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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (6 November) . . Page.. 3794 ..

MS TUCKER (6.25): Does someone else want to speak? Very well. I will reply to Mr Humphries, about the registrar. We were concerned about that power being left with the registrar because it is quite possible for power to be delegated down from that position. The danger is that there is a rubber-stamping process. That is why we believe that this tribunal was a better option for that.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (6.25): Before we leave that point, my understanding is that it cannot be delegated down in that way. That is not the case. The tribunal means the tribunal. It has to be done by the tribunal.

MS TUCKER (6.26), by leave: Yes, but my point was that, while we said the registrar was not adequate, we wanted it to go to the tribunal because the registrar can delegate down.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (6.26): I do not want to press the point. I know I have not persuaded people. But, if we provide in the legislation that the thing cannot be delegated, it cannot be delegated. It is as simple as that. I think it should go before the registrar in all cases. It should be before the registrar.

Mr Whitecross: I think Ms Tucker was saying that that was what she intended.

MR HUMPHRIES: She was not proposing it. I was proposing it. My proposal was that it be done by the registrar.

Ms Tucker: We said no.

MR HUMPHRIES: I appreciate that. You are saying it could be delegated down from the registrar. I am saying no, it could not be delegated down from the registrar. It would be, under our proposal, a decision for the registrar, and not for somebody else in the court structure.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am also concerned about the cost of the Residential Tenancies Tribunal. I think I mentioned before the cost of the tribunal. The cost of running a tribunal with three persons, in those cases where three persons sit on the tribunal, obviously will significantly increase the cost of the tribunal. The Government will have to find that money - I appreciate that - but I do not believe it is necessarily adding anything to the quality of the tribunal by effectively making it a different entity from the ACT Magistrates Court. The court has been involved in the development of this jurisdiction for some time. It is confident that this model, as proposed originally in the Bill, will be successfully implemented, and it has developed a body of staff with some expertise and experience in tenancy matters which it believes would be well able to buttress the role played by a magistrate sitting as the tribunal. Certainly, the model used in this legislation is a model which comes from other States, but those are States with much larger jurisdictions and larger court systems than we have. A tribunal of this structure will obviously impose a cost on us which I think is hard to justify.

I have spoken about the energy efficiency rating already, Madam Deputy Speaker. That issue was covered. The other concern the Government has is about the obligation of parties to bear their own costs. The amendments propose to limit the capacity of the tribunal to impose costs on other parties. This proposal does not limit the capacity for

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