Page 3502 - Week 08 - Thursday, 18 August 2011
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see whether it met their requirements. They wrote back, and I think it is useful to quote from the letter. They said, in a letter to me on 25 July:
I have looked at the proposed amendment which in effect is the addition of section 16(3A) which says to the effect this section does not limit section 40. Section 40 appears to have some amendments proposed to the effect that the registrar can correct a register taking into account any finding of a relevant court.
Section 16(3) will still be in its current form which refers to omission of a parent requiring an order of the ACT Supreme Court. In our view to refer to a court of any … jurisdiction would be clearer. I am not sure what the relevant officer may do at the Office of Regulatory Services given existence of section 16(3) in its current form. Notwithstanding in the way it is drafted it theoretically meets the problems but plain English would have been good.
I was quite perplexed. It took a while for us to join all the parts to see whether this amendment did what it was said to do.
The next amendment makes changes to the Crimes (Sentence Administration) Act 2005. This amendment would exclude time served in custody from being used to discount a reparation order in the same way that it can be used to discount a court-imposed fine. To discount a reparation order would discount the right of the beneficiary of that order to full reparation. This would thwart the intent of the order and disadvantage the right of the beneficiary to restitution.
The next amendment is to the Land Titles (Unit Titles) Act 1970, which would replace prescribed standards and specifications for unit titles documentation with a generic provision that would allow the registrar-general to approve the format by way of a notifiable instrument. Essentially what this means is that currently there is quite an onerous set of requirements about paper size on which unit plans must be printed before they can be lodged with the registrar-general, and they are non-standard paper sizes.
This is a good amendment because it will reduce red tape and cost for applicants. In brief discussions with the principal writers of unit plans in the ACT, the overwhelming response was, “About time that this change was made.” There were adjectives added to that which I will not repeat here. But it will be so only if the registrar takes a pragmatic view and does not simply replicate the current prescription as an authorised course. I will be monitoring the legislation register for the notifiable instrument, and I expect to see a more workable and flexible set of specifications and requirements.
The next amendment comes from another very current case. Thankfully the government has been a little more diligent and understanding in dealing with this matter. This bill amends the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance) Act 1983. Members will recall the very tragic and very public case from 2009 in which a young driver of a motor vehicle, by culpable driving, crashed his vehicle, killing two friends and seriously injuring another, all of whom were passengers in the vehicle. The driver has received what many consider to be a light sentence for the serious incident and, despite an appeal by the DPP, the full bench of the Court of Appeal upheld the Supreme Court decision.
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