Page 2441 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 9 August 2016
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While residential insanitary conditions impact only a small number of people, they often present a significant public health and community issue. In line with the government’s commitment to transparency and accountability, this bill will help to improve ACT Health’s management of insanitary conditions associated with hoarding-like behaviour or domestic squalor as well as community awareness and understanding about the related complex and sensitive public health and social issues.
I should reiterate that this will not eliminate the occurrence of insanitary conditions in the ACT, but this bill will vastly improve ACT Health’s ability to better manage the public health impacts of hoarding-like behaviours and domestic squalor in line with best-practice methods and achieve harmonisation with other states and territories. The bill therefore makes critical steps to help minimise the public health and community impacts of insanitary conditions.
To ensure that government responses continue to be conducted in the best interests of the public and the property owner, the ACT government has established an intergovernmental working group to provide operational advice. The ACT government is committed to ensuring a best-practice approach is taken to manage cases of insanitary conditions in residential areas and will continue to facilitate this multi-agency approach. All relevant government and non-government organisations will continue to provide operational advice on the management of hoarding and domestic squalor under the Public Health Act to ensure that regulatory actions are employed only when in the public interest and as a measure of last resort.
The bill also makes a minor change to the offence structure for causing or allowing an insanitary condition. The current provision is considered impractical as it requires that the person responsible for the condition believes it to be insanitary and that this belief be objectively proven. The bill will update this offence so that an insanitary condition is one that an ordinarily reasonable person would consider insanitary. This construction takes a more practical approach and better aligns the provision with the interpretation that an insanitary condition is generally considered as being offensive to acceptable community health standards.
The bill makes minor changes to existing administrative processes under the Public Health Act 1997 and, in doing so, will provide public health and community benefits relating to recurring insanitary conditions. The bill marks another milestone in achieving the government’s priorities of livability, opportunity and a healthy and smart community. It is a good outcome for our community. Again, I thank members for their thoughtful contribution to the debate and their support of the legislation.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
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