Michael EburnANU College of Law and Fenner School of Environment and Society

Australian Emergency Law:A blog in progress

Australian Emergency Law

• Why blog?• Choice of platform.• Who's reading it and how often?• Sources of content.• My practice.• Reflections.

Why blog?

• To learn how.• To claim the territory.• University outreach.

Choice of platform

• Wordpress allowed:– easy setup;– sharing with and ;;– export to

(but that’s stopped working);– a statistics page;– allows readers to comment (subject to

approval).

Who's reading it and how often?

• What?– 147 posts.– 353 comments.

• Who?– 301 followers on– 140 on – 204 connections on– 645

Plus 40537 views on BestThinking.

Most views on 24 April 2012.

Sources of content

• ABC News;• Lexis/Nexis;• Readers questions.

My Practice

• Blog regularly, at least once a fortnight.• The blog is a site for discussion so I:

– Invite questions (and ask for permission to blog the answer);

– Respond to comments;– Edit the obvious errors;– Maintain nettiquette; but allow robust

discussion.

My Practice

• Link to sources.• Ask “do the names need to be there?”• Adhere to academic and legal honesty.

Reflections

• The readership is larger than I ever imagined;

• The feedback is (so far) all positive;• Of all the writing I do, I think this has the

widest reach and highest impact (but no DEST points);

• It's become my notebook.

Questions? Comments?

• Thank you for the opportunity to talk.

Michael EburnANU College of Law The Australian National UniversityCANBERRA ACT 0200P: 02 6125 6424E: michael.eburn@anu.edu.au