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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4232 ..

To take a date and say that all buildings built after it are not high risk, without the work being done, is a little bit arbitrary. The government’s original proposal to have these things prescribed under regulations that will be informed by the work of the task force is a better way to go. It also leaves open the question of what a high-risk activity is, so that we can have a little bit more work done on what is being done to dangerous material that makes it high-risk and where this material is located.

I support the idea of the task force doing this work before we start writing dates into legislation, but I do understand where Mrs Cross is coming from with this amendment. There was, for a number of members of the community, concern that a report would have to be written for every house, without really taking into consideration the impact that that would have on the rest of the community in relation to how sales progress, especially in suburbs where any asbestos is unlikely to be found.

Mrs Cross’s amendment to Ms Gallagher’s amendment negatived.

Clause 6 of Ms Gallagher’s amendment No 3 agreed to.

Clause 7 of Ms Gallagher’s amendment No 3.

MR STEFANIAK (10.11): The opposition will be opposing this clause. This clause does not come into effect until 16 January 2006; yet of all the clauses this has caused real problems for the various industry groups—and, indeed, when they saw it today, for the Law Society. This clause deals with the issue of asbestos reports. I make the point, first, that it does not start, under the minister’s amendments, until 16 January 2006 and, second, that we now have in place a regime where an expert task force will be looking at all these issues and will be coming to the next Assembly—some time in August, it would seem—with suggested regulations and law changes. This may well be changed and a full regime suggested after expert consideration.

Whilst the problems with the other two clauses we have just passed are not as big—and there are problems—this one has potentially serious side effects in relation to its being included now. The Law Society contacted the opposition using some fairly colourful language. They said that this could clobber the housing market. I do not think anyone in this place wants to see this groundbreaking piece of legislation we are passing tonight—and passing for all the right reasons: to protect public health and future generations—have unnecessary adverse effects. It would be unnecessary because it would not come into play effectively until January 2006 and may well be amended one way or the other as a result of the task force.

The Law Society goes on to say that the effect of this, if it goes through tonight, may be that lawyers will have to advise their clients—be they buyers or sellers—of this clause, which would perhaps lead to a rush of people buying or selling before the clause takes effect in January 2006. Another concern expressed by the Law Society is that buyers would invariably wait until this became law, which would have a significantly adverse effect on buying and selling properties in the ACT.

If it were for a really excellent purpose, I do not think anyone would have a problem. But, given that this will not come into force until January 2006 and that we will have

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