Page 4313 - Week 10 - Thursday, 22 September 2011
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industry and prevent them for shopping for jurisdictions with lesser standards of probity and professionalism. These reforms will allow the commissioner to issue licences for up to three years, providing certainty for licensees and minimising the administrative burden on licensees and the regulator alike.
The implementation of these reforms was carefully considered in the context of the Human Rights Act, and these amendments achieve the policy goals of the reform while maintaining proportionality with protecting individuals’ human rights.
In the 2011-12 budget the government committed an additional $402,000 for the implementation of these reforms. This will cover expenditure on additional staff necessary for enhanced probity checking and purchase of a live scan fingerprinting machine. Provision has been made for the recurrent additional costs for both the regulator and the police to administer the scheme.
Throughout this process there has been ongoing communication and consultation with the security industry. In early 2009 the Office of Regulatory Services wrote to the approved security industry associations about the COAG reforms and invited them to meet to discuss the proposed reforms. A meeting was held on 26 February 2009 with the security industry associations at which all stages of the COAG project were discussed. The full list of proposed COAG reforms has been widely publicised.
Since 2009 the Office of Regulatory Services has provided a number of briefings to the Australian Security Industry Association, which represents the majority of security businesses in the ACT, on issues pertinent to the security industry, including discussion on the COAG reforms at each meeting.
On 29 March 2011 the office wrote to all licensed members of the security industry to provide advice on the first stage of the reforms and to advise that further reforms were being progressed, including strengthening of probity checks and eligibility requirements for new and existing licensees. The office again wrote to all approved security industry associations in May 2011 to inform about the reforms already in place and the further reforms being progressed. Representatives of all industry associations were invited to the meeting on Monday, 6 June to discuss reforms that commenced in June 2011 and proposed additional reforms contained in this bill. The Office of Regulatory Services subsequently met with ASIAL, who were not able to attend the meeting of 6 June.
Articles on the first stage of the security reforms were included in the ORS electronic newsletter in December 2010 and April and June 2011. Information about the current bill has been included in the August industry newsletter and no major issues have been raised to date with the government about these reforms. Indeed, in March 2010 the minister received a letter from ASIAL around encouraging the territory to “prioritise the finalisation and implementation of the harmonised legislation for the guarding sector of the private security industry”.
The Office of Regulatory Services advises that a number of industry associations have sent copies of the bill to their members, and a copy of the bill is posted on the industry association website. Once the reforms have been passed by the Assembly, the Office
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