Page 2864 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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Mr Stevenson was somewhat critical of what he described as the overly complex nature of some of the legislation, and to some extent that is criticism one has to accept. We are talking here about legislation based on the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act, enacted in every State of Australia in one form or another, and it is law which is by nature somewhat complex. We are getting into areas of competition law, areas of black letter law, and I would have to accept Mr Stevenson's proposition that it is not that easy to read the Act and come to a clear understanding of the law.
We have made a significant effort in our explanatory memorandum to set out a clear explanation of what we are doing. There has in the past been a tendency for explanatory memorandums merely to pick up the wording of the Act. I am sure members would have had experience of puzzling over a clause and going to the explanatory memorandum and seeing precisely the same words in the explanatory memorandum as appeared in the clause that is a bit ambiguous in the original Bill. We have made an effort to clarify that. We have also made an effort in the explanatory memorandum to cross-reference to equivalent Trade Practices Act provisions, and that will make the job of business somewhat easier. Perhaps we are not talking here about the very small business person; but medium to small businesses would often avail themselves of some of the commercial services, such as the CCH business law guides, which set out very crisply and clearly in lay terms the effect of some of these Trade Practices Act equivalents.
While the law is of itself in some areas complex, because it is dealing with areas of competition law and other quite complex concepts, and we have often had to have definitions that are rather complex in order to ensure that the courts can achieve certainty, we have tried to make it more accessible by way of a very carefully thought out explanatory memorandum, with cross-referencing in that explanatory memorandum to the relevant equivalents in the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act. That Act is very well known to business in the ACT and there is an extensive set of literature available on it, often at a quite affordable price - books designed for small business or medium business, to explain their obligations under that Act. So, to the extent that we can, we have tried to make the Bill accessible. Mr Stevenson's comment that commercial law should be accessible to a business person is a fair comment, and we have attempted to address it in that way. I thank members for their general support in principle for the Bill.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail Stage
Clause 1
Debate (on motion by Mr Berry) adjourned.
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