It is my pleasure to invite you to participate in an invitation only roundtable lunch meeting to discuss the release and recommendations of our latest Black Swan Strategy Paper entitled, 'Biosecurity in the Indo-Pacific'.
The paper, authored by Associate Professor Tim Inglis, calls for a new approach to pandemic preparedness in the Indo-Pacific.
Associate Professor Tim Inglis argues that to avoid the pitfalls of previous top-down initiatives that lacked commitment to sustainment or long-term resourcing, the foundations of the region’s biosecurity must be built deeper and cover both biothreat crisis and consequence management. This will be crucial if the region is to withstand the disruptive effects of successive external threats.
For middle powers such as Australia, the response to an emerging pandemic threat requires swift acceleration of scientific, technical, industrial and logistic capacity. The national cost of onshoring these capabilities to extend state-based public health will be much less than the impact of inaction or indecision on COVID 2.01. A sharing of these enhanced bio-preparedness costs could be achieved through interagency, inter-state and international cooperation, managed under a common governance structure.
To address our future biosecurity needs the Black Swan Strategy Paper calls for:
- New diagnostic, pharmaceutical, surveillance and preventive countermeasures.
- The post-pandemic repair of the scientific and technical sector.
- Stronger collaborative networks among Indo-Pacific regional players to generate timely actionable analysis.
- Replacement of the predominant risk-averse biothreat mindset with a risk-adept ethos through executive support for a high-flow innovation pipeline and community-wide adoption of disease risk-management skills.
- Application of all-threats disaster management to COVID pandemic recovery to reinforce regional biosecurity and enhance pandemic preparedness.
- The professionalisation of leadership and governance, and a national budget for early warning, crisis response and consequence management.
This event is an invitation only, lunch meeting in the Senate Room, The University of Western Australia, and places are limited.
Date: Thursday 21 July
Time: 12.00pm – 2.00pm - Please arrive by 11:45am
Location: Senate Room, Winthrop Hall, UWA
RSVP: Please register using Eventbrite by Friday 16 June
We look forward to welcoming you.
Regards,
Professor Peter J. Dean
Director, UWA Defence and Security Institute
