This paper explores how government policy and research understanding of the importance of CBOs has translated to local level disaster management practice. The paper presents findings of a review of all Local Government Disaster Management plans in Queensland, Australia. We explore factors affecting the role of CBOs including median local government area income, disaster experience, local government area population size and the number of CBOs in a given area. We find that the population of a Local Government Area and the number of CBOs within that local government area exert a far greater effect on determining the role of CBOs in that local government area than either income or number of disaster events. Our findings suggests that post-disaster learning and adaptation is not occurring at the local level. We discuss this failing in policy implementation and the implications for government to build community disaster resilience.