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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4210 ..

The Property Council actually suggests that there is no need to regulate by statute a practice that is covered to a large extent by their code of practice and existing legislation in commercial practice. That relates to the commercial tenancies. They also have some concerns in relation to some buildings which are classified B, C and D-grade stock and which are located in the city precinct.

It is also pointed out by them—and this has also been pointed out by the Master Builders and some other groups—that, from a practical perspective, there is currently only one recognised organisation in the ACT that has the expertise to carry out detailed inspections of buildings to locate asbestos and that that in itself is a problem because it might be very difficulty for that one organisation to do the work needed in the timeframe set out, not to mention the costs

Again, it is crucially important that there be a proper timeframe for a lot of work to happen and it would seem from that that, indeed, in the commercial area at least there have been some significant advances made probably over the greater part of a decade and a half or so in the ACT. Again I think the ACT is in a better position compared with the states but I think everyone in this Assembly, from what I can gather, recognises the need to do whatever we can to come up with a good regime that will cover all the problems that have been quite correctly identified, make it safe and make sure it works.

Accordingly, I hope at the end of the night we will come up with some legislation that will point us in that direction. But I do stress it is going to be rather hard in the space of a week to do it. Therefore I think most people in this place would accept the need to have experts go away, come up with a fully working regime, report back, I would hope, with the necessary rules, regulations and law changes that are needed as a result of all that expert work that is going to be done over the next 12 months, and then put a full regime in place.

The commencement date of, effectively, January 2006 is a realistic one. There are a number of problems, which I will come to in the detail stage, in what is being proposed. With those comments, Mr Speaker, again I congratulate Mrs Cross for bringing this issue forward. I thank the various officers and the various groups such as the MBA, the Property Council, the HIA, the Asbestos Diseases Foundation and everyone who has been involved in a bit of a mad flurry in the last week to get the matter to this stage. I also thank the minister’s office for their assistance and their efforts here, together with, of course, Parliamentary Counsel who do a sterling job in coming up with amendments, in an ongoing process like this, very quickly indeed.

MS DUNDAS (8.40): Today we are discussing a very important issue that will continue to affect the ACT for many years to come. I want to start by thanking Mrs Cross for bringing this issue to the attention of the Assembly, as successive governments in the territory have long neglected it.

The ideas behind this bill are very simple. Asbestos kills, and it is long past the time when governments around the country should have acted to ensure that exposure to this deadly substance is stopped. Governments have been slow to respond, despite calls for decades for the issue to be dealt with. The evidence that asbestos is a lethal and dangerous substance has been present for decades. Indeed evidence that asbestos caused

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