Page 2035 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 4 June 2019
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will be amended to extend jury exemption to part-time emergency services staff and teachers, but not to casual or volunteer staff in those professions.
The bill makes a number of amendments to the Legal Aid Act 1977, including to allow matters to be referred to Legal Aid for family dispute resolution without the need for a grant of legal assistance, to allow Legal Aid review committees to be convened more flexibly by using a combination of members from each of the three panels as long as there is at least one legal practitioner, and to ensure that legal expertise in particular areas, for example disability, are considered when allocating work to a private legal practitioner.
The bill amends the Legal Profession Regulation 2007 to improve trust account records and to add “legal practice as an in-house lawyer” as a qualification for a practising certificate.
The bill amends the Magistrates Court Act 1930 to clarify that the Magistrates Court can exercise the civil claims jurisdiction conferred on it by the Fair Work Act 2009 and amends the Notaries Public Act 1984 to align oaths and affirmations with other territory legislation. There are a number of amendments to the Territory Records Act and the Victims of Crime Act 1994 in relation to the operation and appointments of the Victims Advisory Board.
As I said we will support all of those clauses and recognise them as supporting improvements to our statute book. We have a long record of supporting such amendments. We in the opposition also have a long record of pursuing open and transparent government and supporting changes to improving child protection services and not letting major areas of concern pass as minor amendments. We will be supporting the bill in principle today, but in the detail stage, as I foreshadowed, Mrs Kikkert will speak and oppose the elements of the bill relating to child protection services and the FOI Act.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.29): The Greens will be supporting the bill. The bill makes a large number of changes to a large number of acts. As it is a JACS SLAB and is only making small technical changes, I will not go through all of those changes.
I will talk about the Freedom of Information Act amendments. Like the other amendments, these amendments are basically technical. They are designed to improve the operation of the Freedom of Information Act, as with the other acts, without making major policy changes.
It is the role of the legislature to ensure that legislation is kept up to date with modern language and trends and to provide greater clarity in legislation where the meaning is unclear. For that reason I support the amendments as a whole. But I will discuss the changes to the Freedom of Information Act 2016 because this section has caused some concern, including to the Greens.
As a result of this, we have consulted with quite a few stakeholders and received briefings from the government. I have come to the conclusion that these amendments
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