Page 2888 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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clause, they are an offence. To declare a particular practice illegal and then require a trader to prove that it is not is an unfair situation. If the Minister feels that this provision is important, the Bill should specify exactly what it means in language that people can understand. At the moment it does not.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (11.35): In relation to the understandability of this provision, I point out that Russell Miller, the current president of the Law Society in the ACT, is the author of an annotated Trade Practices Act 1992 that has an extensive commentary on the equivalent section, section 61, of the Commonwealth Trade Practices Act, which is in identical terms to ours. It refers specifically to a Law Book Company text on pyramid selling and advertising regulation by Barnes and Blakeney. It also refers to reported decisions. In the Trade Practices Commission v. Parker - 1990 Australian Trade Practices Reports, page 41 - there was a successful prosecution of a pyramid seller under these provisions. The net is cast wide in order to catch unscrupulous schemes. Mr Stevenson disputes my claim that it is effective. It is effective on the basis that the Trade Practices Commission successfully prosecutes and other States have chosen to adopt identical terms to catch the same evil.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 28
MR STEVENSON (11.36): I move:
Page 18, subclause (3), line 18, omit the subclause.
Clause 28 subclause (3) makes it an offence for a person to enable another person to use a credit card without written authorisation. That is the simplicity of it. I think it worth while that I read the subclause into the Hansard. It is only brief. It says:
(3) A person shall not take any action that enables another person who has a credit card or a debit card to use the card as a debit card or credit card, as the case may be, except in accordance with a request in writing by the person.
What we must note is the definition of "person" under the Interpretation Act. It includes not only a person but also a corporation or an organisation. This subclause is saying that a person, including a corporation, shall not take any action that enables another person - and that could be an individual - who has a credit card to use the credit card, except in accordance with a request in writing. Regularly in Canberra and all over Australia, organisations or persons take actions by authorising advertising on television and so on - - -
Mr Connolly: You have just read it wrongly. I could very briefly explain what the error is.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Connolly says that I just read it wrongly, but I read out the full subclause and I know full well what the intention of the subclause is. I well understand Mr Connolly not understanding that what I am saying is particularly relevant. He would not have put the subclause in the Bill if he had thought about it. What it says is that a person shall not take any action.
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