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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Thursday, 4 March 2004) . . Page.. 710 ..

assisted by enabling financial statements to present budget information that would include all authorised appropriation changes. Consequently, the bill proposes to amend budgets for all appropriation changes. This will ensure that the annual financial statements of departments are prepared in a form that facilitates comparison between the financial operations of the department and the estimates of those operations contained in the budget for the department as required under section 27 of the act.

Furthermore, the purpose of the legislation is to deal with general principles as distinct from prescriptive detail. It is for this reason that the bill proposes that section 16A be removed from the act and be replaced by section 19F, with the prescriptive detail moved to the financial management guidelines.

In conclusion, I reiterate that amendments proposed in this bill are aimed at clarifying provisions within the act and promoting efficient financial management practices. I trust that members will support the bill. I commend this bill to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Smyth) adjourned to the next sitting.

Architects Bill 2004

Mr Corbell, pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory statement.

Title read by clerk.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (10.36): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, I am pleased to present the Architects Bill 2004, which repeals the Architects Act 1959 and introduces a modern and more effective registration system for architects in the ACT. The requirement to reform the Architects Act 1959 came out of the Productivity Commission’s report No 13 in 2000, Review of legislation regulating the architectural profession. The terms of the review required the commission to examine the existing Australian legislation, identify any public interest rationale for it and consider alternative forms of regulation. The report examined the existing legislation and identified areas in which it could be improved.

The commission’s principal recommendation was to repeal all architects legislation. However, it made a second recommendation. Victoria registers a variety of building practitioners, including all those who design buildings. The commission approved the continuation of the registration of architects as part of such arrangements. Where such arrangements continued for architects, it set out improvements that should be made.

Following the recommendations of the Productivity Commission, the states and territories worked together to formulate a joint response to the commission’s report, which ultimately supported the second recommendation. That enabled each jurisdiction to develop its own legislative and administrative models while maintaining a nationally consistent approach to registration, qualifications and title protection.

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