Public Health Act: information for business and industry

Implementation of the Public Health Act 2016 has been undertaken in a staged approach over several years and while most of the first 4 stages are complete, stage 5 was delayed due to COVID-19. Stage 5 is the most significant stage of the Act’s implementation and will be delivered in a phased approach.

During stage 5, new environmental health regulations will replace outdated regulations from the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1911 – including providing enforcement agencies the capacity to issue improvement notices to people and businesses who breach a public health provision. 

All regulations under the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1911, as well as a number of provisions within the Public Health Act 2016, have been reviewed to determine which public health risks should continue to be regulated under the current framework or alternatively managed by other legislation or guidelines.

The following regulations have been identified as having low public health risk, and will be repealed and replaced with guidelines:

• Health (Cloth Materials) Regulations 1985 (WA)
• Health (Garden Soil) Regulations 1998 (WA)
• Hairdressing Establishment Regulations 1972
• Health (Offensive Trades Fees) Regulations 1976
• Piggeries Regulations 1952.
• Health (Temporary Sanitary Conveniences) Regulations 1997 (WA)

Moving forward, the guidelines will be the primary guidance material for managing the associated public health risk. Given the low public health risk for these topics, the introduction of a guideline should have little impact for business owners.