Before we begin to outline these arrangements it is useful to have a shared understanding of what we mean by an emergency and why it is important to develop appropriate arrangements and programs to respond to them.

In Australia the National Emergency Management Arrangements define an emergency as:

Emergency - an event, actual or imminent, which endangers or threatens to endanger life, property or the environment, and which is beyond the resources of a single organisation to manage or which requires the coordination of a number of significant emergency management activities.

It is worth noting that the terms "emergency" and "disaster" are used nationally and internationally to describe events which require special arrangements to manage the situation. "Emergencies" or "disasters" are characterised by the need to deal with the hazard and its impact on the community2. Whenever we use the term "emergency" in this document it is on the understanding that it also includes any meaning of the word "disaster".

For our purposes, emergencies can be said to have occurred when normal community and organisational arrangements cannot cope with a hazard impact.

The ‘National Emergency Management Arrangements’ adopt a comprehensive3 and integrated4 approach to the development of its arrangements and programs for the effective management of emergencies and disasters.

The nature and scope of these approaches is outlined below and includes the All Hazards approach:

• Comprehensive approach, and
• All agency or integrated approach.

The goal of the National Emergency Management Arrangements and programs is to contribute to the development and maintenance of a safer and sustainable community.

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2 Community: is a group with a commonality of association and generally defined by a location, shared experience or function.
3 Comprehensive: encompassing all hazards and recognising that dealing with the risks to community safety, which such hazards create, requires a range of prevention/mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery (PPRR) programs and other risk management strategies
4 Integrated: in ensuring that the efforts of governments, all relevant organisations and agencies, and the community, as a prepared community, are coordinated in such programs.