Public health & safety

Councils have a wide range of responsibilities to ensure the public health and wellbeing of their communities. They also have specific roles in enforcing food safety, tobacco controls and smoking regulations.

When regulatory changes have implications for council resources and activities, we advocate on councils' behalf to other levels of government.

Current priorities

We advocate on behalf of local government to improve community health through public health regulations and plans. We work closely with the Victorian Government, councils and other stakeholders about the frameworks, case studies and guides which assist councils with their own health policies. We help councils fulfil their health regulation obligations through advocacy, project coordination and developing regulatory activities.

The public health services and areas we work closely with include:

  • Community safety
  • Food safety regulation
  • Gambling prevention
  • Municipal Public Health Planning
  • Tobacco education and enforcement
  • Drugs and alcohol prevention

Current projects and activities

Submissions and briefs

We develop and form a collective local government sector view on a range of public health topics. These include:

To access all our public health-related submissions, visit the MAV submissions page.

Resources

Public Health and Wellbeing Act

To help councils implement the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008, we worked with the Department of Health and Human Services to commission the development of a guide and toolkit when the Act was changed in 2008:

Engage with us

Our monthly Human Services Bulletins feature health and safety updates.

For more information about our public health policy work, please email: publichealth@mav.asn.au