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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 5 Hansard (2 May) . . Page.. 1376 ..

MR BERRY: I now know that the government is going to support me. I look forward to a unanimous vote in this Assembly to remove this terrible pain that has been inflicted on society over so many years. I wonder about those hundreds of thousands of dollars that have been ripped out of the pockets of these people. All they wanted was a job and this government was standing there with the cash register. Every time they fronted up to a job they had to pay up. There was not even a process where they could take it out of their first pay if they got a job, not that that would make it fair. This $44 fee was to get on the list of people who might get a job.

Thankfully, the government has been wrestled to the ground, though it stubbornly hung on to this one for a long time. It seems to me that the government was using the fee collected off job seekers to add to its surplus so that it could claim some credit for the surplus. As I have said before, a lot of the surplus that this government has dug up has been achieved on the back of the hardship suffered by others. In this case it has been on the back of hardship suffered by job seekers. I am pleased that the government has at last seen sense. I look forward to the government's overwhelming support for this motion.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (4.26): I have a small amendment which relates to an incorrect legal point in Mr Berry's motion. I move:

I will speak to the amendment as well. I will address it first. It relates to the first part of Mr Berry's motion, which asserts that it is unlawful under the Agents Amendment Act 2000 for the Department of Education and Community Services to charge this fee of prospective employees. The first part of his motion says, "That noting that the Agents Amendment Act 2000 makes it unlawful to 'demand or receive any fee, charge or other remuneration from a job seeker'..." We got legal advice in relation to that and were told that there was nothing unlawful about doing that. The advice indicates that the Agents Act of 1968, as amended in 2000-in fact, section 19 (b)-does not apply to the Department of Education and Community Services. The act, as amended, applies only to licensed employment agents. The department is not a licensed employment agent, nor under the act is it required to be. That is the legal reason for my amendment. The motion then would read:

We are more than happy to accept that. I am pleased to announce to the Assembly, as was announced in the press release, that the collection of an administrative fee to cover the cost of police checks will be discontinued immediately. Yes, Wayne, you have had a victory. You have been persistent on this one and you will have unanimous support, I take it.

The charge to cover the cost of police checks was introduced some years ago. The police used not to charge, but the introduction of the user pays principle resulted in the police charging for doing checks and people had to pay them. I think we have had the debate

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