Page 1584 - Week 04 - Thursday, 25 March 2010
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government actively promotes the changes that are brought by this bill and its amendments and the regulations that will follow. It will need to promote those changes to both the industry and consumers.
We cannot have another unit titles situation, which the minister also bungled, whereby it was only after pressure from the Assembly, led by the Canberra Liberals, that Mr Corbell took steps to provide information to unit owners and tenants. So I call on Mr Corbell to resist the temptation to put the bill and its amendments back into the bottom drawer of his desk after it passes into law today. There will be much work for the government to do to ensure that this bill is well known throughout the industry and the community and its effects are understood.
There are a considerable number of matters that the MTA considers should have been covered in the new legislation. I will not dwell on those now, other than to note that the amendments the government will put forward will establish an advisory committee. One of the functions of that committee will be to review the operations of the new act and report to the Assembly within one year of its commencement. That will be an opportunity to address the remaining concerns.
But will this belligerent attorney listen to and act upon the report rather than table it in the Assembly and put it in the bottom drawer of his desk? Time will tell. The history of this bill is one of the most telling indictments of the ACT Labor government’s hypocrisy as to a philosophy of consultation, its arrogance as to its attitude of “we know best” and its disdain for anyone who comes forward with a plan that is right for their industry.
This bill, utterly lacking in any consultative backing, was introduced after years of wasted work and effort by the industry, twice listed for debate and then quickly withdrawn, and finally brought back after the minister had been brought kicking and screaming to the table and after he had agreed to amendments. The minister’s behaviour in this has been an utter disgrace and I think that he should heartily apologise to the industry, which is trying to get its house in order, for his obstruction in this matter.
As I said, we will be supporting the bill in principle. We look forward to the amendments that will improve this bill, whilst not making it the streamlined piece of work which the Motor Trades Association had anticipated.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (5.17): The Greens are pleased that this bill has finally actually reached the Assembly for debate. Mrs Dunne has touched on some of the chequered history of this piece of legislation. There have been a number of occasions where the government have flagged that they would like it to be debated, only for it to be withdrawn because it was not ready for debate. The Greens are pleased to have played our part in holding the government to account by ensuring they do the work required before debate and a vote take place. The final product of the government being held to account is a bill that is worthy of support, and the Greens do, indeed, support the bill today.
Before I speak about the bill, I would like to make some brief comments about the process by which the bill got to the chamber. Mrs Dunne has spoken of some of the
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