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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 1 Hansard (13 February) . . Page.. 20 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

The new bill does protect the registration of surveyors. The registration of surveyors has been retained. Indeed, the report actually suggested that postgraduate practical training of surveyors be discontinued, but we said no to that as we need to see what happens in the other jurisdictions. I understand that it is the intention of all the other jurisdictions to keep the postgraduate training and we will be in line with that because we do not want to disadvantage surveyors as individuals, we do not want to disadvantage the industry as a whole and we certainly do not want to have people saying that our cadastre is not up to standard.

Mr Speaker, I think that much of what Ms Tucker has said has been addressed here. You can go to the AAT for a review of the commissioner's decision and then you can always take it further through the court system. The ability to do that has been retained. This bill is about making the act work better not only to the benefit of surveyors but also to the benefit of the community by enabling us to have faith in the knowledge contained in the cadastre and providing a clear path forward so that surveyors can get on with surveying, instead of being caught up with responding to the board.

I believe that all the concerns that Ms Tucker raised have been covered here. Mr Rugendyke said that he would like to see a review of the operation of the new act, if passed. I am happy to have it reviewed, as we always do. We always make sure that there is an ability to come back to look at what we do, and we should. We should always review what we put in place and, if it is not working properly, we should change it. I believe that this legislation is a good way forward. I believe that it will work well. I thank the Assembly for its support for this legislation.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Crimes Amendment Bill 2000 (No 3)

Debate resumed from 7 December 2000, on motion by Mr Humphries:

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (11.47): Mr Speaker, this bill was introduced by the Attorney-General on 7 December 2000, principally to make it an offence to keep a person in sexual servitude. Sexual servitude is defined as the condition of a person who provides sexual services and who, because of the use of force or a threat, is not free to stop providing sexual services or to leave the place or area where the person provides the sexual services. It is pleasing to see that the bill closely matches the model provisions recommended by the Model Criminal Code Officers Committee of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. Similar legislation has been passed in South Australia and is proposed for other jurisdictions.

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