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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4859 ..

(b) by omitting paragraph (2)(a);

(c) by omitting from subsection (3) `party' and substituting `person who has a direct interest in the relevant dispute';

(d) by adding at the end of paragraph (3)(a) `or';

(e) by omitting from paragraph (3)(b) `or'; and

(f) by omitting paragraph (3)(c).

Power to grant relief

11. Section 54 of the Principal Act is amended -

(a) by omitting paragraph (2)(a);

(b) by omitting from paragraph (2)(b) `paragraph 6(b)' and substituting `paragraph 6(1)(b)'; and

(c) by adding at the end the following subsection:

`(3) The Tribunal is not limited in any amount it may order to be paid.'.".

MR MOORE (4.32): Mr Speaker, I must say, first of all, that I think Mr Humphries was a bit naughty in moving these amendments, in that there is no reference in his explanatory memorandum or in what he circulated, I think I am correct in saying, to the removal of section 36 of the principal Act. I should talk about section 36. Section 36 is about renewed hearings. If an order made by the tribunal was not followed, you did not have to go back to the tribunal and start again. It seemed to me to be a quite sensible section. I understand that the working party has accepted that it should come out; but I must say, Mr Speaker, that one is never quite sure when dealing with legislation like this as to what compromise was made within the working party, whether there was a trade-off in one area and not in another. However, because it is part of the agreement, I accept that it is there. Of course, the responsibility is not necessarily with Mr Humphries to present that to us. He has presented an amendment, and it is our responsibility to look at that amendment and understand what it means.

If I can come to the substantive part of the amendment, it is, as I said earlier, a step in the right direction. For that reason, I shall be supporting this amendment. It is interesting, though, that the Government was not prepared to accept my amendment to clause 7 to allow a dispute about excessive rent to come before the tribunal; instead, this amendment, which is basically clause 9 down, the new section 36, has come directly from the Federal Government's response to the report I referred to this morning, "Finding a balance",

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