Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5080 ..

1

Mr Speaker, I present for the information of members an Exposure Draft of an Emergency Management Bill and I move that the Assembly takes note of the paper.

The ACT's current Emergency Management arrangements comprise a number of administrative provisions including the ACT DISPLAN (or Disaster Plan). The ACT and Western Australia are the only Territory and State respectively to not have Emergency Management Legislation, although I am advised that Western Australia is moving also to enact legislation to cover responses to major emergencies and natural disasters.

The ACT DISPLAN was last updated in 1994 to account for self-government arrangements. The introduction of Emergency Management legislation implements what I believe to be bi-partisan commitment to formalise the management, control, and coordination arrangements inherent in the existing administrative processes for managing emergencies.

While some individual emergency response agencies have particular legislated responsibilities to deal with everyday emergencies there is no specific legislation that provides overall management in the event of major emergencies (commonly referred to as disasters) where coordination of response and recovery effort for the community is essential.

This is not to say that multi-agency response to significant emergencies
in the Territory has not been evident in the past, however members will appreciate that there may be some extraordinary measures or
coordination necessary in major emergencies that is not provided for, nor appropriate for a single agency to contain in their specific legislation.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .