Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 13 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3716 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

I would impress upon the Attorney and other ministers that three months was a bit too long to take to respond as there was not a huge number of comments by the committee. Only several points were raised and I would think that they could have been responded to in a shorter period than three months.

Mr Speaker, this bill seeks to do a number of things. I will not go through the eight principal policy intentions of the bill, as outlined in the Chief Minister's speech, but I was pleased to see that it will enable cooperatives to have wider corporate powers by providing them with the powers of a natural person, a situation equivalent to that of corporations. Such powers, of course, are to be exercised within traditional cooperative principles.

The bill as it stands has been through a lot of consultation, as I have said. The previous Liberal government engaged in a fairly extensive consultation exercise. I am pleased to see that a lot of the comments there have been taken on board. The legislation has been through a number of scrutiny processes over the last two years and those comments also have been taken on board, however tardily, as has been the case. The Law Society has been consulted. I am pleased to say that, from my discussions with them, they are quite comfortable with the current bill. They have no further comments to offer on it. It is a good thing that they have been consulted.

Basically, this bill is similar to the one introduced last year. It takes into account those comments. I must say that it is based on uniform national legislation and all jurisdictions are going down this track. In fact, in this instance, I think we are catching up on some jurisdictions. I do note that Victoria passed its part quite recently, but some of the other jurisdictions are in front of us in this area of the law. It is good to see us catching up there.

I also note that there are some potential positives here for small business. That is certainly something we were wanting to see, which we were working towards when we were in government and which this bill will ensure. The bill will protect small businesses from incurring some expenses that they might otherwise incur. Hopefully, that will not be the case when this legislation is passed.

Mr Speaker, cooperatives are indeed a bit of a niche, but this bill expands the ability of small business to be involved and gives small business a number of benefits. I have already mentioned some potential savings. Also, small business will gain from some tax benefits-for example, not-for-profit shelves-which larger businesses would not be able to afford. This bill has had a very long gestation-effectively, going back to 1990-and we look forward to its incorporation into our law and, hopefully, greater use. We will be watching how it goes quite carefully because there has been a lot of discussion in relation to it and a number of improvements and amendments made as a result of problems that have been identified.

The opposition will be supporting the bill and the amendments that the Chief Minister will be introducing today, although, I reiterate, I would certainly appreciate in future to have details of the responses and the necessary benefits that flow from them in a much quicker timeframe. I think that three months was a little bit long in this instance, Chief Minister. I have no doubt that you will address that.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .