Page 2084 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
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Alas, Mr Assistant Speaker, the government’s record is not good in relation to the management of cultural precincts, with the lead failure, of course, being the Kingston arts precinct. In April the Northside Chronicle told the story of Gold Creek homestead, a valuable heritage asset for the ACT, left languishing in disuse and degradation in the hands of the ACT government for over 10 years. There was the debacle of the historic caretaker’s cottage on the Cotter Road. The eviction of the occupants in 2009 was for reasons that can at best be described as spurious. The occupants had cared for and preserved the cottage for 20 years. The occupants were thrown out with no ongoing planning for the cottage’s preservation or future use; there was only a security fence that quickly proved futile. A future use was cobbled together later in some attempt to appease the community’s annoyance over the government’s handling of this matter.
These are the examples of a cultural facilities plan for the ACT, managed by the ACT government. All I can say is that we need to be very concerned about the future of Civic Square if it is handed over directly to the ACT government. I am certainly not sure that this amendment falls in any of the categories of minor, technical or non-controversial.
Schedule 2 provides for minor, non-controversial amendments to the Legislation Act initiated by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office. This bill makes a number of amendments relating to the definition of “Australian citizen” and there are amendments relating to ACT Fire and Rescue following the change of the name from the ACT Fire Brigade.
Schedule 3 provides for minor or technical amendments initiated by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office. In this bill 58 acts and regulations are amended, none of which are of any particular consequence, although they are all important.
Schedule 4 usually provides for routine repeals, but no repeals are made in this bill.
This bill is testament to the work of the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office, with which I continue to be impressed. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.36): The Greens will be supporting this bill today. It amends 62 separate acts and regulations and, in the process, updates the ACT statute book in a number of ways. Taken as a whole the amendments certainly improve and streamline our system of laws in the ACT.
The majority of the amendments are technical changes initiated by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office. The bill itself contains a detailed explanation of these changes and I will not repeat the information that is already contained there.
I would like to comment briefly on the changes to the Working with Vulnerable People (Background Checking) Act 2011. As members may be aware, the background checking act will be rolled out in a staged implementation over six years. As each year progresses, a new batch of organisations will be asked to comply with the legislation. The amendments today change that implementation schedule somewhat. One category of organisation will be brought forward a year and three categories of
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