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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 08 Hansard (Tuesday, 3 August 2004) . . Page.. 3291 ..

MS TUCKER (10.43): This reform bill includes some technical tidying up changes and some policy changes. I will comment on a few parts of note. The Magistrates Court changes will clarify that there is a 12-month limit for the court to deal with infringement notices. The whole point of infringement notices is that they are a means of dealing simply and quickly with instances where the rules have been broken. The law as written on this point is messy and this amendment serves to tidy it up.

The amendment to the Pharmacy Act gives a statutory basis to the emergency actions taken by many pharmacists after the fires last January. Some people who lost their houses also lost scripts for essential medicines that were restricted substances. Pharmacists who had records of their regular medicinal needs were in the position where they could choose to supply that medicine but technically, without a script, they were not legally allowed to do so. This amendment is to cover emergencies only. Having scripts from a doctor who is or should be across the person’s whole health situation, including the medicines they are taking, is an important part of our medical system. Pharmacists also play an important role in keeping an eye on combinations of medications but normally would not be dispensing except on the order of a qualified doctor.

Changes to the Drugs of Dependence Act substitute references to “medical practitioner” with “doctor”. This is to modernise and simplify the language. “Doctor” is already defined in the dictionary of the Legislation Act as “a registered medical practitioner”. The Land (Planning and Environment) Act is amended to correct an error made which removed the power from the Conservator of Flora and Fauna to authorise land management agreements under section 186C (3). In the making of the new agency this power was incorrectly removed from the conservator, leaving it with the new Planning and Land Authority.

I also note the amendment to section 127 of the Drugs of Dependence Act replacing the word “officer” with “offender”. In the Legislation Act the bulk of this section of amendments relates to having the definition of “law”, for the purposes of commencement, amendment and repeal, include all statutory instruments. This flows on to remove specific references to “notifiable instruments”, “instrument” and statutory instruments.

The point of these amendments is to make one easily found and easily understandable set of rules, with specific exceptions where necessary for the different types of instruments. This enables us to move on from the slightly tangled web of rules and, in some cases, common law for each specific type of law. Subordinate laws are listed and defined in the front of the Legislation Act and include regulations, rules and by-laws and, in their different forms of disallowable instruments, notifiable instruments. Then there are the non-registrable instruments such as appointments and delegations of power.

Commencement rules are all amended to clarify that commencement is on the day after a law is made, or after it is approved in the case of instruments, which must be approved after they are made. The situation for non-registrable instruments is clarified in the same way. Importantly, this will remove the possibility of non-registrable instruments coming into effect retrospectively by default from the beginning of the day on which they are made. Some registrable instruments may have prejudicial effects, so the same rules on retrospectivity should apply to this body of law as apply to others—that retrospective

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