ABSTRACT
In Australia vast scope has been retained for the invocation of emergency powers, both by legislation and non-statutory means. Successive governments have declined to introduce federal emergency or disaster management legislation in Australia – that is, except for the Defence Act 1903, which provides for the military to be called out to deal with undefined 'domestic violence' and gives the government and military commanders extraordinary powers when a call-out occurs. The internal use of troops against citizens is normally associated with military dictatorships and other authoritarian regimes. As during both world wars and the Cold War, the twenty-first century has seen the use of another 'war' – the 'war on terrorism' – to justify extraordinary legal measures, accompanied by official assertions of the need to expand the non-statutory powers of the executive. In his work, Emergency Powers, Lee 'hazards a guess' that the power to resort to martial law continues in Australia as a creature of the common law.
