A number of Bills are before the Australian parliaments that are relevant to the emergency services.  The summaries below are indeed just summaries and do not set out all the relevant details when the legislation will apply.  To understand the full effect of these Bills the reader needs to look at the actual text of the Bill.  It should also be noted that a Bill is a draft Act, it is not law until it completes its passage through the Parliament, which may, or may not, happen.   The law only has effect when the Bill has passed through the Parliament, received the assent of the Governor (for State Acts) or the Governor-General (for Commonwealth Acts) and has then been proclaimed to commence.

In Victoria, the Emergency Management Legislation Amendment Bill 2011 will, if passed, implement a number of recommendations coming from the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.  The most signficnat amendment is to clarify the role of the Minister, who currently fills the role of ‘coordinator in chief’ and the Chief Commissioner of Police, currently the ‘Coordinator of DISPLAN’.  With the passage of the Bill the Chief Commissioner of Police will take on the title of State Emergency Response Coordinator.

The amendments will make it clear that the Minister is not to take operational control of an emergency but to ‘to ensure that satisfactory emergency management arrangements are in place to facilitate the prevention of, response to and recovery from emergencies.’

Other amendements clarify the power of various chief officers to delegate their roles to others including the chief officers of other agencies.  This will facilitate a unified command so where a fire starts in land that is the responsibility of DSE and moves into areas under the control of CFA the agencies can delegate their role to allow one officer to take command of the entire fire fighting operation.   For the SES a power to delegate emergency powers is extended to ensure that volunteer unit controllers can be equip with all the powers they need to manage an emergency response.

The name of the State Disaster response plan is changed from DISPLAN to ‘the state emergency response plan’.  There are a number of other amendments made to clarify the roles of some officers including the Fire Services Commissioner and to reflect the changes in titles and roles discussed above.

In Queensland, the Disaster Readiness Amendment Bill 2011 will implement recommendations from the interim inquiry into the 2010-2011 Queensland floods.    The Act expands the membership of the State Disaster Group and makes explicit the obligations on disaster groups to consult and publicise their disaster plans.   The Bill will, if passed, also amend

  • The South East Queensland Water (Restructuring) Act 2007;
  • The Sustainable Planning Act 2009 (to expand the exemptions from the planning scheme for emergency works);
  • The Transport Infrastructure Act 1994 (to provide for restrictions on the use of roads with appropriate penalties for people who fail to comply with the restrictions and with an exemption from liability should a person be given permission to access a restricted road but then suffer personal injury or death as a result);
  • The Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act 1995 (to allow a police officer to stop a person in order to protect road or transport infrastructure);
  • The Water Act 2000 (to allow the Minister to approve a temporary redefinition of ‘full supply’ to allow dam operators to release water when the dam reaches the new definition of ‘full’ in order to allow the dam to be more effective in flood mitigation); and
  • The Water Supply (Safety And Reliability) Act 2008.

At a Commonwealth level, the parliament is debating the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment (Fair Protection for Firefighters) Bill 2011.  This Bill will, if passed, amend the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 ‘to create a legal presumption that, if a firefighter has been employed for a certain period before being diagnosed with one of seven primary site cancers, the employment is taken to have been the dominant cause of the contraction of the cancer.’  It is not clear to me how effective this Bill will be as it amends the Commonwealth Act but of course most firefighters are employed by state fire agencies and are covered by state workers’ compensation legislation.

Michael Eburn

13 October.