LG Act/LL
How are you entering the premises under the LGAct to investigate the local laws? Do you
need to identify and establish that you are producing your ID card under the local law or
under the LG Act?
Do you need a warrant? If so, would specify the purpose of your entry which would include
a reference to relevant local laws.
Referencing for local laws. An example; s.7(1) Local Law No. 1 (Administration) 2016 (LL1)
and then from then on in your report you are just stating LL1. This is only one example and
not necessarily the local law that you may be using.
Multiple issues
Yes, you can deal with multiple issues on one notice as long as issues are regulated by that
notice. For example, multiple public health risks can be dealt with on one PHO, multiple
environmental protection issues can be dealt with under an EPO as long as all issues are
covered by the grounds stated in s.358 of the EPAct, etc.
I do want to point out that not all local law issues can be put on one notice if the issues are
regulated by different local laws. A notice would have to be dealt with under each local law.
But if multiple issues are being addressed under one local law (e.g. multiple nuisances) then
they can be addressed in one notice.
Public Health Act 2005
Entry guidelines, refer to link as a guide. Please check any specifics to Regulations and year
etc. https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/362738/32768.pdf
Accommodation
The illegal occupation of any structure that doesn’t meet the requirements of the Building
Code of Australia, fire safety issues, etc. would all be dealt with by the building inspector.
However, if the accommodation should be approved/licensed/regulated under a local law,
you would deal with that side of things and review all of the requirements of any local law.
Method of entry
In terms of your process, you would need to ensure you identify all equipment and
resources you need to take with you when entering the property (e.g. camera,
charger/spare batteries, etc) and that would include PPE. As you’re visiting the site with
other staff the risk to you should be low and with such a significant case you’d normally be
regularly communicating with your supervisor. You can briefly include this, but only use a
sentence. But given this is a law unit, your focus should be mainly on the legal steps.
Public Health Order
Due to the complex nature of this scenario and the number of serious issues that need to be
addressed, you will end up with numerous requirements in your notices. That is okay. As a
general rule, the more issues there are, the more requisitions you’ll have.
I’d be more concerned if you omitted important issues from your notices.
Notices
Look at the session on writing notices. If the legislation states an ‘authorised person’ can
issue a notice, the notice must be signed by the EHO (i.e. the authorised person). If the
legislation states the ‘local government’, ‘administering authority’, etc. can issue a notice,
then who signs it will be subject to internal delegations. For the purpose of this assessment,
you can put any team leader, manager, etc. down as a delegate of the council.
Warrants
It is okay to state that you’d apply for warrants under X, Y, Z Acts for A, B, C reasons. You
don’t need to draft applications for the warrants – the task is large enough. As you know,
you do need to include draft notice/s in your appendices.