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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (11 November) . . Page.. 3974 ..

Debate resumed from 25 September 1997, on motion by Mrs Carnell:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (6.22): Mr Speaker, the Opposition will not be opposing this Bill.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Debate resumed from 23 September 1997, on motion by Mr Humphries:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR WOOD (6.22): Mr Speaker, I will be very short about this, because the Opposition will be supporting this sensible measure. The purpose of the Bill is to regulate the practice of foreign law in the ACT. It will place lawyers practising foreign law here on the same regulatory footing as ACT legal practitioners as regards such matters as indemnity insurance, trust accounts and discipline. Most importantly, with the reciprocity, Australian lawyers will be able to practise overseas, and that is a very important benefit arising from this Bill. This is a necessary step, and the Opposition supports it.

MR MOORE (6.23): I rise to support the legislation. It is interesting legislation. I would like to note a couple of little things. The first one is the very significant role that the Law Society plays in this legislation. It would be very interesting if we were not to have a Law Society. I remember at one stage drafting some amendments to an Act about the Conservation Council and the drafters were very keen not to have the body actually named in the Act at that time. As it turned out, we finally got to understand that, if the Conservation Council disappeared and another body followed it, we would have the power to interpret it as the body. The Law Society seems to take on a different entity from the Conservation Council. The Law Society is quite happy to be in the legislation - or Mr Humphries fought very hard to make sure it was in there, which is the other possibility. I suppose there is a third possibility, that is, that, once we had the Conservation Council in one Act, it became a reasonable thing to put other societies in other Acts. But I think we would find, if we were to look at legislation, that the Law Society has been mentioned in it for some time.

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