This course will examine law as it impacts the community's ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from a natural hazard event with a particular focus on bushfires, but with learning outcomes that can be applied across all hazards.

The course is designed to ensure that students gain a comprehensive understanding of common features, and differences, in the relevant law across the Australian jurisdictions. With this understanding students will be able to critically analyse the law, identify how current law and policy hinders, or helps, the Australian community to live with natural hazards, in particular fire, and make informed proposals for law and policy reform.

On completion of this course a student will:

1. understand the key principles of emergency management law in Australia;
2. appreciate the breadth, the common features and the differences of emergency management law across the Australian jurisdictions;
3. be able to critically analyse emergency management law within various contexts and to evaluate laws against procedural and substantive criteria

Assessment will be by way of a case study relating to an Australian disaster where students will identify legal issues that arose in the preparation for, response to, or recovery from, that event. Students may use as a case study any disaster response they have been involved with, or one of the major Australian events, such as the 1967 Hobart Fires, 1974 Cyclone Tracy, 1983 Ash Wednesday Fires, 2003 fires in NSW and the ACT or the 2009 Black Saturday fires.

Students may negotiate with the course coordinator the details of the task and the event to be studied to ensure that the assessment builds on relevant experience and meets the students learning needs.

The assignment will be completed in stages:

1. One week after the workshop students need to provide a two page precis identifying the event that they will study, the issues they expect to explore and provide a brief annotated bibliography of relevant reading; 15%
2. Students are to comment on the precis filed by at least 2 other students. Comment should be in the form of constructive guidance to identify common issues across case studies, make suggestions on research approach, literature and legal principles; 10%
3. A research paper due 6 weeks after the workshop. 75%

A compulsory three day intensive workshop, online discussion and private study time to research and write assignment and complete readings for the course.

Click here for the current timetable

None but see above.

Students, in particular those who do not have a legal background, should read Michael Eburn, Emergency Law (3rd ed, Federation Press, 2010)

A reading guide will be available on the WATTLE site at the commencement of the course.

Access to internet required