ACT State Recap – Winter 2020

On 2 July 2020, the ACT Government extended the state of emergency introduced in May by Minister Gentleman, which enabled strata meetings to be attended by alternative means (such as telephone or video). This regulation attaches to the declared state of emergency and upon the expiration of the state of emergency, will no longer be available.

We have been advocating the ACT Government to extend the state of emergency based on advice from constituents and peak industry groups (such as the Owners Corporation Network) that members of the community remain anxious about attending large meetings with crowds of potentially 100 or more people.

Additionally, despite an easing of restrictions in June, it has been very difficult to secure meeting venues for large groups – with a reluctance on the part of the traditional room hire operators to accept bookings.

Internally, SCA (ACT) worked at running online events to educate our members and provide the availability to collect CPD points. SCA (ACT) ran its first webinar with Catherine Higgins from ACT NoWaste on 25 June 2020.

The webinar focused on waste management strategies and recycling resources for multi-unit developments. There are a number of initiatives the ACT Government have put in place to make recycling easier and clearer including the online Recyclopaedia and recycling factsheets and guides in other languages. They have also launched a new Bulky Waste Scheme. Plenty of excellent resources were shared with our members and it is valuable for SCA (ACT) to have this connection and access to ACT NoWaste.

We look to broaden our online events capacity in the near future.