Page 659 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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businesses are consistently meeting appropriate service standards. I do not want to have to put this into legislation, but we clearly have to. These provisions will provide Canberra with a best practice and effective mechanism for regulating cemeteries and crematoria.
A range of provisions also set out the minimum standards required for the operators. We have listened, and these standards are designed to meet the community’s expectations. The bill incorporates existing code of practice requirements, such as keeping the facility clean and tidy, but also introduces a range of new standards. Of particular importance, which I hope has been driven home today, is the requirement to develop and keep standard operating procedures for a range of procedures, including exhuming human remains, transporting and moving human remains and resolving complaints. By having documented procedures, the community can be confident that matters will be handled uniformly and appropriately.
I am also pleased to note that the bill requires all standard operating procedures to be reviewed at least once every two years. This provision will encourage operators to regularly update their procedures to reflect changing community needs and ensure that they are up to date with industry best practice.
This bill is robust and amends a range of existing offences to make them stronger, clearer and more enforceable. It also identifies a gap in the current legislation and introduces new offences to help meet the expectations of the community in how cemeteries and crematoria are operated. This suite of offences ensures that the government, where necessary—and I really hope it is not—can take swift and appropriate action against operators who do the wrong thing.
The current act only requires records to be kept concerning burials, interments at the facility of ashes and cremations carried out. These requirements are expanded under the bill to ensure that an adequate breadth of information is captured. The bill requires all facilities to keep detailed records of all interments, including a unique identifying location number. These records must be kept permanently and in a secure system and in an easily accessible format to ensure that families can be confident about the status and location of their loved ones.
The bill also introduces a strict liability offence for licensees who fail to keep the specific minimum records and for licensees who do not keep the appropriate record in a secure ICT database. I am also pleased that the bill has provided clear requirements to operators on what actions they must take to close or transfer a facility. Under the act, there is no clear direction for what happens in these circumstances, creating uncertainty for both the community and the operators. The consultation process has made it clear that cemeteries and crematoria are of immense value to the Canberra community. They are important spaces for people to grieve, remember loved ones and reflect, and it is essential that they are appropriately protected and continue to be available and accessible to everyone in the community.
The bill provides specific provisions that, should an operator wish to close or transfer a facility, they must apply to the regulator to amend or cancel a licence. The regulator may only approve the application if they are satisfied that the facility has fulfilled its
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