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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 2108 ..

The Management Standard for redundancy entitlements will be tabled in accordance with the process for disallowable instruments.

Attachment 3

Document incorporated by the Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs

Mr Speaker, the Justice and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2004 is the tenth bill in a series of bills dealing with legislation within the Justice and Community Safety portfolio.

The Bill makes a number of substantive as well as minor and technical amendments to portfolio legislation. The amendments are as follows.

Agents Act 2003

The amendment to the Agents Act 2003 addresses the problem of theft from trust accounts. Without this amendment, it is possible for agents to pay money out of trust accounts using blank cheques. This loophole can encourage theft of trust money and was once prevented by the Agents Act 1968, which is now repealed.

The amendment reinserts the same provision from the repealed Act into the current Act. It provides that where a licensed agent pays money by cheque out of a trust account, the cheque must be payable to a specific person, and must be crossed and marked ‘not negotiable’. Due to the seriousness of the issue, breaching this new provision is a strict liability offence.

Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003

The amendment to the Civil Law (Sale of Residential Property) Act 2003 clarifies the definition of an energy efficiency rating statement under section 20. To avoid confusion, the definition has been changed to specify which energy guidelines are adopted under the Territory plan, being those applying to residential premises only.

Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002

The amendment to section 68(2)(b) of the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002 corrects a minor mistake in the section. It replaces the word ‘claimant’ with ‘respondent’.

There is also an amendment to the Civil Law (Wrongs) Act 2002 that inserts a transitional provision into the Act. The recent amendments to the Civil Law Wrongs Regulations that commenced in March this year included a transitional regulation that provides the time limit for plaintiffs to provide a notice of claim. The transitional provision is necessary for the smooth operation of the regulations. To remove any doubt about the application of the transitional provision, it has been duplicated as a section of the Act.

Cooperatives Act 2002

The amendment to section 451(2) of the Cooperatives Act 2002 provides that a person cannot trade or carry on business under the title of a ‘cooperative’ unless they are registered as a cooperative under the Act, or are an exempt body. Previously, to breach this section was an offence that automatically attracted a maximum penalty of 50 penalty units. This offence has been amended to be more flexible and to avoid the possibility of criminal proceedings.

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