Page 4537 - Week 12 - Thursday, 15 October 2009
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to a proceeding, to help prevent tribunal matters from becoming too complicated with new claims and new parties. These changes will help the tribunal to manage its proceedings and deliver timely and effective services to the community.
The Guardianship and Management of Property Act 1991 is amended by this bill to give the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal a power that was previously exercised by the Guardianship Tribunal. This amendment revives the specific power to demand documents and information by written notice. This change will remove any doubt that the ACAT retains all the powers of the Guardianship Tribunal.
The Agents Act 2003 regulates real estate agents and other licensed professionals in the territory. Under the act, real estate agents are required to keep trust accounts, to protect client funds. The Office of Regulatory Services suggested an amendment to account for those agents who only teach other agents, or are between jobs with a real estate company. These agents do not receive any client money, so the requirement to keep a trust account means that there are sometimes empty trust accounts kept only for licensing purposes. This bill would allow the commissioner for fair trading to create an exemption for an agent in these circumstances. The ease of complying with the law would be improved, and consumer protection would not be diminished in any way.
This bill also improves the regulation of firearms in the territory, by including a transitional provision from the Firearms Regulation 2008 into the Firearms Act 1996. This transitional provision was always intended to be included in the act. The provision regulates the use of certain prohibited firearms in target shooting competitions. By including this provision in the Firearms Act, the existing rules regarding these firearms will be made permanent.
I will now discuss the second category of amendments in this bill. Because of changes in other laws and in the administration of the government, regular updates are necessary. The next set of amendments I will present updates each affected piece of legislation in response to changed circumstances. These amendments demonstrate the government’s awareness of change, and the government’s responsiveness to the most current needs of the community.
The Consumer Credit Act 1995 amendments are an example of the way the government uses the JACS bill process to respond to changing conditions. The commonwealth is currently working with the states and territories to develop a national consumer credit law. How this new law will cover interest rate caps has not yet been decided.
The ACT’s current law protects consumers by setting an interest rate cap for credit contracts. The ACT Consumer Credit Act 1995, however, will be replaced by the forthcoming commonwealth legislation. This bill contains amendments that would preserve the ACT’s interest rate cap of 48 per cent per year. The rate cap protects vulnerable consumers from predatory lending practices. The rate cap will be preserved by transferring these provisions to the Fair Trading Act 1992, so that changes to the consumer credit law will not affect the ACT’s interest rate caps. The regulations under each act will also be amended to achieve this end.
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