Page 1313 - Week 04 - Thursday, 30 March 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Boundaries Act in this bill deal with the extreme circumstance where a fence is in such poor condition that it presents a safety risk.
Ordinarily, fence repair disputes must be determined by the ACAT before either neighbour can undertake work. There are two limited exceptions. If a fence must be repaired to protect people living at one of the properties, or to protect animals, emergency repairs can then be undertaken. The amendments recognise that there will be situations where Canberrans will need to urgently repair fences to protect other people who might be at the property, for example, visitors. The same risks that apply to residents of a property can also apply to visitors. This amendment will mean that if there is any need to protect people as a result of a damaged fence, emergency repairs can be undertaken.
The changes to the Legal Profession Act in this bill remove red tape for Canberra’s in-house lawyers. In-house lawyers are those who work for a corporation and provide advice as an employee as opposed to lawyers who work in a separate practice. The amendments in this bill were suggested by the ACT Law Society to help clarify the laws that apply in particular to corporate lawyers. These amendments provide that lawyers should be allowed to provide services to related bodies corporate, not just the corporation that directly employs them. This makes sense when you consider the wide variety of corporate structures in Canberra, where a single company might own or otherwise participate in a number of related entities. While this is a technical amendment, it shows the government is willing to respond to good suggestions.
This bill also contains measures to improve the efficient operation of government and community services. The amendments to the Legal Aid Act are an example. These amendments will first and foremost help Legal Aid to undertake reviews of its decisions by increasing the number of panel members available for a review committee. A legal aid review committee is a body set up with a member from the Bar Association, a member from the Law Society and a community member. The committee reviews decisions by Legal Aid about whether to grant assistance to a person.
Currently, only nine people can be eligible for appointment from each group at any given time. This bill will increase that number to 14. This means that more people will be available for Legal Aid to call on to help with a review of its decisions. These amendments assist the effective and efficient operation of the ACT’s largest provider of legal assistance to vulnerable Canberrans.
The bill also makes amendments to line up the timing of legislation with implementation work in government. The bill makes amendments to the default application date of the Criminal Code 2002 so that it becomes an application date declared by the minister via notifiable instrument. The Criminal Code contains a particularly wide-ranging series of changes to the principles of criminal responsibility in our statutes. The code had been due to commence on 1 July. However, more work needs to be done in preparation.
The commencement of the new Freedom of Information Act 2016 will be delayed, from 1 July 2017 to 1 January 2018. This will ensure the effective administration of
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video