Local Council Bushfires Emergency Workshop: Understanding and Managing The Legal Issues

Published on January 18, 2020

No charge half-day interactive legal workshop

Victoria’s, South Australia’s and New South Wales’ catastrophic bushfire crisis is affecting many local councils and local council areas.

As the fires begin to ease somewhat there are a huge number of things that each local council, and other affected parties now need to do, including:

  • gain an understanding of insurance rights and obligations
  • put in place emergency procurement measures while complying with legislative obligations
  • deal with planning issues in the face of post-fire reconstruction and repair
  • understand rights and obligations under leases, particularly abatement, demolition, reconstruction, insurance, termination and force majeure provisions
  • understand rarely used, but now relevant, legal concepts such as force majeure clauses in contract and frustration in the post-crisis environment
  • consider potential exposure to litigation against council for the relevant damage
  • comply with Work Health Safety and employment obligations to relevant or affected employees and others
  • undertake joint procurement and coordinated purchasing / response with other councils.

To assist local councils in Victoria, NSW and South Australia to understand these key issues and requirements, Procurement Australia has partnered with law firm Holding Redlich and leading Local Government, Projects and Procurement Partner Scott Alden to deliver a series of legal workshops.

The interactive workshops, to be facilitated by Scott Alden and other relevant partners from Holding Redlich, will be delivered at no charge to attendees.

Half-Day Sessions: Key Dates & Details

New South Wales

Date:                                      6 February 2020

Time:                         9.00am – 12.30pm

Registration opens:           from 8.30am

Location:                              Holding Redlich (Sydney),

                                                Level 65, MLC Centre,

                                                19 Martin Place,

                                                Sydney NSW 2000

Victoria

Date:                                      4 March 2020

Time:                          1.30pm – 4.30pm

Registration opens:           from 1.00pm

Location:                              Space Station,

                                                Level 10, 440 Collins Street,

                                                Melbourne VIC 3000

South Australia

Date:                                      10 March 2020

Time:                          9.00am – 12.30pm

Registration opens:           from 8.30am

Location:                              Adelaide CBD – venue to be confirmed

About Our Presenter

Scott Alden

Practising in both the private and public sector, Scott works on large strategic projects and infrastructure projects, and advises clients in relation to commercial contracts, procurement and probity.

Scott has specific expertise in government and commercial law, infrastructure projects, general contractual and legislative advice and the tendering process and commercial contracts of all kinds and sizes and for all industries.

Scott is also highly regarded in the areas of government, water, defence, public transport infrastructure (buses, trains and ferries), IT requirements, tertiary institutions (universities) and ports. Scott is a member of the Law Council Building and

Construction (Infrastructure) Committee, a guest lecturer at the University of Melbourne (Masters of Construction Law Program), past chair of the Business Law Committee of the Law Society of NSW, as well as a past Councillor of the NSW Law Society and current executive member of the Commonwealth Law Association.

Scott has delivered many popular courses for Procurement Australia including Contract Law for Non Lawyers and Unfair Contract Law – if you would like more information on this course and other law courses please contact us.

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