Welcome to our first newsletter of 2019. As this is my first introduction as your new President I think it is only fitting that I say a massive thank you to Sandra for all the hard work she has put in as President over the last two years. I am glad that she will be around for a while as Immediate Past President for her knowledge of all things SRA, and for support and guidance as I settle in to this new role. I want to mirror her thanks to those committee members who stood down at the end of last year: Naomi who worked tirelessly for the region with our international counterparts, Anca Hanea for expanding the network our society has with other international experts and societies, and Martina Hoffman for her hard work developing the strong relationship we now have with the Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS – more about them later!) It is also a great pleasure to welcome some new faces to the committee. Aaron Dodd joins us as our new President-Elect. Anna Kosovac, who has ably put this newsletter together, has joined us as a Counsellor. Victoria Hemming joined the committee for a brief time before she took up an exciting job opportunity we hope she’ll be back soon though!

A lot of my energy so far this year has been taken-up planning for this year’s conference. When I first talked to members of the committee before I put my name forward last year, I knew I would have to organise the conference. Oh, how naively I
thought: “how hard could that be!?” Thankfully Sandra and I had already discussed the possibility of another joint conference with ABNMS. After a slow start, not helped by me returning to the UK for Christmas, and a great deal of patience and poking by my counterpart at ABNMS (Annemarie Christophersen), I am now quietly confident that we have an interesting conference planned for Wellington this November. A big thanks goes out to Bob Cavana and Bronwyn Howells at Victoria Business School for their help in securing rooms at the VBS site in central Wellington, and to GNS for hosting websites etc. There are more details later in the newsletter please make a note of the key dates and keep an eye out for further details later in the year.

As I think back to the first meeting Annemarie and I had, we ended the conversation on why we joined our respective committees, what we wanted to achieve as President, and why we wanted to be involved with the conference. I’ll admit that I didn’t put my name in the hat at SRA-ANZ because I wanted to organise a conference. I was more interested in helping people to conduct better risk assessments. And, just as importantly, to explain the process and outcome of those assessments in a way that is readily understandable.

To the chagrin, I’m sure, of some of the contaminated land consultants whose reports I reviewed as a regulator back in the UK, I never took favourably to those who threw numbers in a spreadsheet without explaining why that model and value had been chosen, and how the inputs and outputs related to the real world. Maybe I have my old consultancy environ-
mental/training director to thank for that. One of the key things I remember from the three years working with him was that it was important to “tell the story”; to lead the reader (whether that be client or regulator) through your thinking; to use language that your audience can follow so that they can understand you conclusions and recommendations. On a basic level, if the client didn’t understand then they’d likely go elsewhere next time; if the regulator didn’t, it was harder to get the client’s project approved (and they might go elsewhere next time). Taking a big-picture view if nothing was done, this could mean land affecting the health of people and the environment was not cleaned-up, or money wasted on land that didn’t need it.

Jumping forward 15 years from those conversations, I think that being able to explain how we reach a risk assessment conclusion and the recommendation that follows is just as important. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that for people to follow or accept those recommendations we also need to consider their intrinsic values. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the outcome of an assessment/recommendation process will be different. Hopefully, it means that more people are more likely to accept the actions that follow, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them.

This all leads nicely back to this year’s conference: Risk and Decisions: how different aspects of risk underpin reasonable and culturally-appropriate decision-making. I hope we can bring together researchers developing new techniques and insights, practitioners using some of those techniques in anger (as it were), regulators reviewing proposals, and policy makers and decision makers deciding what and how to implement risk analysis and the resulting management options, so that others inside and outside our society have a greater appreciation of good risk analysis and the benefits that it can bring for organisations, us, the environment, and society.

Dear SRA-ANZ Members,
There’s a fable that is said to have originated from the Indian subcontinent about some blind men and an elephant. There are many versions of the story, but the gist is pretty much the same. A group of men—blind from birth—heard that something called an ‘elephant’ had arrived in their town. Curious to know what an elephant was, they all reached out to touch it. One man reached out and happened to touch the trunk, and concluded that an elephant was some sort of snake. Another reached out and happened to touch one of the elephant’s legs, and concluded that it was some sort of tree. And finally, the last one reached out and happened to grasp the elephant’s tail, and concluded that an elephant was some kind of whip. A big argument ensued as to what an elephant actually was, with each of the men being partly right about its characteristics but also simultaneously completely wrong about its true nature.  
Risk analysis has flourished into a rich and diverse field, with analytical approaches increasingly growing in sophistication. As a community, we certainly have much to celebrate in terms of pushing the boundaries of the analysis and management of different types of risk. The strength of the field, however, is the hallmark of its weakness: while we have explored the vast diversity of risk, we have also contributed to its fragmentation.
Have we become the blind men who have been independently trying to understand what an elephant is? Have we developed strong convictions about what we know about particular risks, but failed to see the big picture? As we continue to deepen our understanding of different risks, are we depriving ourselves of the opportunity to truly grasp its nature?
In order to push the boundaries of risk analysis, we need to bring our different perspectives and areas of expertise together. This is the only way for us to gain important insights into the complex nature of risk, and to appreciate how our work builds on and enriches each other’s approaches.
It is in this spirit that SRA-ANZ is aiming to expand its membership base to include other areas of risk analysis that have not been traditionally well-represented in the Society. It is likewise in this spirit that this year’s conference on Risk Prisms at the University of Sydney Business School brings together multidisciplinary panels aimed at analysing the same risk from different perspectives (early bird registration is closing soon!).
We need to break down our disciplinary silos. We need to talk about the elephant in the room.
Sandra Seno-Alday, SRA-ANZ President

Dear SRA-ANZ Members,
As a (relatively new) network scholar, the different ways in which we are all connected never ceases to amaze me. What amazes me even more is how much we don’t know about how widely connected we actually are, how much more closely connected we can be, and how much we can achieve when we reach out to connect to others.
My first year as President of SRA-ANZ has taught me (yet again!) about the extraordinary power of networks. As a small society, we rely heavily on the time that individual members very generously volunteer to get initiatives off the ground. However, this year has shown that the collective resources of SRA-ANZ amount to more than just the sum of time volunteered by our modest membership base. Our deceptively small society has proven to be a network of hidden networks, which has allowed SRA-ANZ to put down 2017 as a year of achievement.
Our 2017 conference, ‘Risk in an Interconnected World’ was one of our most well-attended conferences in recent years. Under the guidance of SRA-ANZ councillors Martina Hoffmann and Anca Hanea, and members Edith Arndt and Tracey Hollings (all from the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis, University of Melbourne), the conference effectively connected the society to new and existing members, with expertise spanning disciplines from biosecurity to transport safety. Most notably, the conference linked SRA-ANZ to the Australasian Bayesian Network Modelling Society (ABNMS), whose co-organisation of the conference has resulted in an exciting new connection that we hope will lead to many more productive collaborations in the future.
Through the creative and capable efforts of Martina Hoffmann and Steve Corin (Synapt Consulting, New Zealand) our members have been connected to the latest developments in the various fields of risk analysis through our regular newsletter and website updates. Under the leadership of Steve Corin, the society has likewise been connected to the latest thinking in risk through the SRA International webinar series. This year has also marked SRA-ANZ’s stronger engagement with industry, led by Barbara Campany (GHD Australia), and with policymakers, led by Naomi Cogger (Massey University, New Zealand).
Our society has been working hard to connect our own risk experts with the rest of the world. In line with this, we have received strong support from the editorial board of the Journal of Risk Research. We are currently working with the journal to put together our very first SRA-ANZ special issue, aimed at showcasing the novel work of our members. We hope to get this published in 2018, and hope to continue sharing the work of risk scholars from our region to a global audience.
Finally, the society continues to share its expertise in shaping risk management standards through its participation in Standards Australia committee OB 007, which is currently in the process of updating the international risk management standard ISO31000, among others.
While we have been able to reach out and establish productive connections with others this year, we need to increase our network connectivity even more. We need to broaden our disciplinary connections in order to truly be in a position to meaningfully foster cross-disciplinary interconnections. It is only by building bridges across areas of risk expertise that we will collectively be able to robustly think about complex emerging risks, creatively craft solutions to managing the ever evolving risk landscape, and expand the frontiers of risk analysis.
We now optimistically look forward to 2018 and beyond, confident that we will be able to build on the strong connections we have established this year!
Sandra Seno-Alday, SRA-ANZ President

