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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 11 Hansard (21 October) . . Page.. 3834 ..

MR STEFANIAK (11.43): The opposition does not support these amendments. I understand that these provisions have already been effectively included in the Auditor-General Act. As Ms Tucker said earlier, her amendments have been lifted directly from six-year-old amendments in the Auditor-General Act. We do not believe that there is a need for changes of that sort. These amendments will not add anything to the provisions in the bill. The Treasurer said earlier what staff in the Office of the Auditor-General would be doing. Accordingly, the opposition opposes these amendments.

Amendments agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK: I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 3880]. I referred earlier in debate on my first amendment to the reasons for moving amendment No 2. I have nothing further to add.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.

Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole and agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2003

Debate resumed from 26 June 2003, on motion by Mr Stanhope:

MR STEFANIAK (11.45): Mr Speaker, this bill is another in the series of consolidation bills dealing with legislation within the justice portfolio. The bill makes substantive and technical amendments to the legislation. In terms of the legislation concerning the Cooperatives Act and the Fair Trading Act, the opposition does not wish to comment further on what was stated initially by the Attorney-General.

The Fair Trading (Consumer Affairs) Act 1973 is being amended to permit the minister and the Commissioner for Fair Trading to make public statements where it is in the public interest to do so to identify, warn or inform the community about consumer protection matters, such as unsatisfactory or dangerous goods and the people who supply them, services supplied in an incompetent manner by traders who continually ignore court orders or the imposition of penalties, and unfair business practices and the people who engage in them.

I understand that New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia already have such a provision and Queensland is moving in this way. It is actually called the naming provision. To digress, it is interesting that this government is prepared to do so in this area, but is reluctant to do so in other areas. It is interesting also to note that this shows consistency with New South Wales, which the government is very happy to do when it suits them, but in other terribly important areas of the law, criminal law especially, it is not prepared to do so. Despite the inconsistency shown by this government in adopting

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