Legal Issues and Information on Natural Hazards

Abstract

Information is fundamental to natural hazards management. Yet often councils and other authorities suggest that they are reluctant to provide specific information about risks such as flood or fire risk, to property owners or prospective purchasers. This reluctance arises from a fear of litigation that may arise if that information has adverse consequences, for example by reducing the market value of the affected property. This research will look at Australian law to identify: • whether such a fear is grounded in legal principle, in particular whether authorities would owe a duty of care to homeowners not to disclose risk information; and • whether, in contrast, the law would consider that relevant authorities would in fact owe a legal duty to disclose known risk information to persons likely to be affected by that risk. It will be argued that modern law should encourage risk management authorities such as local authorities and fire and emergency services to be proactive in identifying and warning of risk, so that potentially affected persons can make informed decisions about how they will prepare for and deal with the risks that they face.