After more than 12 months of inaction on much needed regulation of the Solarium industry, the Greens will bring on a private members bill to ensure safety standards.

ACT Greens Health spokesperson Amanda Bresnan MLA said the ACT should not have to wait for the Ministerial Health Council to approve tighter solarium regulations any longer.

“Solariums can be a serious health risk, with users facing possible consequences such as skin cancer. The Health Minister acknowledges these issues, but has been done nothing when it comes to cleaning up the solarium industry,” Ms Bresnan said today.

“Over a year ago (27 January 2009) the Chief Minister said that if we didn’t get movement on this issue in a timely manner through the Ministerial Health Council, the ACT would go ahead and institute the changes itself. I think the time for this to happen is now well overdue.”

“Other states like Victoria, NSW and WA have gone ahead already and instituted the changes. Victoria is the model we should be following, and they have had the greatest decline in solarium numbers.”

“While the ACT Government has been waiting for the Ministerial Health Council, the number of solairums being used in the ACT has risen. We are the only jurisdiction that has had a rise in solarium numbers and that is concerning,” Ms Bresnan said.

Tags: health

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 11:26 am and is filed under Amanda Bresnan, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.