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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (24 March) . . Page.. 740 ..

(i) will be demolished;

(ii) will not be used for human occupation before being demolished; or'; and".

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (12.07): Mr Speaker, I move the amendment to Ms Tucker's proposed amendment No. 2 circulated in my name. That amendment reads:

Omit proposed new paragraph 5(1)(fb) to be inserted by proposed paragraph 5(bb), substitute the following paragraph:

"(fb) premises in respect of which a notice directing that they be demolished has been served under section 46 of the Building Act 1972; or; and".

Mr Speaker, this is for consistency of technical terms. The definition of demolition is set out in the Building Act 1972. We should have consistent definitions in Acts across the Territory as appropriate. Yes, it is somewhat narrower, but that is to avoid the situation where somebody says, "Yes, we are going to demolish a house", but then chooses not to. We think it strengthens it, and it is the more appropriate way to do it.

Amendment (Mr Smyth's ) agreed to.

Amendment (Ms Tucker's ), as amended, agreed to.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (12.08): Mr Speaker, I move the amendment to clause 6 as circulated in my name. It reads:

Page 2, line 19, clause 6, before paragraph (a) insert the following paragraph:

"(aa ) by omitting from subsection (3) all the words after 'subsection (1),' and substituting 'the vendor is liable to pay to the purchaser an amount equal to 0.5% of the purchase price of the premises;' ".

We move this amendment for a number of reasons. For those who do their own conveyancing of their homes there may be difficulties. There are occasions when houses are not advertised and people may go ahead under the assumption that they are doing the correct thing. You then have to look at the level of punishment. The level of punishment here may be that the sale of your premises would fall through, which may affect your ability to buy other premises. It may have the effect of forcing people to take out bridging finance, putting them into undue financial difficulty, which I do not think is the intention of the Bill. You have to look at the level of punishment for not being in keeping with the Bill. We do not believe that the rescission of a sale is the outcome that we would desire. We believe that the penalty would be an inducement to make people go out and get the energy efficiency rating.

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