Last night, the Malinauskas Government passed the Emergency Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2024.
Under the amended ‘General Powers’, section 25 of the Act, the State Co-ordinator and authorised officers are given the power to issue directions in any form, without limitation. These directions may:
• Contravene another law of the State
• Affect individual’s personal rights
• and may use force to ensure compliance
These directions can include:
• Breaking into any land, building, structure or vehicle.
• Taking possession or assuming control over any land, body of water.
• Removing or destroying buildings, structures, vehicles, vegetations, and even animals.
• Ordering real estate owners to forfeit control of their properties.
• Removing people or animals.
• Directing people to submit to a decontamination procedure
• Directing people to isolate.
In the absence of any parliamentary oversight or limitation on what many in the legal profession (including the Law Society) have characterised as “exceptionally broad and disproportionate executive powers”, the rights of South Australians have been put at considerable risk.
