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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1128 ..

MRS DUNNE (6.15): The Liberal opposition was biding its time for the explanation. Now that we understand it we will be supporting the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 1 to Regulations, as amended, agreed to.

Schedule 2 to Regulations.

MRS DUNNE (6.16): I move amendment No 7 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1178]. I see the Liberal opposition go down in flames, but I move this amendment because there are considerable industry concerns about the regulations that allocate how many demerit points you lose for particular offences. As things stand, these regulations have to be read in concert with the Building Act, and with any standard which is out there, so you have to refer to three or four pieces of paper in disparate places before you can work out whether someone has incurred the wrath of the registrar or not.

By omitting this part of the schedule at this stage, I propose to give the government an incentive—dare I say it—to go back and draft the regulations with more clarity. I have heard the arguments about how they are perfectly clear if you read four different sources at once, but that is not how you make good law. The full extent of the regulation should be contained within the regulations and not dispersed all over the place. You might like to call it a one-stop shop regulation.

For this reason the Liberal opposition proposes to support the building industry in their concerns about the current state of the regulation. We propose to omit this, with a view to the government substituting other, similar words, but with more clarity, so that all the sources of the information can be in one place.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (6.18): The government will not be supporting this amendment from Mrs Dunne. The introduction of the demerit point system addresses the significant shortcomings in the present regulatory system. It also doubles as an educative tool, as licensees in breach of the required standards will be made aware of that failure. This will give them the opportunity to ensure that they understand what the industry standards are that they must comply with.

One of the underlying principles of the licensing system is accountability. If you are a licensee you have obligations, the first of which is to ensure that your work meets the accepted standards as prescribed by the legislation. These standards are recognised in all jurisdictions. If you fail to do work in accordance with those standards, you are held accountable for that failure. This is fundamental to the existing laws, and it is reinforced in the proposed legislation. The only thing that changes is the way in which you are held accountable. To suggest that it is unreasonable to continue to hold licensees accountable for the standards that they are required to meet would no doubt be of great concern to consumers in the ACT.

The primary objective of the new system is to make licensees accountable for non-compliance with the act more efficiently than under the current disciplinary provisions. Under the proposed system licensees can incur up to 15 demerit points before having a disciplinary sanction imposed. The 15 points were included in response to industry concerns that the original proposal of 10 points in a three-year period was too low.

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