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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 2 Hansard (1 March) . . Page.. 406 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

is rejected today, the Government will advance the question of dealing with whatever issues there are out there concerning the work of employment agents by having a code of practice under the Fair Trading Act if that is the view that members take about the need to regulate this area of operation of employment agents.

Mr Speaker, very briefly, the Fair Trading Act does have that power to create a code of practice to regulate this area. It is unnecessary to set in place a registration system around that because that would impose a considerable cost on the industry which is simply not justified. I ask members to reconsider the position that has been taken on this Bill.

MS TUCKER (10.56): I have listened to Mr Humphries today and, obviously, I listened to Mr Berry previously and will be supporting these amendments. Mr Humphries raised firstly the issue of consultation. I can see from going through the file that Peter Quinton from the general law group sent a letter to the industry on October 1998 letting people know about Mr Berry's Bill. I have another letter from the same person, Peter Quinton, of September 1999 informing people of the committee inquiry, so it was for quite a long time that people were invited to comment. I cannot see how the argument from Mr Humphries that there has been no consultation on this issue is particularly strong at this point. My office has received from people in the industry quite a number of letters and telephone calls and we have discussed these issues with them on those occasions. On balance, we have decided that it would be useful to implement Mr Berry's legislation at this point.

Mr Humphries says that there is no justification for having it, but we know that with the deregulated job market there is now much greater onus on private and community sector agencies to provide these services and there is less support and there are fewer resources from the Commonwealth. Basically, when you have deregulation, you need to ensure that standards are met. That is something that the Greens have always been consistent on. We do not believe that having a voluntary code of practice is sufficient. Voluntary codes of practice have been made to look quite ridiculous recently with the cash for comment investigation. The broadcasting practices in this country would be one good example.

I think that having regulation is a good policy position to take as regulation is wanted. I understand that the Government is concerned about the costs involved in administering the licensing fee. The amount of the licensing fee was a concern of many people who contacted my office originally, but the fee will be significantly less than I think people thought it would be in the beginning. The Government is now saying that that means that the licensing fee will not cover the administration cost. We had this discussion yesterday with respect to the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission Amendment Bill.

If the Government is taking responsibility for the wellbeing of the community, it will have to cover the cost of ensuring that there are regulatory regimes in place that ensure standards are met. The Government may be very attracted to the user-pays concept, but I will continue to argue, as I did yesterday, that it is a fundamental responsibility of government to ensure that there are standards and that they are met. I do not think that that is something that this Government should argue about, particularly in light of the

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