Message from the President

Dear SRA-ANZ Members,

It has been a delight to serve as SRA-ANZ President for the past two years.
In my term as President we have worked hard to broaden the membership base and it was great to see a number of new faces at the 2016 Annual General Meeting at Central Queensland University’s Appleton Institute in Adelaide, Australia.

The conference would not be possible without the support of many different organ-isations and people. Firstly, we need to acknowledge and thank the Society’s long time sponsor, the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis, for their contin-ued support and also for lending us their administrative wizard Erica Kecorius. I would also like to thank the Central Queensland University for hosting us and the local organising committee of Kirrilly Thompson, Chris Bearman, Jane Bearman, Monique Stewart and Daxine Waterman for constant support, energy and enthusi-asm. Thanks also to the program committee of Sandra Seno-Alday, Kirrilly Thomp-son and Tom Beer for their work in pulling together the speakers.

The SRA-ANZ is continuing to develop our online presence with the efforts of Steve Corin and Kirrilly Thompson. All of this is a work in progress and we are looking for suggestions and inputs from members. The role of editor for the newsletter has been in a state of change this year. Tracey, who produced the first newsletter of the year, has had a break from this role as she takes on the new role of motherhood. I want to take the opportunity to wish her well in life’s new adventures. This year also sees a change to the SRA-ANZ executive with Tom Beer who was SRA-ANZ President in 2014 finishing his term as Immediate-Past President. We will miss his sage words on the Executive.

With this being my last letter as President I want to welcome the President-elect, Sandra Seno-Alday, and wish her all the best in this role.

Looking forward to seeing you all in 2017 at University of Melbourne.

Thank-you and regards,
Naomi Cogger SRA-ANZ President

Dear SRA-ANZ Members,

The year is flying by!

Over the past few years there has been a growing awareness that we cannot bury our head in the sand around risk. If we are to manage the threats posed by infectious
diseases, natural disasters, war and the collapse of a country’s economy we must engage with risk.

This years’ conference theme, engaging risk will continue this conversation. There will be some inspiring talks from Professor Stewart Lockie, Professor David Swain and Dr Nick Golding. We will also provide opportunities for professional development with two days of workshops on a range of topics including the psychology of risk perception, expert judgment and fatigue risk management.

This issue of the SRA newsletter contains information on our annual conference and workshops. We also profile an emerging risk researcher and a recently released book on expert judgment.

In March this year we said farewell to SRA-ANZ councillor and newsletter editor Catherine Wong. Catherine has left us for an exciting new role at the University of Luxembourg. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Catherine for her efforts and wish her well on this new adventure. Catherine’s departure has left a vacancy in the Executive and we are now calling for nominations for the SRA-ANZ councillor and a volunteer to take over editing the newsletter. So it you are interested in either of these positions please get in contact with me.

We also need you to help spread the word about the SRA-ANZ to your colleagues. I like to think everyone in Australasia interested in risk would know about SRA-ANZ, so I am always surprised when I meet someone who has not heard of our group!

Word of mouth can be an effective way to introduce someone to SRA-ANZ.

Winter is just around the corner. Before you enter hibernation, or escape to a warm island in the Pacific, don’t forget to submit your abstract for the 2016 SRA-ANZ!

Naomi Cogger SRA-ANZ President

We have made a variety of our old newsletters now available online. See copies of these below.