The images of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Centre will haunt most people forever. The threat of terrorism has hit home with Australians even more since the Bali bombings a mere 12 months ago. A major seminar for property owners/managers, developers and infrastructure managers called Engineering a Secure Australia is being run by Engineers Australia to provide comprehensive information on the threats posed by terrorism. The practical seminar and workshop will equip property owners, risk managers, engineers and others with the knowledge to effectively consider the risks of terrorism in their work. This has become essential as the Commonwealth has advised industry that “risk assessment processes should consider terrorism in all its forms” and that it should be applying the Australian Risk Management Standard to treat the threat of terrorism. (Commonwealth National Counter Terrorism Committee, 2003). “For practitioners to do this effectively, it requires that they have sufficient background knowledge on terrorism to make informed decisions”, said Athol Yates, manager of the Engineering a Secure Australia project by Engineers Australia. “However, unless you are a manager of a high-profile icon or element deemed to be critical infrastructure, you have very little access to advice from the intelligence and law enforcement agencies.” Yates says the lack of knowledge undermines the effectiveness of risk management, as its starting point is a sound knowledge of the strategic context.” “While the ASIO has provided industry with a 234 word statement on the current security environment, this does not contain sufficient information to be very useful. Consequently, practitioners are forced to use the media as their principal information source which may not provide objective information”. Due to the need for more detailed information, one of Australia’s most experienced terrorism experts was requested to run the morning workshop session. Clive Williams is director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and is a specialist on terrorism and politically motivated violence. Mr Williams has a career background as an officer in Australian Military Intelligence, which included a number of overseas intelligence appointments. For example, he was the Defence Intelligence Attaché in Washington for three years, from 1990 to 1993. His last position in Defence, until October 2001, was as Director of Security Intelligence. The afternoon presenter is Chandler Comerford, Managing Director for the Vulnerability Assessment Group (VAG). Mr Comerford is a Senior Safety and Risk Engineer with considerable experience in applying AS/NZS 4360 Risk Management Standard and has conducted risk assessment workshops for the offshore oils and gas, rail and maritime industries. He will focus on the duty of care, management’s responsibility and the security dividend. The seminar is supported by Engineers Australia, the professional association for 70,000 engineers in Australia. The workshops will be held in Sydney on November 26 and in Melbourne on November 27.
Details on the seminar are available from
http://www.safeguardingaustralia.org.au/TerrorismRiskSeminar.html
