Career’s ‘most
complex challenge’ By Cpl Corinne Boer
Edition 1171, July 26, 2007
Here to help: Maj-Gen David Chalmers talks with the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park communities. Photo by Cpl Bernard Pearson
THE operational command centre for the NT Emergency Response Taskforce (NTERT) was relocated from Canberra to Alice Springs on July 13.
The move will enable consultation with Aboriginal communities and people directly affected by the operation.
Maj-Gen David Chalmers has been seconded as the NTERT’s Operational Commander and will remain in the NT for at least a year.
Maj-Gen Chalmers, who led the ADF’s humanitarian response to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia, said his latest role “will be the most complex and the most rewarding challenge” of his career.
He said the NTERT was a whole-of-government intervention, which included the ADF’s JTF 641.
The assessment teams are led by the Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, in cooperation with other government agencies including Centrelink, the Department of Health and Ageing, the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, the Department of Education, Science and Training, and the AFP.
“I’m not representing a Defence response,” Maj-Gen Chalmers said. “Defence is playing an important part, but it’s only one part of a multifaceted response from many government agencies. Defence’s role is providing logistics support, transport and communications.”
He said his role was to synchronise and facilitate efforts of the inter-government agencies supporting the Aboriginal communities.
“We all have a common goal to improve the circumstances of Aboriginal children so that they, as much as any other Australian children, can look forward to happy, safe and healthy lives,” he said.
“A great deal of progress has been made. We started out by deploying survey teams. As a result of the information that we have gathered from the surveys we’ve started to deploy services.”
