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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4218 ..

it is a rental property. The government’s scheme will set up an accessible and comprehensive database that can ensure that all information on the location of materials containing asbestos is freely and publicly available. It also more easily supports information campaigns and working with industry equipment hire and hardware businesses. Finally, housing these amendments in the Dangerous Substances Act provides regulation, inspection, compliance and enforcement mechanisms, which is very important.

All members here have had forwarded to them legal advice furnished to the Asbestos Diseases Foundation of Australia from Turner Freeman. I will quote from the conclusion:

Although the ACT Legislation as proposed does not go as far as the ADFA proposal would like, it represents a significant advance in the current Legislative set up. Our only reservations are that many of the important factors and definitions which will give teeth to the Legislation will not come into existence until the Task Force has done its work or until certain definitions are provided under Regulation. For this reason the real effect of the Legislation will be not seen until the Regulations are set in place, or the Task Force has delivered its final findings sometime around 1 August 2005.

Given that the ADFA solution to require an Asbestos Certificate would also have some preparation time while the industry gears up towards being able to prepare such a certificate, the preparation time is not unreasonable provided that the Task Force is properly equipped and resourced—

something that I certainly would be stressing to the minister. I continue:

The Cross Amendments, while commendable in spirit, do not appear to us to be an appropriate solution, and do not go as far as the Government’s own proposal provided that the Government carries through with the Task Force review and regulatory change.

In conclusion, we must give qualified support to the ACT Government solution on the proviso that the Task Force receives the funding and resources necessary to properly complete the job.

I think it is important that we have that advice on the record, too, particularly regarding the funding resources issue.

I believe we have arrived at a comprehensive and intelligent response to the challenges we face with asbestos. I believe the process has been too rushed to remain entirely confident that all the details are correct at this stage but I remind members that the task force will have some months in which to conduct the necessary research and development and an opportunity to ensure that this important legislation has the proper scrutiny before it comes into force.

This is indeed a very important piece of public health legislation and I commend everyone who has worked so hard on it in the last couple of weeks because I know it has been a lot of work but it has been very worth while.

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