Page 2564 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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agreement was reached on a text suitable for adoption in all Australian State and Territory jurisdictions in relation to commercial arbitration. The Commercial Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 1991 will amend the Commercial Arbitration Act so that it will mirror the agreed model. In this way, the ACT will be brought into the national scheme.
As the existing ACT legislation is already very close to the agreed model, only minor amendments are required. Most of the changes involve drafting style and simply convert existing provisions into the agreed form. The amendments do include changes to the law, but these are of a minor nature. They include provisions to widen the power to consolidate disputes, including disputes not all of which are being heard by the same arbitrator, and provisions to extend the circumstances in which a party may be represented by someone else in the hearing of a dispute. They also expand current provisions for settlement of disputes by means other than arbitration. Mediation and conciliation are dealt with specifically. In line with recognition that disputes may be settled without arbitration, the Bill allows for interest to be awarded on settlement payments made before a formal award arising from an arbitration hearing.
This legislation will give greater certainty to commercial relationships which often run across State and Territory borders. The move to uniform commercial arbitration laws is part of a more general trend towards the use of alternative dispute resolution rather than the adversarial approach of litigation in the courts. And, of course, there is a substantial difference in the financial cost, in that commercial disputes resolved in the Supreme Court are, in effect, paid for or subsidised by the taxpayer whereas with commercial arbitration the parties bear the entire cost. There are no financial considerations involved in this proposed amendment. I now present the explanatory memorandum for the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mr Collaery) adjourned.
CEMETERIES (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.50): Mr Speaker, I present the Cemeteries (Amendment) Bill 1991. I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
This Bill seeks to allow the Canberra Public Cemeteries Trust to invest moneys received by it, for example, from the sale of grave sites. The effect of the amendment is to change the status of the Cemeteries Trust under the Audit Act 1989 from an authority "not required to keep accounts in accordance with commercial practice" to an authority "required to keep accounts in accordance with commercial practice".
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