Page 1000 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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Administration and Procedure—Standing Committee—Report 10—Inquiry into the ACT Register of Lobbyists, dated 21 March 2019, together with a copy of the extracts of the relevant minutes of proceedings.
I move:
That the report be adopted.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
Mr Ramsay, pursuant to notice, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and a Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (4.22): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
I am pleased to present the Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 to the Assembly. The introduction of this bill demonstrates the government’s continuing commitment to improving the operation of the territory’s laws. The bill makes a range of minor and non-controversial changes which improve our statute book and which have positive social and regulatory impacts.
Amongst the changes proposed, I am pleased to inform the Assembly that the bill will amend the Juries Regulation so that part-time teaching and emergency service professionals will be treated in the same way as their full-time colleagues for the purposes of determining when they need to serve on a jury. Currently, exemptions from jury duty for these professions only apply to full-time workers, and this raises an issue of gender equality. In data from 2016-17 the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that 45 per cent of women worked part time, while only 16 per cent of men worked part time. This gap widens for families with children under five years old, with 61 per cent of employed women working part time and only 8.4 per cent of employed men working part time.
The bill supports gender equality by removing the distinction between full-time and part-time work which disproportionately affects women, particularly those women with young children and who are working part time. This demonstrates the commitment of the government to achieving gender equality in our community in all respects.
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