“The Royal Commission into National Natural Disaster Arrangements has published an Issues Paper, “Constitutional Framework for the Declaration of a State of National Emergency”, which is available on the Commission’s website. This paper explores legal and constitutional questions surrounding the concept of a declaration of a ‘state of national emergency’ by the Commonwealth of Australia, and how this might operate and interact with existing state and territory emergency management frameworks.
The paper poses three questions, on which the Royal Commission invites comment by 25 May 2020. If you would like to provide comment, please email the Royal Commission.”
For my take on the answers to this question see these posts:
- What is a ‘national emergency’? (December 25, 2019); and
- What is a national emergency? Answer: Covid-19 (March 25, 2020);
and these published papers:
- Australia’s International Disaster Response – Laws, Rules and Principles (2009 Monash University PhD thesis (published 2010, VDM-Verlag, Saarbrucken, Germany)).
- Michael Eburn, ‘Responding to catastrophic natural disasters and the need for Commonwealth legislation’ (2011) 10(3) Canberra Law Review 81-102;
- Michael Eburn, ‘Managing ‘civil contingencies’ in Australia’ (2014) 18(2) The International Journal of Human Rights 143-158;
- Michael Eburn, ‘Coordination of federal, state and local disaster management arrangements in Australia: lessons from the UK and the US’ (2017) 119 Strategic Insights (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Canberra); and
- Michael Eburn, Cameron Moore, and Andrew Gissing, The potential role of the commonwealth in responding to catastrophic disasters (2019, Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre, Melbourne).
Australian Emergency Law 