Page 3274 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .


MS SZUTY (5.16): I seek leave to move the amendments circulated in my name together.

Leave granted.

MS SZUTY: I move:

Page 1, line 5, clause 1, omit "Commercial and".

Page 5, line 17, clause 3, definition of "Tribunal", omit "Commercial and".

Page 19, line 29, heading to Part VII, omit "COMMERCIAL AND".

Page 19, line 31, clause 58, omit "Commercial and".

Page 1, Title, omit "Commercial and".

These amendments refer to the title of the Bill and consequently where it appears throughout the Bill. I have always believed that the title of the Commercial and Tenancy Tribunal Bill 1994 is a very cumbersome one. In fact, in the early stages of the various discussions I have had with people, I would have preferred it to be called the Commercial and Retail Tenancy Tribunal Bill, because that was what fundamentally I thought the Bill was about, being relevant to both commercial and retail premises. There are some difficulties with that. Therefore, the amendments reflect an approach where I would prefer to see the Bill known as the Tenancy Tribunal Bill 1994. If the Bill is known by this name, commercial leases, retail leases and specified premises leases come under the scope of the Bill. There are also a number of other commercial matters, I believe, which may come before this tenancy tribunal also. I believe, Madam Speaker, that my amendments, if passed by the Assembly, would actually better reflect what the tenancy tribunal Bill 1994 is established for.

MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (5.18): Madam Speaker, in the spirit of compromise - in a sense, the hallmark of this Government - we are prepared to accept these amendments of Ms Szuty's. Could I also just say, Madam Speaker, that I neglected to thank - as I should have, of course - Parliamentary Counsel for the extensive amount of work that has been done, particularly lately, on this exercise. I apologise to the secretariat because the process of negotiation was going on right through to the very end. Indeed, our final amendment was drafted only late this afternoon. It was not immediately apparent, until really the debate was about to begin, that there would be essentially agreement for all the Government's amendments, with one exception. The additional amendment that the Government had moved made the Opposition rather more comfortable. So, we could move those as a block. Then we could deal with Mr Moore's as a block and then with Ms Szuty's as a block. I do apologise for the work the secretariat did over the lunch period in preparing the rather complex script which we did not need to use.


Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .