Page 4063 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 17 November 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.13): The opposition will be supporting this bill. It is to amend a number of ACT acts and subsidiary laws for statute law revision purposes only. As such, as I said, we will be supporting it. It was introduced by the Attorney-General on 29 October and is divided into three schedules. The schedules are only present to group the various amendments and provide some clarity. The first schedule contains minor amendments to four acts and regulations with a more substantive change within the bill. The Auditor-General Act 1996 is amended to give the minister more flexibility in how a response to an Auditor-General’s report may be presented and extends the period of presenting the response from three months to four months. This seems to be a reasonable and measured adjustment. Importantly, this amendment does nothing to change the reporting arrangements of the Auditor-General.
The Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act 2008 and the Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act Regulation 2008 are amended to bring them in line with the current national poisons standards. This is a standard agreed by all states and territories and enables uniform drug supply across Australia. It is important that the territory meets its obligations under the national agreements in this way.
Finally, the Road Transport (Third-Party Insurance) Act 2008 is amended in a number of ways. This bill allows surveillance film to be included within the meaning of the “required document” to ensure that parties have enough information to assess the liability and quantum for motor vehicle accidents. These amendments also enable the courts to issue a stay in proceedings and order parties to comply with the pre-trial requirements, such as compulsory conferences and exchanging final offers before taking further action.
The bill also allows technical and structural amendments to the Legislation Act 2001. These are noted in the government’s documents to be minor, non-controversial amendments initiated by the Parliamentary Counsel’s Office. A one-year amendment provides more flexibility in relation to tabling requirements for documents that must be presented to the Legislative Assembly.
We will monitor the effects of these changes in the bill but, in the broad, I thank the PC’s office and the members of the directorate who have brought these changes forward to help streamline our processes. Hopefully, it will lead to more effective and efficient government. Goodness knows we need it.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (5.16): The bill makes minor and technical amendments to several ACT acts and regulations. I agree they are minor and non-controversial and am happy to support the bill.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Health, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Capital Metro) (5.17), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video