Page 3612 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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As Mr Hargreaves has outlined, JACS bills are one of the two major types of omnibus bills which the government uses to effect change to the ACT statute book. The omnibus bill program was developed in response to the need for greater flexibility in the drafting of amendments for revision purposes and to minimise costs associated with keeping ACT legislation up to date. Omnibus bills enable legislative amendments and repeals to be made that, taken alone, would generally be insufficient to justify separate legislation.
On introduction, I brought members’ attention to the motion regarding omnibus bills that was supported by the Assembly in March. The motion called on the government to, firstly, adhere to the generally accepted practice of using omnibus bills to deal only with amendments to legislation that are minor, technical and non-contentious in nature, and, secondly, bring forward amendments of a more substantive nature in separate bills dealing specifically with those amendments. I reiterate that the government is supportive of ensuring that major new initiatives and major new policy are pursued through distinct, separate bills. The government is also supportive of ensuring that the norm is that a majority of the substantive issues pursued through a JACS bill would not be controversial.
I remain confident that this bill honours and upholds this commitment. The amendments in the bill involve a mixture of minor and technical amendments, as well as more substantive, yet uncontroversial, amendments. The technical amendments update the language and terminology used in ACT legislation, and the more substantive amendments ensure that the legislation operates effectively and in a manner consistent with the government’s intention. While substantive in nature, the government maintains that these amendments are non-contentious.
While the bill amends 19 acts and regulations, the amendments can be categorised into four categories: consequential amendments to apply a new definition of “bankrupt” or “personally insolvent” across the ACT statute book; amendments to the Prostitution Act to update the language used in the act; amendments to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2008 to clarify an ambiguity in the act in relation to the appointment of temporary presidential and non-presidential members; and amendments to the Magistrates Court Act to ensure that there is a consistent procedure for dealing with a failure to attend court in response to a summons.
Turning to the detail around a number of these matters, amendments have been made to legislation across my portfolio to conclude an exercise being conducted by parliamentary counsel to update the ACT statute book. Parliamentary counsel uses statute law amendment bills, or SLABs as they are more commonly known, to effect change to the ACT statute book. SLABs serve the important purpose of improving the overall quality of our statute book.
Late last year, the Statute Law Amendment Act 2009 (No 2) was enacted. Among other things, the act amended the Legislation Act by inserting a definition of “bankrupt” or “personally insolvent”. The new definition established a single term to cover the range of circumstances in which an individual may be considered bankrupt or personally insolvent under the commonwealth Bankruptcy Act. Consequential
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