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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1119 ..

MRS DUNNE: Don’t worry whether it has a hyphen in it. It is a real concern that penalties like this would slip in beneath the radar, and I presume that they got there because they multiplied 50 by five—we are talking about company nominees here, rather than individuals. It does seem absurd that the penalty for doing unlicensed building is 50 penalty units, or $5,000, and that it is such an extraordinarily large amount, by comparison, for merely advertising incorrectly. I thank the government for agreeing to this amendment.

MS TUCKER (5.42): As members have said, these amendments adjust a strict liability penalty from 250 to a more usual 50 penalty units for advertising a service without the necessary licence, which is in accord with the penalty for providing the service itself without a licence. This was, presumably, an error.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 80, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 81 agreed to.

Clause 82.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (5.43): I move amendment No 15 circulated in my name [see schedule 2 at page 1181]. This amendment is the same as the previous one and removes the imprisonment penalty from clause 82.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 82, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 83 to 98, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 99.

MRS DUNNE (5.43): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name on the yellow paper [see schedule 1 at page 1177]. This is a simple amendment, which states that the registrar “must” rather than “may” correct errors. I know we have dry, esoteric arguments about what “may”, “must” and “shall” mean in legislation, but the school I come from says that “may” gives discretion and “must” does not. That is why this amendment is being moved. We are working on the basis that the registrar is a reasonable person, and we always work on that basis. But from time to time, without compulsion, for some reason errors may be overlooked. There are responsibilities to licence holders, and to the wider community, to ensure that the records are kept straight.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (5.44): The government will be supporting this amendment.

MS TUCKER (5.45): This amendment makes it clear that the registrar must correct errors in the demerit register. While, arguably, “may” means “must” in some contexts, there is no room for doubt on this: if the register is wrong it ought to be corrected.

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