Australia is facing more challenging hazards than ever before. Biosecurity diseases, heatwaves, cyber outages, and tsunamis don’t happen in isolation. There is an increasing risk of hazard convergence, where overlapping and interrelated events have an impact greater than the sum of their parts. So, what happens when these crises converge?  

From 26 to 28 May, we held a national exercise called Exercise Convergence. This event brought together more than 300 participants from every level of government, industry partners, not-for-profit organisations and communication specialists. We tested how well we can prepare, respond and recover together. 

Climate events are happening more often. It's vital we build strong emergency management systems and skills.   

During the recent Higher Risk Weather Season, we saw how important it is to work together. True partnership and collaboration with all levels of government, community, not-for-profits and industry is essential to reducing harm and making a difference to our communities.  

This is why we need to unite and explore how we can better prepare for, respond to, and recover from crises together, regardless of whether climate drivers or human involvement causes them.   

Key Moments from Exercise Convergence 2025 

Exercise Convergence allowed participants to learn about preparedness, response, and recovery. We tested national crisis coordination mechanisms and explored our ability to handle multiple crisis events at the same time. 

The exercise mirrored real-life situations. Participants faced challenges that needed quick thinking and fast action. The activities demanded teamwork, communication, and coordination.. 

The exercise also included panel discussions which aimed to increase awareness of emerging risks, and to identify key priorities and strategies to keep public confidence. The discussions offered valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of managing concurrent and compounding crises. 

Experts shared their insights and best practices. This helped participants emerge themselves in the complexities of the exercise. 

"As a nation, we need to explore how we complement each other and identify ways to build new capabilities. We also need to empower communities and other stakeholders by building evidence, intelligence and insights to make effective decisions,” said Bec Hosking, Acting Assistant Coordinator-General for the National Coordination Mechanism.  

National Crisis Exercising and Lessons Capability   

Our National Crisis Exercising and Lessons Capability (NCEC) team dedicates itself to enhancing the nation's preparedness for any type of crises. They create and run national crisis exercises and capacity-building programs. These assess the current abilities for national response and early recovery with the intent to identify new ideas or solutions to complex problems.   

The exercises focus on preparedness, response and stress early recovery efforts. NCEC  aims to enhance the existing strong and flexible emergency management system. This system will help us respond to and recover from any crisis.