Page 1921 - Week 07 - Thursday, 13 August 2020
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Rights Commission. The commission provides an accessible and supportive process for investigating complaints and bringing parties together to try to seek a resolution of the issues in conciliation.
This process will operate in the same way as for other complaints dealt with by the commission, such as complaints of unlawful discrimination. The commission will have the capacity to deal with complaints made against individuals and organisations providing these services in the ACT.
Where a resolution cannot be reached through the Human Rights Commission, complainants will have the option to go to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The tribunal can make binding orders to address the situation, including compensation for harm suffered and ordering the person to stop conducting these practices. The Human Rights Commission may also commence a commission-initiated consideration regarding conversion practices to seek to deal with systemic issues.
The Chief Minister has outlined some of the history of this, and it was an issue that we canvassed at the 2016 election as part of our election platform. I am very pleased that this bill delivers on the commitments that have been made in recent years and takes a careful and measured approach to seek to prevent practices that do lifelong harm and have no place in our inclusive and progressive Canberra community. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Dunne) adjourned to the next sitting.
Plastic Reduction Bill 2020
Exposure draft
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Recycling and Waste Reduction, Minister for Roads and Active Travel, Minister for Tertiary Education and Minister for Transport) (10.32): I present an exposure draft of the Plastic Reduction Bill 2020, together with its explanatory statement. I ask leave to make a statement in relation to the papers.
Leave granted.
MR STEEL: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to table a public exposure draft of the Plastic Reduction Bill 2020 and explanatory statement in the Assembly today. The ACT government is committed to responsibly managing our environment and tackling the problem of single-use plastic. This bill will reduce Canberrans’ use of plastic and reduce the impact that plastic has on our environment and our waste management and resource recovery systems. With this legislation the government is taking a decisive but phased approach to banning select problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic items in the ACT.
The cost of plastic consumption is borne by our environment and our waste management and resource recovery systems. It is hard to avoid it. Plastic is pernicious, lasting for hundreds of years in our landscapes and waterways. It litters and persists in our environment and makes up about 80 per cent of marine litter. Single-use plastic
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