Page 2672 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 15 August 2017
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government better information and intelligence on where areas of risk exist in the territory, allowing for a more efficient deployment of resources.
In this year’s budget we also have initiatives to continue to ensure community safety. The government has funded an additional three dedicated work health and safety inspectors in 2017-18 to proactively monitor the construction of this government’s large infrastructure project, specifically, the construction of the first phase of light rail. Light rail construction involves work activity that has not been undertaken in the ACT before, and the government has committed $715,000 over three years to ensure that we bring specialist capabilities into WorkSafe. We are doing this to ensure that workers are able to get home safely and that the community as a whole is confident that areas in and around the light rail construction remain safe.
As the light rail construction involves some disruption to traffic on a number of Canberra’s main arterial roads, as well as construction activity in close proximity to pedestrians and motorists, the dedicated work health and safety inspectors being funded by this initiative will oversee all onsite regulatory and legislative work health and safety requirements for phase 1 of light rail activities. They will also help develop WorkSafe’s resources in dealing with traffic management. This initiative will continue until June 2020 through a phased down approach, with the funding of two positions anticipated in the 2018-19 budget and one position in the 2019-20 budget.
The government has invested $176,000 in this year’s budget for licence plate recognition cameras to enforce the territory’s parking spaces more efficiently. These cameras are car mounted and able to determine if a car has remained in place for more than the permitted time or is in a location where parking is not permitted, such as a no-stopping zone. This initiative supports the government’s broader integrated transport commitments and will significantly increase the ability of Access Canberra to regulate compliance with public parking zones focusing on vehicles parked in short stay parking zones. The technology has the ability to detect and deter people who top up their meter and remain in a single short stay car park all day. Increased levels of compliance in short stay parking will help achieve a higher rate of parking rotation for time limited parking zones, which will improve access to parking for people visiting businesses nearby, particularly in places such as Braddon and the Woden trades centre. This will, in turn, help increase the number of people who are able to visit these areas and drive increased business in our busy precincts.
Importantly, this will allow our regulation of parking throughout the territory to be monitored and enforced in a much more efficient and reliable way. While we will still have foot patrols moving through areas that are unsuitable for these vehicle-mounted cameras, this new technology will be able to move through other busy areas in a more efficient manner. This will lead to the government being able to more effectively regulate a much larger area each day in a more efficient manner for a variety of offences, including overstaying in time-limited and pay parking as well as parking in inappropriate areas.
As you would be aware, Madam Acting Speaker, the Working with Vulnerable People (Background Checking) Act 2011 was introduced to reduce the risk of harm or neglect to vulnerable people in the territory. The scheme has a six-year introduction
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