The premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has called a state of emergency for seven days from Friday

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Prior to this bushfire season, a state of emergency had only been called four times in New South Wales since 2006, despite hundreds of events being registered by the Australian government as “disasters” in the last decade alone.

On 11 November last year, the New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, called a state of emergency for the first time since 2013. The declaration was valid for seven days. A second state of emergency was called for a week beginning on 19 December, with the premier’s office citing “the most devastating bushfire season in living memory”. On 2 January, the premier called yet another state of emergency – the third for this fire season – to begin on Friday.

So what governs the decision to call a state of emergency, and what powers does the state premier assume in calling one?

The powers

State emergency legislation varies from state to state. In NSW, a state of emergency is declared under the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act of 1989 and can be done so when the premier believes there is “a significant and widespread danger to life or property in New South Wales”.

The declaration triggers a broad range of measures. On Thursday, Berejiklian drew attention to the powers that the declaration gives emergency services to close and open roads at will, and forcibly evacuate members of the public, citing extreme high temperatures forecast for Saturday and the high volume of traffic due to tourist movement.

A state of emergency declaration also allows the Rural Fire Service commissioner to exercise powers usually unavailable to them. In December, the premier’s office said these powers would enable RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons to:

direct any government agency to conduct or refrain from conducting its functions;

control and coordinate the allocation of government resources;

evacuate people from property within the declared area;

close roads and thoroughfares to traffic;

pull down or shore up infrastructure at risk of collapse;

order the shutdown of essential utilities in the declared area including electricity, gas, oil, water;

enter or take possession of property in the course of the emergency response.

It is an offence to obstruct emergency personnel.

In announcing the third state of emergency, Berejiklian said: “We don’t take these decisions lightly but we also want to make sure we’re taking every single precaution to be prepared for what could be a horrible day on Saturday.”

Why is a state of emergency called?

Officially declared “disasters” can include bushfires, floods, cyclones and the like, as well as influenza outbreaks and terrorist acts.

Other states of emergency called since 2006 include the Queensland floods and the NSW floods in 2012. The 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria did not result in a state of emergency being called.

When the state of emergency was called in response to the bushfires in NSW in October 2013, Prof Jim McLennan, an expert in emergency management and decision making at La Trobe University, told Guardian Australia that both the severity of the disaster and the length of time it was expected to last were both factors taken into consideration when making the call.

“Most emergency response facilities are set up for a 24- to 48-hour sort of situation,” he said. “Extraordinary powers are judged to be needed, for road closures, restriction of areas to members of the public – those kinds of things which over an extended period of time have to be managed rather than left to the judgment of citizens.”