Page 2848 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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government in the territory, the Liberal opposition will be pleased to vote in favour of this amendment bill.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.11): This bill is both simple and complex. On the one hand, it affects few businesses, and not in a particularly significant way. On the other hand, it represents a profound shift away from the material stamping of documents as evidence that duty has been paid, and the consequent requirement that employees of conveyancing lawyers physically attend the titles office to hand over money and have papers stamped, towards an on-line digital system which requires only an electronic transaction and accurate record-keeping.
I believe that the ACT has the first electronic legislation register where the legal version of a law is the digital version accessed via a web site rather than any paper reproduction. That is the same approach as has been taken here. Of course the advantage of paper records is exactly that they do have a concrete form. This, however, makes them vulnerable to theft or damage. We have seen, with the loss of the Alexandria library and the libraries and archives of Kosovo, how calamitous that can be. If it reduces the paper trail, it will reduce the environmental impact of paper production and disposal. Presuming that an unusual meteor shower or radiographic calamity does not similarly expunge all of our digital records at some time in the future, I am advised that the system being established for the ACT has been designed to ensure that people paying duties on-line will not be interacting with the titles record or the database itself.
I also wish to express my gratitude to the Treasurer and to the staff of Treasury for coming and talking with me and my staff and explaining to us the changes in this amendment bill.
I am also aware that some concerns have been expressed by the law society on behalf of those members that will be affected by the legislation. I understand that there will be a few months put aside to ensure that the new system is working well and the 200 or so clients who will be using it will know what to do and will be satisfied that it can be made to work with their own systems. It is important to run a proper risk management strategy when deciding to introduce a new system.
Here the risk is probably well contained, but it is reassuring to know that attention has been paid to detail and that the people affected were well consulted prior to its implementation. It is salutary to compare this approach to the one used with the Towards 2020 proposal where the people most affected were not consulted until it was in essence a fait accompli and where it would appear that there has been no risk analysis conducted on the impact on kids at risk of unsatisfactory education outcomes, indigenous students, students with a disability, enrolment levels or local community centre viability. It is worth pointing out that this government has signed up for a risk management strategy, and it is great to see the smaller business units using that approach. It is interesting, to say the least, that some major decisions are made without taking that level of care.
The Greens’ other concern is that raised in some detail by the scrutiny of bills committee. It centres on the balancing act between administrative convenience and the rule of law, particularly in a human rights context. The ACT Greens have always supported the commitment of this government to a human rights act. We understand the challenge that this government faces in shifting in many small ways agencies’
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