Hard copies of assignments are to be handed to the Unit Convenor in class on the due date and submitted electronically to Turnitin prior to in-class submission. You should contact the convenor in advance if you are unable to submit any written assignment in class on the due date.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to successfully complete this unitt students must:

• attend at least 80% of scheduled lectures;
• attend and participate in all class discussions and activities;
• complete all assignments or other assessment;
• reach a satisfactory postgraduate level of achievement in such assignments

There is no formal examination for this unit.

Unit assessment will consist of four elements: a written case commentary (10%) a written assignment (40%), an essay (40%), and class assessment (10%). Assignments two and three are designed to develop problem-solving skills for a development problem and to provide a choice of research topics for detailed consideration and original analysis. An especially poor performance in one of the assessment components would normally preclude the award of a higher grade.

Assignments should use the Harvard Referencing style.

Late submission of assessment elements will incur penalties unless supported by an approved Disruption to Studies request. Assignments that are overdue will attract marking penalties of 5 marks per day - eg if you receive a 70 you will have 5 marks deducted to 65 if it is a day late. Suspected breaches of academic honesty will be referred to the faculty discipline committee

Feedback on student assignments will be provided through written comments on assignments.  It is anticipated feedback will be provided 3 weeks after an assignment's due date

 LECTURER

The principal lecturer and course developer is

Mr Ian Sinclair, BTP (UNSW), FPIA; Principal Consultant, Edge Land Planning.

CLASSES

The unit will consist of thirteen sessions each of three hours duration. Attendance at each session is compulsory and constitutes part of the class assessment mark for the unit. After a couple of settling in weeks, each session will comprise initial student presentations/debates of a maximum of sixty minutes in total, followed by a short break, before returning to a mixture of lecture and class discussion. Preparation for each session is expected and will be assumed.

Sessions are from 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm.

The unit, although about the law, is not designed as a course for lawyers, but is one designed to provide a basic understanding of environmental law to students from a broad range of disciplines. Today the law impinges significantly on environmental management, and the course will assist students in understanding the legal framework affecting all environmental practitioners, irrespective of their core discipline.

The unit additionally seeks to bring an understanding of the policies underlying environmental law.

Given the broad range of topics covered in the unit, the coverage will of necessity be introductory.  Relevent sections of specific Acts and Regulations will be outlined with associated case law.

READING: Required and Recommended texts and/or materials Textbooks

It is recommended that students purchase the following textbook for this course:

Peter Williams (ed) (2016) The Environmental Law Handbook – Planning and Land Use in NSW, Sixth Edition, Thompson Reuters, Sydney.

The Unit Outline on ilearn contains a comprehensive reading list of articles, cases and book extracts.

Unit participants are required to obtain the key NSW legislative provisions covered in the unit:

• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979 as amended

• Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation, 2000 as amended

Copies of this legislation (included all amendments) may be downloaded from the internet (http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au).

General Texts

In addition there are a number of additional texts covering the subject matter of this course.  None of these additional texts is required to be purchased by students.  Many of these texts are now out of date in view of recent legislative changes.  Students may wish to refer to these texts for an initial overview of some topics, general principles or for additional information and references.  Care must be taken however to check primary sources (legislation and case law) referred to in the texts since all commentary is quickly dated to the extent that it relies on such sources.

These additional texts are as follows:

Cameron Moore, (2016) Natural Resources Law,  Thompson Reuters, Sydney

Douglas Fisher, (2014) Australian Environmental Law - Norms, Principles and Rules, Thompson Reuters, Sydny

Australian & Australian-related Journals

Environmental and Planning Law Journal, Thomson Reuters Lawbook Company

Local Government Law Journal, Thomson Reuters Lawbook Company

National Environmental Law Review (formerly Environmental Law News), National Environmental Law Association (NELA)

Australasian Journal of Natural Resources Law & Policy, Centre for Natural Resources Law and Policy, Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong

Legal Services

The following legal services comprise loose leaf up to date versions of the relevant statu­tory provisions together with commentaries and annotations on the particular provisions:

Planning and Development Service, New South Wales, Lawbook Co, 4 Loose Leaf Volumes (Annotated)

Local Government Planning and Environment Service New South Wales, 4 Loose Leaf Volumes, Lexis Nexis

Land and Environment Court Law and Practice, Law Book Co.

Legislation

The following New South Wales legislation and regulations (as amended) will be especially important for the course and each student should obtain a copy (as indicated under "Textbooks" above):

Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979

Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation, 2000

Law Reports

The following are the series of authorised law reports, which will be referred to during this course.

