Page 3479 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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SELF-GOVERNMENT (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL 1991
Debate resumed from 12 September 1991, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.54): Mr Deputy Speaker, the Liberal Party, in opposition, has no difficulty with this Bill. It is merely a tidying up Bill correcting minor things that needed to be corrected in a whole series of other Acts, such as the Building Act 1972, the Protection of Lands Act 1937, the Real Property Act 1925, the Teaching Service Act 1972, and so on. It is merely, in most cases, to bring the terminology in those Acts into line with the fact that we are now a self-governing Territory. Some of the references in those Acts were anachronistic. This Bill does nothing but tidy them up, and we support it.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.55), in reply: Mr Deputy Speaker, I am pleased that the Opposition gives support to this Bill. It is, as the Leader of the Opposition says, merely a tidying up of the statute books. When self-government was established here there was a remarkably small group of public servants in the self-government unit of the then Department of Territories who basically drafted the self-government legislative package and piloted it through the Federal Parliament. It is extraordinary that they achieved so much, with so few resources, in the time available. A vast raft of ACT legislation was consequentially amended at the time to pick up references to self-government.
It is inevitable that there will still, from time to time, in the dark recesses of the statute books, be found references that are inappropriate, given that we are self-governing. This year's crop has been reaped here, with amendments to this range of Acts - the ACT Institute of Technical and Further Education Act, the Building Act, the Chiropractors Registration Act, the Health Professions Boards (Election) Act, the Protection of Lands Act, the Publications Control Act, the Real Property Act and the Teaching Service Act.
It is quite likely that over the next few years of self-government there will be found lurking somewhere in those red volumes in front of us further obscure pieces of legislation that have inappropriate references and they, too, will have to be tidied up and corrected. It is simply the tidying up and correction process that this Bill achieves, and I am pleased that it is supported by the Assembly.
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