Official Visitor Act 2012

An official visitor for a visitable place has the following functions:

to visit the place and meet entitled people at the place;

to monitor conditions, services and practices in the place;

to investigate and seek to resolve complaints from, or on behalf of, entitled people at the place;

to identify and report on systemic issues adversely affecting entitled people at the place;

if appropriate, to refer complaints or issues from, or on behalf of, entitled people at the place to relevant investigative entities;

to report to the Minister and operational Minister for the place as required under this Act;

to exercise any other function given to an official visitor under this Act, an operational Act or another territory law.

An official visitor must, in exercising the official visitor’s functions—

respect and promote the human rights of entitled people; and

promote the provision of services to, and care and treatment of, entitled people that is high quality and centres on the needs of entitled people; and

have regard to the wishes of entitled people in relation to visits to visitable places and how complaints from or on behalf of entitled people are dealt with; and

encourage the early resolution of complaints from, or on behalf of, entitled people whenever reasonable and practicable to do so; and

have regard to the objects and principles in operational Acts.