Page 396 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 12 February 2013
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to water resource offence provisions. The Heritage Act requires that it be reviewed after five years. The review has highlighted a number of inefficiencies with the existing legislation. Consequently, the Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 has been prepared to address those inefficiencies and provide for better recognition, conservation and protection of heritage places and objects valued by the ACT community. The bill aligns with the government’s key policy and strategic initiatives including environment protection, creating liveable cities and providing for greater openness and transparency.
The Council of Australian Governments agreed to a national partnership on water for the future to implement a national framework for compliance and enforcement systems for water resource management. As such the government is committed to progress the implementation plan for the national framework for compliance and enforcement systems for water resource management project.
Central to the national framework is the harmonisation of water resource offence provisions across states and territories. A review of ACT water resource offences was made primarily within the Water Resources Act 2007 in light of required water offences. Many of the offence provisions are already covered by the act. However, a number of required amendments have been identified. The amendments will seek to introduce strict liability infringement notices for failure to submit bore completion reports and undertaking unauthorised waterway work, to clarify the definition of “ACT drillers licence”, to ensure enforceable offence provisions for short-term water use and to provide a new offence provision for tampering with a water meter.
The safety of our city and of those who call this city home continues to be a high priority for the government. We are proposing legislation to follow through on an election commitment to establish an alcohol interlock scheme to specifically target repeat drink-driving offenders. In pursuing another election commitment, we will also propose the establishment of an industrial magistrates court to specifically deal with work safety matters before the court.
The government will introduce the Road Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 (No 2) to establish an ACT alcohol interlock program, It will require alcohol interlocks to be fitted to vehicles driven by high risk drink-driving offenders for a period of time until they can demonstrate an ability to separate drinking and driving, If the court so orders, the use of an interlock device will be supplemented by treatment or alcohol rehabilitation programs.
Similar schemes have been operating successfully internationally and in other Australian jurisdictions with a considerable body of research evidence showing that, while fitted, they work effectively to prevent drink-driving. The devices are manufactured, tested and maintained to an Australian standard. They are designed to be tamper proof with various security features that guard against attempts to circumvent their operation.
The comments received on the ACT’s exposure bill in August 2012 strongly supported the introduction of an interlock program to complement existing measures to address drink-driving in the ACT. The introduction of an interlock scheme is
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