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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4225 ..

six months. The other two commence on 16 January 2006. As I said earlier, the commencement date of 16 January 2006, which was in Mrs Cross’s initial bill, is a very sensible date. It enables a number of things to occur, and it ensures that any problems that crop up as a result of the legislation evolving will be able to be fixed with minimal fuss to make the better law.

A number of issues have been raised with us in relation to the six months provision—specifically, that it may be difficult for inspectors to provide reports within six months. Also, the definition needs looking at. I have been advised today that there might be some legal problems in relation to what “ought reasonably to know” means. There is substantive case law there. There are also questions about duty of care and obligations, what “renovation work” means, required information and also relevant work. Similarly, when you get to clause 6, there are problems in relation to high-risk activity and, again, questions about duty of care and obligation—although that is meant to commence on 16 January 2006.

For consistency’s sake, to ensure that this legislation is going to work, I have been advised that there are problems with six months. It may well be too short. The other two sections commence on 16 January 2006—hence the amendment I am making here to the commencement date. That adds greater consistency and will certainly alleviate any of the potential problems that have been pointed out to us, which may well arise from this particular clause if it is not consistent with the others.

MS GALLAGHER (Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Children, Youth and Family Support, Minister for Women and Minister for Industrial Relations) (9.39): The government will not be supporting this amendment. It seeks to delay the commencement of section 5, which is the duty to inform if there is knowledge of asbestos on the premises or reasonable grounds to believe there is asbestos on the premises. There is no need to delay that until 16 January 2006.

We are setting up a series of duties. The first one is the duty to inform if you believe there may be asbestos on your premises. It does not require any further obligation on the part of the owner or occupier of the premises. The second duty is that, if there is high-risk activity in section 6, there is a responsibility for owners and occupiers to inspect. The third is that, for points of sale post 16 January 2006, an asbestos report be provided.

We are dealing with this issue in a staged way but, if someone has knowledge that there is asbestos and is then going to engage in a high-risk or dangerous activity around that asbestos, there is no logical reason to delay having to say this until 16 January 2006. The government will not be supporting the amendment.

MRS CROSS (9.41): I thank Mr Stefaniak and the Liberal opposition for working with me in the past few weeks. They came out in support of this legislation. I understand why Mr Stefaniak is doing this. Given that the minister has now put together a more comprehensive approach that sees that we can do some of the things we are aiming to do sooner, I cannot support the amendment. I support the sentiment behind it and again thank the Liberal opposition for being extremely collaborative on this bill during the last few weeks.

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