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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (28 November) . . Page.. 3257 ..
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CORBELL (11.17): Mr Speaker, this legislation was introduced only a short time ago; however, it is, in essence, relatively minor from our understanding of it. It simply provides for certain amendments to the Land Titles Act to provide for a more streamlined process for dealing with certain changes under the Land Titles Act. For example, the bill provides for the replacement of a lost grant or certificate without the need for it to be duly notified through a daily newspaper, a requirement perceived to be unwieldy. The Labor Party has no problem with that approach.
The bill deals with a number of other issues, such as processes for the surrender and regrant of leases. Again, this bill does not appear, on the face of it, to make any substantial change to the process of leasehold administration in the territory.
Mr Speaker, the bill also includes provisions to allow a mortgagor of property to apply for a court order to sell the property. As we understand it, this power is already in place in legislation around Australia. It is rarely used, but it is important in a property market which is suffering some distress. Again, this proposal would seem to be a commonsense approach and the Labor Party has no problems that it is aware of in relation to changes in that regard.
The final issue concerns clarifying how land is dealt with when it is subdivided into unit title. The bill amends the Land Titles (Unit Titles) Act to ensure that issues such as access to easements are properly recognised on unit title plans. That is particularly important where changes are made to those plans; so it is important to have a clear result.
Mr Speaker, the Labor Party will be supporting this legislation this morning.
MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (11.19): Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister is off opening a small business centre, so I will close the debate for him. I thank the Assembly for its support of this bill. It is about housekeeping. The whole intention is to make things easier for land-holders who want to carry out business concerning their blocks of land. It is very important that we get it right because procedures should be simple to make things work better for land-holders.
The housekeeping provisions do clarify some current areas of uncertainty and this bill is part of a continual process of ensuring that the land titles law is kept up to date. We believe that all the changes will be beneficial to land-holders in the ACT.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
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