Page 3554 - Week 11 - Thursday, 23 October 2014
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The areas being amended in this bill include licensing in relation to both casino employee licences and sports and race bookmaking licences. Licences will now be able to be issued for three years rather than the unspecified period in current legislation, which will reduce work for both the licence holder and the government in issuing these licences.
The amendments to the Gaming Machine Act will reduce requirements for licensed premises from the need to display a copy of their gaming licence at each and every entrance to a gaming area and will instead only require one copy of the licence to be displayed at the premises near just one entrance.
The Sale of Motor Vehicles Act is being amended similarly in that motor vehicle dealers and operators will still need licences but will not need to display a notice with seven-centimetre-high text stating the licensees’ name, type or premises.
The Hawkers Act is being amended in a similar way, as is the Pawnbrokers Act. We see a consistent theme here in seeking to ensure that minutiae specified in the legislation is removed. The level of detail of how many centimetres high a sign needs to be and the like is removed as it is clearly not required to meet the consumer awareness requirements we want to fulfil.
There are also amendments in the area of advertising. The amendment to the Fair Trading Act and the Fair Trading Regulation in relation to motor vehicle sales and repairs will allow advertisers to now omit their licence numbers from advertisements. I think we will all welcome that change. It has always seemed odd to me that in a 30-second radio ad that bit of information needed to be jammed in, and this will be an improvement that is perhaps the one people will most notice—although they perhaps will not know why they notice it.
When it comes to outdoor dining the amendment proposed for the Planning and Development Regulation relates to the current need for businesses to lodge a development application for any outdoor furniture or fixtures in their outdoor dining areas. This bill relaxes that requirement and instead only requires development approval for furniture or fixtures outside their premises that are not temporary—that is, they cannot be removed within 48 hours. This means that businesses do not need a development approval to have retail stands or displays, chairs, tables or umbrellas outside.
It is interesting to note that this particular change in process has been arrived at by the existing exemption for use of unleased land for community gardens. This bill aligns the definition of “outdoor dining area” with the definition used in the Smoke-Free Public Places Act, which is important as it is vital that any new legislation is compatible with the large array of legislation that applies in the ACT.
Another simple but very helpful amendment in this bill is the one that applies to the Public Unleased Land Act, which relaxes the requirement for a location plan and will mean that land use permit applications can be submitted with a site map which can be hand drawn if necessary as long as it is to scale. At the moment the act requires any
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video