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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4775 ..

MS McRAE (continuing):

interests in the matter at hand. With the amendments that the Minister is now putting forward, any person who can establish an interest is able to go to the AAT. That clarifies the situation of incorporated and unincorporated residents associations. It clarifies the situation for just about any group that wishes to appear.

I believe that this is the first step to deal with some of the problems that have come out, but I do not think that Ms Horodny has taken seriously the complaints and the difficulties that were raised at a round table conference, an open hearing, where we were sitting down together trying to work out the problems. All I have subsequently heard is more of the insults that were doled out six months ago. No attempt has been made to take up the very serious issues that were raised at the round table conference. I am pleased to be able to support the Minister's amendments; but, again, I do not say that the debate is closed.

Amendments agreed to.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.21): Mr Speaker, because the Bill has been taken as a whole, I realise that I have to move an amendment to omit clause 5 of the Bill. Given what I have already said in the chamber about this, clearly the Government does not support clause 5, which is the substance of the Bill, other than the substitution of "interests" for "rights". That amendment has been handed to the Clerk and is being circulated now. I move:

Page 1, line 15, to page 3, line 9, clause 5, omit the clause.

I will speak briefly to it, Mr Speaker. The matters which I have put before the house already make it clear that the substance of the Bill is not supported. I say to Ms Horodny that there has been a debate about these things. It has gone through the chamber before. I appreciate that there are views that the decisions were wrong or that mistakes have been made.

I do express some sympathy with what Ms McRae said about dealing with this issue at this late stage of the Assembly's life. I also take up and confirm the view that no-one - not on this side of the chamber or anywhere else, I imagine - pretends that we regard the legislation as being perfect, having reached its final apotheosis, and being capable of no further improvement. It is very far from that. We look forward to being able to work with others in the next Assembly to improve the Land Act. It has been suggested, in fact, that the Land Act ought to be comprehensively overhauled anyway to pick up a number of issues. I do not relish that idea for one instant, but it may be necessary to do that because it is now more than six years since it was debated and passed by the Assembly and it may be a good time to come back and clear up a number of matters.

But the issues put before the chamber by Ms Horodny are not complete and do not fit in with an overview of what we should be doing with the legislation, in my view. For that reason, I would urge members not to agree to this piecemeal approach at this time, but rather to come back and consider it properly in a better context, obviously, in the next Assembly, not this one.

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