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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (12 December) . . Page.. 4363 ..

Thursday, 12 December 2002

The Assembly met at 10.30 am.

(Quorum formed.)

MR SPEAKER (Mr Berry) took the chair and asked members to stand in silence and pray or reflect on their responsibilities to the people of the Australian Capital Territory.

Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2002 (No 2)

Mr Stanhope , pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory memorandum.

Title read by Clerk.

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Affairs and Minister for Women) (10.34): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, the Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2002 (No 2) is the seventh bill in a series of bills dealing with legislation within the justice and community safety portfolio. The bill makes a number of substantive as well as technical amendments to portfolio legislation. The substantive amendments are as follows.

The Administration and Probate Act 1929 presently allows for grants of probate sealed and issued by a court of another state or territory of Australia, or of a Commonwealth country, to be resealed in the ACT. The amendment will overcome the difficulty created when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule on 1 July 1997, thereby ceasing to be a member of the Commonwealth. Furthermore, the amendments will also allow for other jurisdictions to be added as necessity arises.

The amendment to section 35 of the Consumer Credit (Administration) Act 1996 clarifies that finance brokers can only demand, accept or receive commissions from borrowers after the credit has been provided, and are free to accept commissions from the finance industry. The disciplinary powers contained in the Consumer Credit (Administration) Act have also been amended to ensure that these powers can also be exercised against credit providers that are exempt from registration but who are still required to comply with the code, and providers who are unregistered and trading illegally.

The amendments to the Fair Trading Act 1992 replace the current pyramid selling provisions with the model legislation that was recently developed at a national level, in which the ACT participated.

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