Local Government Reports of Australia (LGRA) Volumes 1 - 77 (Land and Environment Court Judges)

Local Government and Environment Reports of Australia (LGERA) Volume 78 onwards (continuing on from the LGRA)

Australian Planning Appeal Decisions (APA) Volumes 1 - 41 (Land and Environment Court Assessors), discontinued from 1992

Web-based Resources

The Library has Law database facilities that contain Law Reports, legislation, digests of legal developments, abstracts and full-texts of articles, etc. at

http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/databases/. Choose database by area of study e.g. law, or by the name of specific database e.g. Lexis, or general topic.

NSW legislation (including Acts, Regulations and Environmental Planning instruments) are available off the NSW legislation website.  http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/ 

All NSW Court decisions including Land and Environment Court decisions are available on the NSW Caselaw website. http://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au.

Other legislation and court judgments are available on the Austlii website at: http://www.austlii.edu.au.

A very important web based legal research tool is the LawCite site at http://www.lawcite.org/. LawCite provides details of where a case has been cited in subsequent cases and hence assists in considering whether a case has been followed, overturned or modified by subsequent decisions.

Note that earlier court judgments may not be on the Web, but are found in the printed authorised law reports.

The Law Cite website (http://www.lawcite.org/) provides an invaluable research tool, particularly for locating cases and finding where a case has been considered in other cases.

NSW Government Gazettals, the current status of legislative Bills, and links to parliamentary law-making elsewhere in Australia and overseas are available at:  http://www.pco.nsw.gov.au/.

Other useful sites are:

http://www.nsw.gov.au  (The NSW Government website)

http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au (Department of Planning and Environment  website)

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au  (NSW Office of Environment and Heritage website)

http://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/  (NSW Environment Protection Authority website)

http://www.water.nsw.gov.au  NSW Office of Water website)

http://www.australia.gov.au/KSP/  (Commonwealth Government website)

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/intguide/law/austlaw.htm  (Australian Parliamentary Library law internet resources)

http://www.environment.gov.au/  (Commonwealth Department of Environment website)

http://www.dfat.gov.au/  (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website)

http://www.eisil.org/index/ (International environmental law)

http://www.edo.org.au/  (Environment Defender’s Office)

http://www.ecolex.org/  (Gateway to international environmental law resources)

Environmental Planning Instruments

During the unit, a sample of environmental planning instruments will be examined. Copies of these documents will be provided as required or references to websites.

Many environmental planning instruments are on the NSW legislation website (http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/) or the Austlii website, (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_reg/).

Library Research Skills

  Web-based Resources:

The Library provides access to Law databases that contain Law Reports, legislation, digests of legal developments, abstracts and full-texts of articles, etc. You can find these through Multisearch http://multisearch.mq.edu.au/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do;jsessionid=E2E61E0D527AAEFAD64C0422995B1695?mode=Basic&vid=MQ&tab=databases&. 

Choose your area of study from the drop-down menu e.g. Law or Environment, or general topic Multi-subject or format eg. Newspapers, Theses etc or search for the name of a specific database e.g. LexisNexis.

If you need physical or electronic items not held at Macquarie, you can request them from

another library through an Interlibrary Loan: http://www.mq.edu.au/on_campus/library/borrowing/borrowing_from_other_libraries/

Library Research Skills:

The Library provides support for library research skills. You can find these:

 1. Online in the Subject Guides http://libguides.mq.edu.au/home   Note particularly the guides for: Law, Environmental Science, Environmental Law, and Bibliographic Software (EndNote for Law http://libguides.mq.edu.au/content.php?pid=114111&sid=1012048

See also the Library Guide for Environmental Law at http://libguides.mq.edu.au/law-environmental.

2. For training for individuals or groups please contact the Research Librarian in your subject area:

http://www.mq.edu.au/on_campus/library/research/research_librarians/

Law Research Librarians: Catie Croaker:  (catie.croaker@mq.edu.au) or Melinda Stewart (Melinda.stewart@mq.edu.au).

  3. For more information, the ideal is      - Contact the Research Librarians      - Use the Ask A Librarian service http://www.libanswers.mq.edu.au/

Other Resources 

The details of readings for each class are provided to enrolled students through ilearn.

Technology 

Internet access and computer are required to access the ilearn site, which holds additional information on readings for each session and assessments, web based documents, and law databases 

UNIT STRUCTURE

The unit will consist of thirteen sessions each of three hours duration. Attendance at each session is compulsory and constitutes part of the class assessment mark for the unit. After a couple of settling in weeks, each session will comprise initial student presentations/debates of a maximum of sixty minutes in total, followed by a short break, before returning to a mixture of lecture and class discussion.  Preparation for each session by at least reading the Essential Readings is expected and will be assumed. Sessions are on Tuesdays from 6.00 pm to 9.00pm in Building C5C, Room 236.

PLEASE NOTE:  In order to successfully complete this unit, students must attend at least 80% of scheduled lectures.

The unit schedule will be posted on the iLearn site.