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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 5065 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Government Amendment 1 will give consistency to the Act and the Code by including a licence in the definition of a lease.

Government Amendment 2 will allow the Tribunal to adopt a wider interpretation of the term conduct, particularly in relation to the harsh and oppressive and unconscionable conduct provisions in the Act.

This amendment will also clarify the commencement date of the Act which is critical to its application.

Government Amendment 6 to section 16 of the Act will help clarify the meaning of this section as presumably there has not, at the time of mediation, been a hearing before the Registrar or the Tribunal.

The Government's major amendment will see section 36 of the Act repealed and replaced with a new section which will expand the factors which the Tenancy Tribunal may take into account in determining a dispute on the ground of unconscionable conduct in commercial and retail lease transactions.

The test under the existing unconscionable conduct provision in the Act was hard to meet. For example, you had to prove that a party to a transaction was under a `special disability' in dealing with the other party and that there was an absence of any reasonable degree of equality between them. You also had to prove that the

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