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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1360 ..

to warrant additional bills. It makes some amendments in relation to the Agents Act and some changes for consistency with the Consumer and Trader Tribunal Act, which is good. It brings it into line with the scrutiny of bills committee’s comments. The appeal period goes, I think, from 20 to 60 days, which makes it consistent with the Consumer and Trader Tribunal Act of 2003.

I am quite pleased to see amendments to the Consumer Credit Act. I think it is very important that people know exactly what they are going to be paying. Before that, you simply knew what the percentage rate was and not what the fees and charges were. It would set a percentage rate but there would still be fees and charges. Now that is all lumped in and, effectively, people will know—not only for longer term credit but also for short-term credit providers—exactly how much they will be up for, and that is a sensible amendment. So we have no dramas with that.

There are a number of other improvements. In the Cooperatives Act, some of the amendments actually follow normal legal practice and also show consistency with national code. There are some further amendments in relation to the Fair Trading Act that simply bring it into line now with the Criminal Code. Sections 180, 182 and 183 simply do not exist anymore. There are further sensible amendments made to the Magistrates Court Act, the Protection Orders Act and the Security Industry Act. Reviewable decisions will go to 60 days for consistency, so the opposition will be supporting it.

MS DUNDAS (9.47): I am also happy to support this piece of legislation. It does correct some minor problems with a number of acts. We are particularly glad to see the drafting error in the Agents Act has been corrected to retain the fault element for some offences. I have previously voiced concerns about the proliferation of strict liability offences in our statute book so it is good to see that personal responsibility is still seen as relevant in some circumstances.

The amendment to the Consumer Credit Act is unobjectionable although I am a little doubtful that the new requirement to notify borrowers of the real cost of their loans will make a difference to the number of loans granted by the high cost lenders that the government intends to target. When someone is desperate and a payday lender is the only one who will lend them the money, they will take the loan no matter how exorbitant the annual interest rate is. The Cooperatives Act 2002 and Cooperatives Regulations changes are fairly minor although I find it curious that the bill has needed more than one patch-up since its original passage. Of course I am happy with the new strict liability offences of failing to lodge changes of particulars of a foreign cooperative but I have trusted the claim put forward by the government that this offence and its ten-unit penalty are in line with other jurisdictions.

I would like however to comment on the fact that the government has seen fit today, on a day that we are debating this bill, to circulate amendments. This bill has been on the notice paper for a substantial amount of time. I believe it was tabled in November 2003. To have the government tabling amendments, or in any way circulating amendments, on the day that the bill is being debated, six months after the original bill was proposed, so that we do not actually have time to work through the amendments is quite ridiculous. In the time that I have had to consider them, I have seen that they are consequential amendments that are there to correct errors that came about because they were

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