A life-saving local government partnership has been awarded top honour in a national prize.

The Shire of Augusta Margaret River’s disaster preparation project with the Australian Red Cross has been celebrated in this year's Resilient Australia Awards.

The Augusta Margaret River/Red Cross 'Get Ready' project involved a successful campaign encouraging residents to adopt a 'shared responsibility' approach to emergency preparedness.

‘Get Ready’ was named as the top local government resilience effort for the whole of West Australia, and will now run against efforts from other states and territories for the national top prize.

“As well as preparing people for disasters, the ‘Get Ready’ program stressed the importance of getting to know your neighbours and learning how to help the more vulnerable such the elderly and the disabled in an emergency,” WA Emergency Services Minister Joe Francis said.

“Evaluation of the project showed that it resulted in a big increase in the number of residents with an evacuation plan and an emergency kit. It also revealed that most people who participated knew how to access information during an emergency and shared their disaster preparation knowledge with others.”

Winner of the State Government category was 'Bushfire Patrol', a bushfire education program devised by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services and the WA Education Department.

The winners of each category are now in the running for national awards to be announced by Minister Keenan on November 24, 2014.