Page 898 - Week 03 - Thursday, 7 April 2022
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
assistant agent. Likewise, a Certificate IV in Real Estate Practice and 12 months experience as an assistant agent will be required for a class 2 agent and a Diploma of Property (Agency Management) and two years experience as an agent will be required to be licensed as a class 1 agent.
The bill also contains amendments to remove barriers to work for highly skilled applicants by allowing the Commissioner for Fair Trading to grant exemptions from prescribed qualification requirements for applicants who hold an equivalent higher qualification. This means that applicants who hold relevant diploma or university degree qualifications will be able to enter the industry without having to reskill or complete a lower qualification.
A range of transitional arrangements have been included in the bill to minimise any disruption to the industry. As part of these arrangements, existing salespersons will be automatically transitioned to an assistant agent registration. Similarly, existing agents will be automatically transitioned to either a class 2 agent licence or a class 1 agent licence, depending on their experience and whether they have worked as a licensee-in-charge of a real estate business.
Given the significant responsibility held by licensees-in-charge as the overarching supervisor of a real estate business, class 1 agent licences issued to existing agents will be subject to a condition that they complete seven units of gap training by 1 July 2024. The imposition of gap training means the community can have confidence that agents who hold a class 1 licence have completed training across core risk areas of the profession, such as compliance, trust management and ethics.
The bill also contains amendments to the licensing framework for gaming machine suppliers within the Gaming Machine Act 2004 and the Gaming Machine Regulation 2001. The amendments support the ACT government’s commitment to reduce gambling harm through strengthening consumer frameworks.
Firstly, the amendments provide that only corporations rather than individuals are eligible be approved as suppliers of gaming machines. A gaming machine supplier enables a person to sell, install or maintain gaming machines and the equipment or systems designed for use with gaming machines. The amendments give effect to how the industry operates in practice. No individual has been licensed as a sole operator gaming machine supplier in the territory in the time the current act has been in effect. Due to the complexity of manufacturing, selling or servicing machines to national standards, it is unlikely that an individual would operate in such a capacity.
Given the technical nature of this occupation, the amendments to corporatise supplier approvals should mitigate risk to gaming machine users if individuals are approved as suppliers within the ACT. The amendments to limit approvals to corporations mean that gaming machine suppliers are registered as companies under the commonwealth Corporations Act. This ensures that the entities are subject to additional regulatory checks, as all companies must comply with various notification and reporting requirements under the commonwealth act.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video