Australian Defence warns Coronavirus pandemic is a test run

This article is published by ABC NEWS

 by Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop and Kyle Taylor, ABC Investigations

Ms Durrant is speaking out about the predictions after
ending her 30-year Defence career because she believes it is her duty
to convince Australia to prepare for an increasingly unstable world.

“I’ve looked at the global situation,” she says. “It’s
no use festering in a bunker somewhere in Canberra — it’s a time of
crisis.”

She says the risks to Australia are snowballing, with
climate change, US-China tensions and the rise of nationalist
governments among the key threats to global stability.

The report, which Ms Durrant commissioned to plan for
the growing threats, lays out a timeline of how Australian essential
services would collapse within just three months if a crisis put a halt
to global trade, causing even greater ramifications than COVID-19.

“If you think of the COVID crisis as a test run, it’s really a critical thing for us to learn from this,” she said.

“The lesson is expect the unexpected.”