Page 1073 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2016
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The bill contains modifications to the Financial Management Act 1996 in its application to the university that simplify the undertaking of a range of activities. Under the modified provisions, UC will only have to apply for Treasury’s approval of its joint venture and company‐related activities where they are significant in nature. These new processes will enable appropriate financial oversight to government without hindering UC’s operations. The proposed amendments address UC’s concerns about unnecessary regulatory burden without unacceptably changing the risks for the ACT government in its oversight and responsibility for the financial governance of the University of Canberra.
Turning to signed complaints, the bill includes amendments to various legislative requirements regarding complaints to be submitted in writing and signed by the complainant. Removing this requirement will facilitate public access to government by enabling complaints to be made electronically, thereby providing a simpler and more convenient complaints process. In this day and age where people expect to be able to make submissions to government and to deal with all sorts of administrative processes online, this is a very obvious and necessary change.
In terms of statutory declarations, the bill includes amendments to remove the need for a statutory declaration in certain circumstances. The requirement for authorised witnesses means that statutory declarations can be incompatible with the development of online processing, again underlining the point that I was just making. Amendments will streamline the application process and allow applications to be completed and processed in digital format. This will enable the transition to online application processing, helping to make Canberra a modern digital city.
With regard to agents trust accounts, the bill includes amendments to the Agents Act 2003 to reduce administrative pressure on licensed real estate, business, and stock and station agents when establishing a trust account. Licensees have been required to submit details within two business days of becoming licensed, which presents a significant administrative pressure. The amendments will require the time frame to be seven business days. The seven-day window will not compromise consumer protection.
Regarding charitable collections, the bill amends the Charitable Collections Act to reduce the reporting burden on incorporated associations that also hold charitable collection licences by aligning timing for reporting. The differences in reporting times under this act present an administrative burden on a number of incorporated associations in the ACT. They are required to produce two sets of financial reports. Aligning the reporting will remove the need to create these two sets of reports at varying times. Clearly, particularly for charities, the less administrative burden they have the better, so that they can focus on the good works they are seeking to do in the community. This is a good example of where a simple adjustment to legislation, which will largely go unnoticed in the community, will make a very significant impact for those that are covered by the change in the legislation.
The bill amends the Gaming Machine Act 2004 to allow approved lotteries to be advertised on licensed premises, both internally and externally, provided the signage
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