Page 1052 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
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In debating credit amendments, I would like to say that that uniform credit legislation could do with another very hard look and I would encourage the Attorney-General, in particular, to take the matter up with the Australian Consumers Association, which has had a great deal of experience of this legislation and has very strong views about it. I would ask that Mr Collaery not settle for something that is less than the best. The ACT has lagged behind in a lot of consumer legislation areas. Now that we have self-government, we have an opportunity to review all of those areas, so let us go for the best. If that puts us out of step with the Greiner Government well, so be it. I am only too happy to be out of step with the Greiner Government. I would have thought Mr Collaery, at least up until about three months ago, might have been as well.
Mr Moore: He was.
MS FOLLETT: He was? Thank you; I thought he might have been. Just to conclude, I support the Government's current proposal, but I do want to draw attention to the uniform credit legislation that is proposed and to put on record and warn the Assembly that the ACT needs better than that. I guess I also wish to put Mr Collaery on notice that we will not accept the lowest common denominator there.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (4.49): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her remarks and I undertake to convey her comments about the explanatory memorandum to legislative counsel. I guess lawyers do tend to use their own language. It is one of my ambitions to move towards clear English language legislation in this Territory. The Victorian Government, at huge cost, went a substantial part of the way in that regard in rewriting certain things.
That brings me to one of the Leader of the Opposition's remarks - the suggestion, which I realise was ideologically bent, that we are greinerising the uniform credit legislation. Let me assure the house that no State is bulldozing that. There have been substantial changes in the States' responses in this area of uniformity in recent months. In fact, the Victorian Government said that it would not have a bar of the draft uniform Bill, that it wanted to go its own way and bring in its clear English version. The debate has been concerned with the lawyerised issue about the style of legislation, not the ideology behind it. I refute the suggestion that the Greiner Government is in any way trying to barrel this thing through. But I do take the Leader of the Opposition's point that we must ensure that we have the uniform credit legislation that we want, and I undertake to ensure that we approach that issue on the best available advice, in full, continuing consultation with the relevant consumer groups.
I point out that consultations are being undertaken and in the short time that I have had responsibility for carriage of the matter, I am not aware of any suggestion that there
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