School students and international tourists need to learn to recognise danger signs in the surf such as rip currents and cannot keep relying on swimming between the flags to ensure their safety, an authority on beach safety says.
Associate Professor Rob Brander, from the University of New South Wales, said the red and yellow flags were an extremely effective way to keep people safe, but Australia had a big coastline and it was not possible to patrol every stretch of beach.
"It is rare for people to drown between the flags, but we simply don't have enough flags," he said.
"There are so many unpatrolled beaches around that are easily accessible and trying to get people who choose to swim at those beaches to not go in the water or to be safe or to drive a fair distance to find a patrolled beach is hard.
"We have to motivate people to be safe somehow."
Associate Professor Brander said school students and international tourists should be targeted.
"We have to be a bit more creative to get people to swim between the flags and to recognise dangerous conditions when they see them," he said.
"We hear the message to swim between the flags so often that we kind of switch off, and there's a dangerous complacency about swimming at unpatrolled beaches.
"If you don't understand things like rip currents and dangerous breaking waves, and you are not a good swimmer, you are at such incredible risk when you swim at an unpatrolled beach.
"We have to motivate people to swim between the flags and give them information about what to avoid on an unpatrolled beach or at least what they should be thinking about when they are on an unpatrolled beach."
Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive officer Daniel Gschwind said the Federal Government could issue beach safety information to tourists at the point they applied for their electronic visa.
"Obviously the Government has to balance it against privacy concerns and other issues, but we think it may be an appropriate touch point to give people some basic information," he said.
"Just as they are provided with some legal information, some transport information, there is also perhaps an opportunity to convey some safety information."
'Go where the guardians are'
A 22-year-old university student drowned at Duranbah Beach, just south of the Queensland border, on Christmas Day.
Gold Coast chief lifeguard Warren Young said patrolled areas offered the greatest security for swimmers.
"I think education has a part to play for sure, but more people watching at the isolated spots especially is really important — especially in the Australian summer," he said.
"We are really saying 'go where the guardians are' — where the lifeguards and professional people are and the lifesavers.
"If you go for a swim on an open beach on this coastline and if you are not a surfer or an experienced surf lifesaver and you have no floatation and your kids get into trouble, someone's going to drown.
"I can't say enough the tragedy of a family going for a swim on an isolated beach and every parent would do the same. They respond and usually the parent drowns."
