Page 3041 - Week 07 - Thursday, 1 July 2010
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identified. The bill will also authorise relevant regulatory agencies and inspectors to share information where public safety is at risk.
Building work, including electrical, plumbing and gas fitting work, poses inherent safety risks, and when the work is not done according to prescribed standards the power to suspend a licence on public safety grounds will enable the registrar to prevent further risk to public safety and manage the existing risk. This new power is especially relevant in the context of building and development moving at a rapid pace.
The bill will also allow the sharing of private information between specialised regulatory agencies that deal with safety issues in the context of building and development. Inspectors enforcing work safety laws, building laws, gas fitting laws and plumbing laws are often confronted with situations that require multidisciplinary responses or require other regulators to exercise their laws. In most cases, referral or collaboration between agencies requires sharing of information covered by the Privacy Act 1988, such as the name and address of the owner of the particular site or of individuals that may be working on a particular site. In the absence of authorising legislation, the Privacy Act 1988 requires each case to be assessed against the information privacy principles.
In some cases, time is of the essence and it is not possible to conduct a full assessment of the nature of the information being exchanged or to affirm the relevant exclusion under the Privacy Act 1988. In other cases, exchange of information often takes place between inspectors who have been investigating the same incident but have different statutory roles. In this situation, there is a strong community expectation that government agencies should be free to cooperate to enforce all relevant laws.
For these reasons, the bill authorises relevant agencies to exchange information to assist in administering the laws for which they are responsible, where a public safety issue is at stake. The amendment will provide the specified agencies with certainty when coordinating a response to a threat to public safety that involves a number of inspectorates or agencies. Two examples that come to mind are dealing with a situation in which asbestos is involved and dealing with damaged power lines or gas lines.
Another example would be the discovery by a building inspector of an unauthorised structure which has been wired for power and plumbed. Obviously electrical and plumbing work carried out unlawfully raises safety risks and often requires advice and inspection by more than one agency. The agencies or inspectorates contemplated by the bill are: emergency services, work safety, dangerous substances, utilities, water, building, electrical, plumbing and gas fitting.
The extent of information sharing is restricted to exchange between authorities who regulate relevant legislation that have public safety elements. This does not extend to disclosure beyond the circle of agencies nor to any form of public disclosure not already authorised by law.
This bill has been developed after consultation with energy assessors, building industry associations and the community. On 30 April last year, the ACT Planning and Land Authority released a discussion paper that outlined a number of proposals
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