Page 4198 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 26 November 2013
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MR BARR: Full consideration, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Dr Bourke.
DR BOURKE: Treasurer, what are the criteria that are referred to for these waivers?
MR BARR: The act has three criteria under which an assessment can be made for either a waiver or an act-of-grace payment. The main criterion is that the territory itself, through government agencies, have made a contribution, through failure to act within statutory time frames, to the particular charge. So in very practical terms, if, for example, a planning approval had not been granted within the statutory time frame and that caused a delay, that would be grounds for a waiver or an act-of-grace payment. If a perverse outcome had occurred as a result of the legislation, that would also be a factor. There is a third criterion that escapes me at the moment, but I will look it up for the member and provide it at the end of question time.
Health—food safety
MR SMYTH: My question is for the Minister for Health. Minister, I refer to a media release that you released on 21 February 2012 about the passage of amendments to the Food Act. You stated:
This bill is also about tightening up food safety by ensuring businesses have a staff member trained in food safety—such as safe food preparation and handling practices, effective from August 2013.
Why did you decide to extend legislation meant for businesses to sausage sizzles and other community fundraising events and when did you decide to do that?
MS GALLAGHER: This issue was brought to my attention probably three months ago, and it was based on advice from the GSO that the amendments passed to the Food Safety Act covered the field in relation to food preparation. When we went back—and we certainly did some discussions particularly with the charities and the sporting sector on how to manage this—we had to work our way through an appropriate response. I think we have found that.
We have exempted barbeques. It is going to be a little tricky about how we manage that, but it was never the government’s intention to cover the charity sausage sizzle, ever. When it was brought to our attention, we responded through a targeted consultation process.
There is a spectrum here. There are sporting groups and charities that just run sausage sizzles. Then there are sporting groups that, respectively, run large commercial kitchen operations, selling a whole range of food like chicken sandwiches with mayonnaise—all those sorts of things that do come into, and are considered, high-risk foods.
So we have had to work out a way to not exempt areas where there is high-risk food, where there are large operations, even though they are providing food to sporting
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