Local Government Climate Change Adaptation Roles and Responsibilities under Victorian Legislation: Guidance for Local Government Decision-Makers

Aim: To inform local governments on their legal roles and responsibilities under Victorian legislation for climate change adaptation, and design a Guidance Brief that would be useful for council staff in making reasonable decisions, while navigating legal roles and responsibilities with respect to climate change.

Outcome: A legislative analysis and local government consultation workshop informed this project. It was undertaken by Dr Tayanah O’Donnell, Associate Professors Susie Moloney and Andrew Butt, and co-designed with the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP), plus local government representatives including the Municipal Association of Victoria and the Western and Northern Greenhouse Alliance. The consultation workshop engaged with 78 council representatives across three regions in Victoria, representing rural, coastal and metropolitan Victoria.

To ensure that this project would be useful for local governments, a “reasonable decisionmaker” framing was adopted to help the reader step through key requirements for the purposes of climate change adaptation in local areas. The project was not intended to form legal advice, nor is it a comprehensive assessment of all relevant laws to climate change.

In co-designing the project, the Climate Change Exchange researchers were specifically asked by DEWLP to exclude emergency management and natural hazards legislation, and state government roles and responsibilities. The substantive analysis and consultation workshops were conducted throughout 2019.