Page 2884 - Week 09 - Thursday, 18 August 2005
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construction industry and the protection of the rights of owners of units is the key and this bill does seem to go some way towards doing that. I also spoke of the importance of the role that ACTPLA will play in ensuring compliance during the construction of multistaged developments and this bill prescribes a number of conditions in relation to amenity for multistaged constructions.
These will only be of practical benefit if the supervision and compliance are well managed. I look forward to ACTPLA conducting this thoroughly. No doubt the industry and others in the community will be watching that closely to see how it is managed. Once again I thank the ACTPLA officers who provided the briefing. As I said, it was most enlightening and did take a little bit of time, because some of the amendments were a little bit on the technical side. Just restating, we have received feedback from industry and no real concerns have been raised, so the opposition will be supporting the bill and the amendments.
Amendments agreed to.
Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Occupational Health and Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2005
Debate resumed from 21 June 2005, on motion by Ms Gallagher:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (12.04): The bill amends three items of legislation: the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Dangerous Substances Act and the Long Service Leave Act. The first two require periodic reviews of their operation and effectiveness. These amendments provide for the minister firstly, to conduct the reviews instead of requiring her to arrange an independent reviewer and, secondly, to report to the Legislative Assembly before the Assembly’s third sitting day in 2008. They also provide for the reviews to be generic, rather that individual matters for review being specified in legislation.
Amendments to the Long Service Leave Act correct anomalies that had the unintended effect of breaking continuity of service for members of the defence force and people temporarily employed outside the ACT. The opposition regards these amendments as commonsense improvements and we will support them.
At present, the Dangerous Substances Act must be reviewed as soon as possible after 30 June 2005, and the OH&S Act must be reviewed as soon as possible after 30 June 2007. These amendments bring them into line with a common reporting time of as soon as practicable after 30 June 2007. In any case, a report must be presented to the Legislative Assembly before the Assembly’s third sitting day in 2008. That provides a reasonable length of time over which trends and practices can be properly evaluated and the impact of legislation assessed and reported on with a high level of confidence.
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