Page170 - Week 01 - Thursday, 3 December 2020
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increase in these venues. Venues visited in the past couple of weeks include the Canberra Theatre Centre, the Street Theatre, Llewellyn Hall, Tuggeranong Arts Centre, Gorman House Arts Centre, the National Convention Centre, Wesley Music Centre, Belconnen Arts Centre, Erindale Theatre, Theatre 3 at the Canberra REP, and Kambri at ANU.
Feedback received has shown that venues appreciate that engagement with the government’s compliance officers, and a high level of compliance was identified at these venues, including the management and tracking of patrons.
MR PETTERSSON: Minister, what is the government doing to ensure the public’s safety in venues that present the highest level of risk to the public?
MS CHEYNE: The Health Protection Service, through the Chief Health Officer, leads the ACT’s overall compliance response to COVID-19 and public health directions. As a key regulatory partner in these efforts, Access Canberra takes a risk-based approach to its business compliance activities. This means that inspection efforts are focused on industry sectors that have been identified by the Chief Health Officer as presenting medium to high risks for COVID safety, due to the nature of the business and their activities.
Businesses considered as medium to high risk include restaurants, bars, clubs, the real estate sector, nightclubs, gyms, gaming venues, adult entertainment venues and brothels. To date, 85 per cent of all inspections undertaken have focused on businesses in these categories because those businesses undertake a high level of activity where close contact may occur. Some 209 educational warning letters have been sent out to businesses to support their COVID-19 compliance. Most of these letters have related to COVID-19 occupancy requirements and the requirement for certain types of businesses to have a COVID-19 safety plan.
As part of its compliance activities, a dedicated team within Access Canberra promotes adherence to the public health directions and works in collaboration with the Health Protection Service and ACT Policing to carry out compliance inspections. The team undertakes an approach of engagement, education and enforcement and regularly engages with industry sectors regarding their compliance with directions that will help protect our community from COVID-19.
DR PATERSON: Minister, what is the government doing to support venues and businesses to adopt the Check In CBR app and keep their patrons safe?
MS CHEYNE: Thank you, Dr Paterson, for the supplementary. The Check In CBR app is a free, easy and secure solution for Canberra venues to meet their requirements to collect patron contact details under the public health directions. As the Minister for Health noted yesterday, Canberrans have now downloaded the app more than 80,000 times and more than 2,800 venues have registered to use it. Under stage 4 of Canberra’s recovery plan, which came into effect at 9 am yesterday, businesses and venues are required to use the app if they wish to have one person per two square metres in their indoor spaces.
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