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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (15 February) . . Page.. 28 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

relationship between a trader or business person and a consumer, there are issues on both sides of that equation or relationship which, from time to time, governments and parliaments may need to address.

It is probably wrong to assume, as perhaps was assumed in the past, that a consumer was always the most disadvantaged party in those proceedings and that the trader would always be in a very strong economic or other position relative to the consumer, because we know that in this city in particular the vast majority of businesses are small businesses and sometimes they themselves are the victims of unfair practices, not necessarily from consumers but from other businesses, and in a range of respects.

It is important that, to be effective, a government or parliamentary function which operates in the marketplace operate mutually; that is, so as to protect the position of both purchasers and vendors, of traders and consumers, in a way which recognises that they both have rights and both have responsibilities to each other. Getting away from the idea of having a government department or Minister responsible for the affairs of consumers - instead, to look at the affairs of all who trade in that marketplace - is a fair transition. I note that these days most governments round Australia have dispensed with Ministers for consumer affairs and, instead, have Ministers for fair trading.

Mr Stanhope has drawn attention to the amendments. It certainly is unreasonable to expect the Assembly to deal with the amendments with very little notice given of them, and I apologise for that lack of notice. The issues which the amendments give rise to are issues which have come to light in only the last few months, or even weeks, and were included late in the Bill because it was felt that they needed to be dealt with with some urgency, but were not included in the original Bill because the information was not available at the time. For example, our very efficient and diligent Master of the Supreme Court has recently found some provisions in the Commonwealth's Evidence Act which are inoperative in respect of the ACT, and those amendments need to be made in order to make sure that the Act continues to provide a framework for the provision of evidence in our courts.

Similarly, in the last few weeks, an appeal has been mounted, or at least is coming to the stage where it will be heard in the High Court, by Alan Bond against a sentence in Western Australia. A number of arguments there about the capacity of the Commonwealth to bring appeals against decisions of state prosecuting authorities, or vice versa, have been given rise to by that appeal and it is felt appropriate that we anticipate that problem by making it clear, particularly in a jurisdiction such as the ACT, that such appeals can be mounted.

That is one of the amendments which have been put forward in those 16 pages to which Mr Stanhope referred. I am happy for members to have more time to look at those matters and to return to those issues a little later. Once again, I thank the Assembly for its support for this Bill.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

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