Publication of emergency management plans

Section 60AI of the Emergency Management Act 2013 (EM Act 2013) outlines the publication of approved emergency management plans.

State Emergency Management Plan

The approved State Emergency Management Plan (SEMP), including its sub-plans are published on the Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) website.

Once approved and the final public version is prepared (see the Guidelines for Preparing State, Regional and Municipal Emergency Management Plans) the accessible public version of the plan in both Portable Document Format (PDF) and Microsoft Word is to be emailed to emergencyplanning@emv.vic.gov.au (External link).

EMV will then work with EMV’s web-team to have the sub-plan uploaded to State Emergency Management Plan Sub-Plans page.

The agency that developed the sub-plan will provide the published SEMP sub-plan to the State Library of Victoria within 2 months of the date of publication. This is in accordance with the legal deposit requirements in section 49 of the Libraries Act 1988 (External link).

Regional Emergency Management Plan

Approved Regional Emergency Management Plans (REMPs), including its sub-plans, are published on this website.

EMV will then work with EMV’s web-team to have the sub-plan uploaded the website.

EMV will provide the published REMP to the State Library of Victoria within 2 months of the date of publication. This is in accordance with the legal deposit requirements in section 49 of the Libraries Act 1988 (External link).

Municipal Emergency Management Plan

Approved Municipal Emergency Management Plan (MEMP), including its sub-plans, are published on the relevant municipal council’s website on behalf of the Municipal Emergency Management Planning Committee (MEMPC). This is for practicality and to remain consistent with community expectations of where to find their MEMP.

The only place a MEMP is required to be published is on the municipal council website.

The MEMPC is to provide a digital copy of the published MEMP to the State Library of Victoria within 2 months of the date of publication.

Sensitive information within emergency management plans

The following information is sensitive and may be excluded from the published version of an emergency management plan:

information about critical infrastructure, such as its location and criticality rating
personal information, such as contact lists
culturally sensitive information
commercially sensitive information, such as intellectual property or trade secrets that may result in damage to a party’s commercial interests
information about illegal and high-risk activity, including those that may be subject to ongoing investigations or court processes (for example, illegal chemical storages)
information about the location of potential emergency relief centres.

Distribution of emergency management plans

After publishing the plans, the preparer of the plan is required to notify all departments and agencies with a role under the emergency management plan, that it has been published and where it can be accessed.

This will include writing a letter to the departments and agency involved in the formal consultation period. This letter should include:

the date on which the sub-plan was published
the date the plan takes effect (an emergency management plan comes into effect when it is published or on any later date specified in the plan)
where the plan can be accessed
how interested stakeholders can learn more about the update, for example through providing a schedule of changes, a PowerPoint overview or a Question-and-Answer session.