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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4233 ..

a whole, thought-out regime before then, what is the point of putting this in now if it is not absolutely necessary? Quite clearly, given the time frame of this legislation, it is not. Some groups that have also spoken to members raised other issues. The Property Council, the MBA and another group were very critical and strongly objected to this clause. They saw the minister about it for a number of other reasons, apart from those mentioned by the Law Society.

There are also questions about the cost of obtaining the report and questions taken in relation to the time of obtaining the information needed. What is up-to-date—the last 12 months, the last two years or 10 years? It is not a simple report, and the time that will be taken to both carry out the inspection and create the report is substantial. There were suggestions that it might take up to three months at some cost.

All of this can be teased through by the government task force that has been set up, but there are significant industry concerns in relation to this. Even problems in relation to a reference to the person likely to be a purchaser could extend to any person, not just the person inspecting the property for sale. There are also problems in relation to inspectors being unable to obtain professional indemnity insurance. There will be a number of practical problems if this clause goes through tonight—a clause that will anyway not be operative until January 2006.

This legislation has been put together very quickly and, as Mrs Cross and others have said, everyone has worked very hard. But there are obviously problems with it, and it is crucial that we take heed of what these groups are saying, especially when a body like the Law Society has significant problems with it and there is no practical difficulty in not having it in the legislation now but having it come back, in whatever form, after the expert task force goes through it, does its job and comes down with model legislation and regulations to implement the scheme being put in place tonight.

I strongly caution members about this particular clause. It is not going to advance what we are seeking to do here tonight. Out of all the potential clauses, this one will have considerable adverse problems, recognised by a number of people, if it is put in at this stage.

MRS CROSS (10.17): Mr Speaker, contrary to Mr Stefaniak’s comments, this is a significant clause, and I thank the government for including it in its amendments. With this legislation we were hoping to make aware not only home owners, home owner/renovators and workers but also those about to buy a property. This was a significant part of what we were trying to achieve, and I believe that this covers it.

Mr Stefaniak referred to the cost of a report. As I said before, what price do you put on a life? How long it takes and the technical matters will be worked out by the government and the task force. But without this I do not think that ADFA and I could have reached a consensus. The fact that the government was prepared to come to the party on this shows that it is taking this issue seriously.

Not only that; I am a bit dubious about the motivation of some of the organisations that lobbied against this. I understand they have a membership they have got to protect but, at the end of the day, legislators are here to look after the welfare of all the community, not just a small group. One of the organisations that supported what we were trying to

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