Elissa Juhasz

Authorised officer under the below Acts

• Protection of the Environment Operation Act 1997- Investigating and taking regulatory action on all types of pollution incidents including water pollution, land pollution, air pollution and noise pollution through use of investigative powers under chapter 7 including summoning offenders for the purpose of investigative interviewing, entering and searching premises, requiring information and records. Significant experience in preparing and serving legal documents on offending parties such as Clean up notices and prevention notices.
• Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979- Investigating and resolving non compliance with development consent. Issuing appropriate Development Control Orders and Notices. Notices and Orders include stop use, stop work, repair, demolish, compliance, restore works.
• Roads Act 1993- Taking regulatory action in response to illegal occupation of the road reserve such as development activities, deliveries, illegal vehicle occupation, failure to obtain permit, or non compliance with permit.
• Local Government Act 1993- Enforcing matters of non compliance in regard to illegal dewatering of premises during construction, driveway installation and development within the road reserve.

Main responsibilities

• Developing a building and development compliance program and an associated strategy to change and influence positive behavioural change in development and environmental compliance.
• Creating, hosting and delivering industry training including all facets of marketing and stakeholder management.
• Presenting on the compliance program internally to executive teams promoting its success to ensure continued funding of the program and position.
• Presenting at industry events including for Housing industry Australia (HIA) and Master Builders association (MBA) during industry nights as a guest speaker.
• Creating, growing and maintaining internal relationships within Council-media team, legal team, customer service team and other division to continue to deliver on positive outcomes for the community.
• Creating, growing and maintaining external relationships with DPIE, SAFEWORK NSW, EPA and other Local and state government agencies.
• Working with EPA, SafeWork NSW and NSW Police on joint compliance operations.
• Providing expert professional advice to internal customers to influence decision making, future planning and source grant funding suitable to the program.
• Working collaboratively and influencing other departments internally and externally to obtain grant funding to design and deliver upon educational materials for industry.
• Persuade and influence industry to change behaviours through ongoing monitoring, enforcement, communications and sharing of best practice.
• Review Council’s internal documents and policies such as Development Control plans to minimise pollution through changes in requirements. For example lobbying to remove exposed aggregate driveways within the Local government area to mitigate pollution from waste water associated with this their construction.
• Identify areas for state government to make changes to prevent and mitigate pollution through changes within construction. For example lobbying to State Government, Members of Parliament and Ministers to list Waffle Pods as a ‘prohibited plastic item’ to prevent pollution.
• Regularly review Development Application conditions to ensure conditions are enforceable and can prevent pollution through stringent conditioning.
• Designing and maintaining spreadsheets to support a compliance program and regularly report on the progress of program.
• Regularly representing Wollongong City Council in the Local Court.
• Acting in the role of Compliance and Regulation Coordinator.
• Training: Fundamentals of Erosion and Sediment Control, ABC of the building code of Australia, Prepare to Work Safely in the construction Industry, UPSS Capacity Building, Registered Certifier: Regulating Waste Disposal from Construction and demolition Projects, Approved Health Safety Representative (HSR) Refresher.

• Developing, implementing and managing project specific compliance programs in the disciplines of Planning, Building, and Environment.
• Undertaking legal enforcement activities which includes interpreting and applying relevant legislation, interviewing offenders, gathering and recording evidence, preparing evidence for Court, issuing Penalty Notices, issuing written warnings and attending Court and giving evidence when required to do so.
• Providing expert professional advice to external and internal customers regarding regulation and enforcement matters, Council assessment and enforcement procedures and statutory requirements relating to regulation and enforcement issues.
• Investigating and resolving complaints and requests for information from the community, consultants and other stakeholders regarding a range of planning, building, and environment related matters either in isolation or as part of a project specific compliance program.
• Drafting and servicing notices and orders.
• Providing regulation and enforcement advice, guidance and input into strategic policy formulation, development control plans and local environmental plans.
• Preparing briefs of evidence and statement of facts for court proceedings in relation to non compliance matters.
• Training: Health Safety Representative, Crisis Response, POEO Act, Verbal Judo.

• Companion Animals Act 1998- Enforcing all provisions under this Act which includes seizing and impounding companion animals, investigating dog attacks and taking the appropriate enforcement action against members of the public of whom commit offences under this Act.
• Impounding Act 1993- The impounding of articles and livestock in public places and taking the appropriate enforcement action against members of the public of whom commit offences under this Act, such as leaving an animal unattended in a public place.
• Undertaking legal enforcement activities which includes interpreting and applying relevant legislation, interviewing members of the public, gathering and recording evidence, preparing evidence for Court, issuing Penalty Notices, issuing written warnings and attending Court and giving evidence when required to do so.
• Education and promotional activities relating to Council’s enforcement to enhance Council’s image and promote responsible pet ownership.
• Attending after hours emergency callouts as necessary in accordance with an agreed roster.
• Conflict management.
• Acquiring victim statements.
• Offender interviews.
• Drafting and servicing notices and orders.
• Effective case and time management.
• Spokesperson/Speaker in Wollongong City Council marketing program- ‘Dogs on Beaches’.
• Regularly Acting in the role of Compliance and Regulation Coordinator.
• Training: Manage People Performance (short course)- Marana Consulting Pty Ltd, ‘Extendable Baton’ training, ‘Dangerous Dog Handling’ Workshop, Statement of Attainment ‘Safely handle Livestock’, ‘Cyber security’ training, ‘Diversity Awareness’ Training, ‘Selection Techniques’ training.

• Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997- investigation of and initiation of enforcement action in regard to illegal open burning on public land; the depositing of material into water courses, illegal litter, rubbish and waste dumping detection, investigation and removal; hording, squalor, and overgrown land.
• Impounding Act 1993- responding to enquiries made of abandoned motor vehicles and identification and removal of the vehicle which includes owner notification, the towing, impounding /destruction/sale of the vehicle and the issuing of penalty infringement notices.
• Local Government Act 1993- investigating complaints made to council and investigating illegal development on public land; taking regulatory action involving the issuing of notices/orders and infringements for acting in contrary to councils signage, illegal tree removal on public land, encroachments on public land and footpath obstructions.
• Control, and patrol as required, surveillance of centres, carparks, persons and Council property; as requested and in response to complaints received to council.
• Working outside of normal hours for special compliance operations such as summer camping operations with NSW Police.
• Community education.

• Surveying and auditing residual and recycling household waste to ensure compliance and referring any inconsistencies to compliance staff for regulatory action.
• Auditing surveillance footage and cross-referencing paperwork (sign in sheets) for Bargo Waste Management Centre to identify inconsistencies and conduct investigations.
• Cross checking external contractor’s databases with council’s databases for consistency and updating Councils rates system to reflect.
• Using and maintaining fleet vehicle responsibly.
• Updating and communicating with contractor staff.
• Using programs such as excel, outlook and CRM confidently.

• Managing a team of approximately 40 pet welfare attendants including regular performance management, training, injury management, rostering and conflict resolution.
• Managing the overall health and wellbeing of up to 600 pets in the facilities’ care (cats/dogs) including the monitoring of physiological and physical health, identifying signs and symptoms of illness/injury or stress.
• Analyzing pet injury or illness, investigating illness/death, addressing the causes (facility/diet/illness) and determining their ongoing management and associated management plans.
• Determining the severity of a pets’ condition and determining whether the pet requires veterinary attention and/or formulating husbandry changes and diet/medication changes to assist in pet recovering from illness.
• Reporting and acting upon matters of non-compliance in regard to legislative breaches and in-house policy breaches, designing new operational policies and procedures, reporting and undertaking inspections/audits.
• First point of contact for the Handling and management of extremely difficult or aggressive animals.
• Supervision and design of enrichment and socialization programs for pets in care.
• Supervision of cleaning of kennels and the overall facility-ensuring hygiene practices are abided by, regularly updated, and done efficiently to reduce instances of contamination/spread of infectious disease.
• Managing occasions of animal aggression and work, health safety plans to mitigate exposure to workplace hazards such as an animal attack.
• Provision of prompt first aid for animals and first response to deceased pet management.
• Ensuring the maintenance and retention of animal records including health records, veterinary records, emergency contact records and all other documentation.
• Supervision and monitoring of pet feeding including; weight loss/increase recording and change of diet to address issues identified that may indicate ill health such as worm infestation, stress, too little stimulus/too much stimulus for current diet. Tailoring diets and feeding for pets that develop illness.
• Administering medication such as insulin injections where prescribed under the instruction of a registered veterinary practitioner and administering other freely available medication that is in the best interest of the pet’s health i.e. lectade, pheromones etc.
• Designing and executing recruitment sessions for potential future employees including; evaluating and screening applicants, interviews and holding information days and practical sessions.
• Ensuring health protection for all staff and visitors.
• Management of contagious disease utilizing isolation buildings and quarantine processes.
• Working closely with other facility supervisors and the CEO to formulate new incentives that benefit animal health and wellbeing including environment, accommodation, feed, products, processes/policies.
• Working closely with the head of sales to boost profit for the company by enhancing add on services by making all sales needs based.
• Promoting and selling products to clients that will directly aid the welfare of their animals such as commercial premium dog food, intestinal worming prevention, flea and tick prevention, medicated shampoos, c5 and f3 vaccinations, toys designed for stimulus, grooming brushes, anti-inflammatory and antiseptic cream-based products such as “neocort”.
• Recommending to clients, based on identifying current health issues in their pets, ways to avoid unwanted illness, how to prevent unwanted illness getting worse and what product or diet to use to achieve this outcome. (i.e. a developing hotspot: chlorhexidine, developing skin rash-malaseb shampoo every second day).
• Overseeing the medications report and identifying any drug interactions and identifying whether drug dosages seem correct. At times, cross checking dosages of veterinary labels to ensure dosage rates are error free. Pursuant to this, identifying what illness a pet is suffering based on the active ingredient where a new animal is presented for care. (For example; Diazepam-would indicate pet would be suffering from epilepsy/ Cephalexin- would indicate pet is being treated for a bacterial infection/ Prozac (Fluoxetine- would indicate OCD, Depression or anxiety).