Page 4184 - Week 13 - Thursday, 27 November 2014
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read the meat standards and she knew what was in them. It is a sort of strange admission that the minister made. I suppose that the impact of this potentially came front of mind to her attention because she seems to have some sort of dislike of sausages. I do not know what that is, but she is nodding her head. The minister is not a fan of sausages. However, those on this side of the Assembly are not anti sausage, Madam Speaker, and let me make that clear.
I know that the Chief Minister does not like lemonade. She does not like fruit juice. She certainly hates cigarettes. We know that. We know she hates cigarettes. She does not like people vaping. She does not like chocolate bars.
Ms Gallagher: I do like them.
MR HANSON: She likes them but just does not want other people to be able to eat them or access them. She wants to ban those. There are a lot of things that the minister does not like, so we can add sausages to that list. But luckily and thankfully the community has spoken and the community seems to be on the side of the opposition. We are not going to be an anti-sausage jurisdiction. We will be banning most things, but we will be standing up for the humble sausage at the neighbourhood barbeque.
So we are back here to fix up the errors that were made. What I would say again is that we do expect this time, as we agree to this legislation, that it is done right and we are not back again to fix up the ongoing saga of the family, the charity and the community sausage sizzle.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (12.11): l will speak only briefly in support to this amendment bill and simply note the considerable community interest and general conversations that these issues have sparked. While it may be easy to make good sauce of the “sausagegate” headlines in respect of the recent efforts the health minister has undertaken to improve the safety of the general community, the reality is that food poisoning and related concerns are unfortunately not a joke. The ACT government and ACT Health have a clear responsibility to regulate what can be risky activities if not handled well.
At the same time, these regulatory actions should not, partly as result of these amendments, unduly burden the community. As always, there is a balance between these concerns that must be made. I can appreciate the need from time to time to tweak the levers available to ministers to ensure this balance is being achieved, but also to respond to genuine community feedback.
As the Minister for Health said when this bill was tabled, following concerns about the burden imposed by these requirements, an exemption was provided that specifically supported non-profit community organisations that sell food for occasional events such as a fundraising barbeque and which only provide lower risk foods. This had the immediate effect that these groups would be exempt from the requirement to register and appoint a food safety supervisor.
The Health Directorate has been regulating community fundraising food stalls in line with this direction. This shows that the government is responsive to the voice of the
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