The National Response Centre is supporting our essential services by providing emergency response, employee safety and asset monitoring services across Australia’s utility networks.
The National Response Centre (NRC) is a dedicated 24/7 response centre providing emergency hotline, asset monitoring, field dispatch, escalation and employee safety monitoring services to many industries including energy, water, mining and utility businesses nationwide.
With a heritage as the central fault and emergency centre for Victoria’s Gas and Fuel Corporation, and now owned by Origin Energy, the NRC has supported safety and asset integrity across Australia for more than 50 years.
While the NRC was initially established to manage inbound emergency calls and outbound dispatch activities for the Victorian gas distribution network, today, it handles thousands of calls monthly from emergency and employee safety monitoring to dispatching of field service teams. The NRC is the first point of contact for many national emergency hotlines.
The Melbourne-based response team answer calls from the public, emergency services, regulators, utilities, meter readers, and upstream field workers assisting with gas leaks, power and gas outages, asset alarms, crisis team mobilisations, employee welfare checks, water issues and municipal enquiries.
Operating 24/7, the NRC manages issues and escalations in line with regulatory and customer requirements. The team integrates customers’ systems and processes within NRC’s streamlined response operations.
Asset monitoring and integrity
Beyond emergency response, the NRC plays a first response role in critical infrastructure monitoring. The centre actively monitors telemetry alerts, SCADA alarms, and remote system notifications across utilities, water infrastructure, and renewable energy assets.
NRC operators provide basic initial checks, escalate issues as needed, and support resolution – helping avoid service disruptions and maintain compliance. Remote monitoring of unmanned sites allows earlier detection of problems, reduces unnecessary field callouts, and supports fatigue management and cost efficiency.
The NRC also provides monitoring services to safeguard employees undertaking high-risk activities including driving long distances, working alone or in remote locations. Employees log these activities via the NRC or the TraXu monitoring app, allowing active monitoring check-ins, closures and escalation when needed.
NRC Group Manager, Shane Rayner, said, “We are entrusted with the safety of people performing high risk activities and we understand how important that is.
“I am proud of the way we can adapt to changing circumstances, and deal with real time incidents.”
The NRC has supported its customers during cyclones, floods, bushfires and outages, providing call management, customer communications, fire and weather warnings to field teams, and journey management monitoring for safe travel and work across affected areas.
Duress, in-vehicle and fatigue camera response
Critical event monitoring is another key NRC service. Vehicle roll-overs, impacts, duress and fatigue alerts triggered by fleet’s in-vehicle management system, cameras, or hand-held in-Reach, SPOT, Blackline or other customer-procured devices, are received and actioned by the NRC team.
The NRC works with businesses to design effective notification process and provides emergency triage support with the driver upon event receipt. With 24/7 monitoring customers and employees have peace of mind whenever field teams are on the ground.
