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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (13 June) . . Page.. 1673 ..

Legislation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2001

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (5.10): Mr Deputy Speaker, this Legislation (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2001 is a significant and very weighty piece of legislation, but it is not significant just because of its weight. It is a piece of legislation that is designed primarily to enable the electronic publishing of legislation on the Internet. Most of the amendments in the Legislation (Consequential Amendments) Bill relate to commencement dates, the notification of notices, the approval of forms, and regulation-making and fee determination powers.

It is a quite intriguing piece of legislation and I have to say, after perusal of it, that it reveals the enormous effort that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel must have had to apply to it. I think it appropriate that we acknowledge the significant effort that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel puts into legislation of this sort, a major piece of omnibus legislation that probably goes to almost every piece of legislation that we have here in the ACT. As I said, it is machinery legislation that goes to each of those aspects of each of the pieces of legislation in the ACT that were required to be amended to ensure that each such piece of legislation was pulled into line with the provisions of the Legislation Act.

As I said, I sort of perused the legislation. I must say I have taken on faith that each of the amendments that are incorporated within the bill are designed exclusively for the purpose of implementing the Legislation Act to allow the electronic provision of legislation.

Having said that, one is somewhat still intrigued, if not bemused, by some of the amendments that never were deemed by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel as being necessary in relation some pieces of legislation. I notice, for instance, quite significant amendments to the Bushfire Act 1936 that it was deemed necessary to amend. It would be quite intriguing, in a forensic sense, to see why it was that these particular provisions were necessary. Maybe the Attorney could give us a quick dissertation on the basis of the amendments to the Bushfire Act or perhaps the Drugs of Dependence Act, or even another one that I noticed, the Fertilisers Act 1904. Quite intriguing amendments were made by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel. It would probably be quite entertaining, Attorney, if you give us a quick rundown on exactly why it was that the Office of Parliamentary Counsel made the amendments that it felt necessary in relation to those particular pieces of legislation.

Having said that, the Labor Party is very happy to support this piece of legislation.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (5.13), in reply: Mr Deputy Speaker, I do not think I will go into that amount of detail about it.

Mr Stanhope: Pressure of time.

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