Page 159 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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MR RAMSAY: Thank you to Ms Cheyne for the question and for her ongoing and clear dedication to making sure that life is easier and more practical for her constituents. The government is absolutely committed to making sure that all of its services are easier, simpler and faster for Canberrans to use. Our aim is to ensure that we enable Canberrans to do business with government in the way that works best for them.
Access Canberra offices across a wide variety of previously separate functions have now come together and are working together more than ever to ensure that clear and consistent advice and assistance are provided to the public and to businesses through streamlined processes. As just one example, Access Canberra now has a coordinated inspection program for events such as the Christmas in the city markets that are being set up just outside this building right now. This coordinated inspection approach reduces the amount of time that event organisers need to spend in dealing with government officials, as nice as government officials are.
Access Canberra continues to provide flexibility in its approach to regulatory enforcement by supporting those members of our community, who may be struggling financially, to manage finances through a variety of options including entering into payment plans, undertaking social work or entering a social development plan and, in exceptional circumstances, seeking a waiver of the infringement notice penalty. We have been working to help our customers to interact with us in the simplest way possible, with those requiring birth, death or marriage certificates—something I have had some practice with in the past—now being able to apply on line; this is reducing the need to attend a shopfront.
So we will continue to streamline our processes to provide seamless interactions for the services that we provide and make it easier for the public and for businesses to deal with us.
MS CHEYNE: Minister, are you able to tell the Assembly more about how the new Access Canberra website will make it easier to do business with government?
MR RAMSAY: Thank you, Ms Cheyne, for the supplementary. As Minister for Regulatory Services, one of the first things that I did was to launch the new Access Canberra website on 7 November this year. The new site structure was improved by paying close attention to the feedback that we received from the Canberra community and from businesses, again to ensure that we meet their needs. Access Canberra now delivers approximately 60 per cent of its transactional services digitally, which is fast and efficient, and still maintains accessibility issues for those who are less able to interact online.
The new website brings together consolidated information and the ability to complete more transactions online than ever before. It is now easier to find information online for business and regulatory services. Again, as one example, there are now interactive small business checklists. These help small businesses to find information that they need to comply with Australian consumer law and to comply with food business regulations. The website uses a smart form technology which enables Access
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