Page 3492 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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can only visit the places that are specified under their own operational act, which bars an official visitor from one operational act performing the functions of an official visitor from a different operational act. This has caused problems in practice, including a limit on collaboration between official visitors and a lack of coverage if an official visitor resigns or is not able to perform their duties for an extended period due to leave or illness.
The bill rectifies this by providing that official visitors are appointed under the Official Visitor Act for particular visitable places as defined in the operational acts. An official visitor may visit another visitable place or deal with an entitled person at that place if asked in writing by another official visitor or by the official visitors board. The board may delegate this function to the official visitor executive officer.
The bill enhances the ability of the homelessness official visitor to visit entitled people. As I said during introduction, the bill amends the Housing Assistance Act to allow the homelessness official visitor to visit more people. The bill expands the definition of a visitable place to include independent accommodation provided by non-government specialist homelessness services. The bill also amends the Housing Assistance Act to allow the homelessness official visitor to visit these premises either on request or where they have concerns.
The bill gives entitled people better access to information about their right to contact official visitors by requiring an operating entity for a visitable place to give an entitled person information about the person’s right to make complaints under the Official Visitor Act. This information must be provided in a way that is accessible to the person. As a minimum, the operating entity must make this information available to the person on entry to the visitable place. As discussed during the introduction, the bill removes the requirement for the minister to specify the address and details of visitable places in guidelines.
The bill replaces this with a new requirement for the director-general of an operational directorate to maintain a register of visitable places. This register is more easily updated than the guidelines and does not have the privacy concerns that come with publishing the details of certain visitable places. This was a matter raised by the scrutiny committee and has been addressed in my comments in response to the scrutiny committee. I believe that this is a sensible reform that in fact increases privacy for people who are in visitable places.
This bill will enhance the operation of the official visitor scheme and help official visitors to help vulnerable people. I once again thank the official visitors for the important work they do and thank the official visitor working group for its valuable feedback on the bill. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
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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