Page 388 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 18 February 2020
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the negative impacts of all the other by-products of a commercial activity. Things like waste handling, storage and removal, along with customer traffic, must be carefully thought out. It should not be impossible to get the right balance at the design and construction stages. I note that there is an ongoing conversation in the community at the moment over commercial gyms in mixed-use developments, and I think the concerns that have been raised there are quite valid.
There were some concerns raised with us about this bill regarding the renewed ability for off-the-plan buyers to exit their contracts if there is sufficient change from the original offer subsequent to signing the contract. Suggestions have been made that this would affect the financing of said apartments and that the banks may be reluctant because of the weakening of the contract. We are supportive of this change because of the protection that it offers to consumers, but I note that that concern has been raised.
All in all, we will carefully monitor the practical impacts of this legislation, as I am sure will the minister and those in the chamber with us today. We will not hesitate to perform surgery on the legislation if affected stakeholders find its practical application an overwhelming or impossible challenge. I also hope that the impacts of this bill do not result in a massive and constipated pipeline of disputes awaiting ACAT attention. ACAT already carries a major workload, and this bill has the potential to create even more additional costs and even more frustration.
I would like to thank Ms Le Couteur and her staff for our extremely positive engagement regarding this bill, and also, albeit late in the piece, the engagement from the minister’s office. In conclusion, this side of the chamber will assume a degree of cautious optimism and support this bill, with more to come in the amendment space.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.07): The Greens will be supporting Mr Gentleman’s bill. It represents the first tranche of work to reform our strata laws. It is a complex bill and it amends a breathtaking 10 different acts. I am very indebted to OCN, who provided—for me, for my office and possibly for other offices—a written up set of all 10 of the acts with the different amendments. It is a huge body of work.
On the subject of it being a huge body of work, I would like to very much thank the staff in EPSDD for the work they have done on it. I understand from some of the participants in the consultative group that they felt that this process was very well managed by directorate staff. They had some comments that it would have been nice if it had been quicker, and I do not think anyone would disagree with that, but basically they felt the result was very positive. I would also like to acknowledge the drafters in PCO for trying to get the 10 bills to all line up the same and do the right bits. It must have been quite a significant task and we thank them all for that.
I would also like to thank Mr Parton’s office and Minister Gentleman’s office. Both of them have been particularly communicative and easy to deal with. That is particularly important, because this is a very long and complicated bill. Most of it comes under the category of dull but worthy, and almost all of it also comes under the category of it not being totally obvious what is going on, because of the 10 different bills that it is trying to amend. But some of it is seriously important. I am not going to go through
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