Page 2406 - Week 06 - Thursday, 24 June 2010
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endeavour to achieve and maintain consistency across jurisdictions participating in this scheme. It may be that SCAG ultimately comes back with a recommendation that reflects the purpose of Mr Rattenbury’s amendments. For now, however, for this legislation to work effectively, I believe it needs to be consistent. We will therefore not be supporting these amendments.
Amendments Nos 2 to 5, 7 and 8 and 10 to 12 negatived.
Remainder of bill as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Construction Occupations Legislation (Exemption Assessment) Amendment Bill 2010
Debate resumed from 6 May 2010, on motion by Mr Barr:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (12.02): I rise to speak on the Construction Occupations Legislation (Exemption Assessment) Amendment Bill 2010. The Canberra Liberals agree with the intent of this bill and will not oppose it. According to the accompanying explanatory statement, the bill will allow home owners to participate in a non-mandatory process to have some structures on their property certified. The structures are those which do not require either building approval or a development application.
Currently that means there are various structures which legitimately do not require approval but which will appear on sale contracts without any corresponding paperwork. This can cause an understandable level of doubt, particularly in negotiations for contract of sale. Buyers are rightly cautious about structures without paperwork, even if those structures do not strictly require it. Therefore, home owners and home buyers may like to see some official certification to state that the structure does indeed meet the requirements of the law.
This bill therefore has the potential to provide a level of certainty, a level of comfort, to all parties. At the moment, as outlined in the explanatory statement, people can determine for themselves whether what they propose to build is exempt from building approvals or development applications. The explanatory statement notes that the objective of the bill is to introduce a category of licensed people who can certify if a proposed development is exempt from the need to obtain development approval and/or building approval and to provide a legislative mechanism for applicants to obtain formal certification of the exempt status of a proposed development. The third objective is to provide new business opportunities for licensed people.
The Canberra Liberals have consulted industry and I will share some of the feedback we have received. For instance, the MBA has stated it should certainly create efficiencies and reduce unnecessary workload through the applications secretariat. As I stated earlier, for the reasons above the Canberra Liberals will support the bill.
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