Page 3698 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 26 August 2008
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my word for it; let us hear from the Strata Managers Institute of the ACT Inc. I quote from their release:
While the new legislation has taken more than 12 months to draft, the industry, unit owners and tenants have only been given three weeks to look at this hefty bill and that is not enough.
The Strata Managers Institute has called on the government to amend the bill and re-present it to the Assembly following this year’s election. It is not an unreasonable request. Here we are at almost 10.30 pm on the third last day of the Assembly, on such an important issue, and the government is going to use its numbers to ram it through. Remember that the Chief Minister said, “You have nothing to fear from majority government.” I think time and time again we have been let down by majority government.
What the government has done is made a half-arsed attempt at consultation with the community and with business back in 2006. Then, like so much of their consultation—and, again, you can go back to the minister’s flawed consultation on education—they have been ignored. Consultation is not always about acquiescence—you hear something and you give up—it is about listening to what people have said.
The critical issues that were raised in the consultation have not been listened to. They engaged a consultant. Mr Bugden drew up an issues paper and then nothing happened. And not only has nothing happened, the man who drew up the consultation paper and did the consultation has now been gagged. I am told he is not allowed to speak out; there is a confidentiality clause which has been evoked to stop him commenting on the flaws in this bill. If we have got an expert and that expert has been used, why would we not listen to what that gentleman has to say? Then the next thing was the local Strata Managers Institute made suggestions, comments and requests and they have not been heard either.
The minister will get up, I am sure, and say in his closing speech, “We have taken those bits out.” But, by his own admission, they are looking at other ways of putting them back in. You only have to look at the fact that the ACAT bill refers to processes here and the Agents Bill outlines the way in which money can be taken quite easily. And that money is still up for grabs.
It was most unfortunate that the minister sought to trivialise the complaints of people by referring to pets. Pets are an important issue. How pets are cared for and maintained in a unit complex is good for some and not necessarily good for others. But he has trivialised this whole process by his inability to detail, on at least two very important and probably far more important issues, how they will operate in the future. He simply says this bill is good because it lets people have pets. People can have pets now. It was like it was some revelation: “I, Andrew Barr, will allow you to have pets.” It is not true; you can have a pet now.
It is an interesting process. Perhaps it could be better. But to highlight that as the great strength of this bill, when you are talking about where people live and how they live and, perhaps most importantly for many of them, how they maintain where they live
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