternatives, and addressing impacts and restoration barriers.

NEMA put participants through their paces, ‘war gaming’ a set of catastrophic and nationally significant scenarios based on the projected forecast for the HRWS.

Undertaking exercises like this ensures all stakeholders are working together and are prepared for a range of scenarios before Australia enters the HRWS in earnest.

The department will use observations and learnings from Exercise Disconnect & Reconnect to identify priority actions for industry and government, and to inform future policy, planning and capability development efforts.

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