Page 1471 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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the people who attended that meeting; it is people in the Law Society; it is people who are practitioners who are drawing up the contracts at the moment for the sale of new unit title properties that are coming on the market; it is some of the most experienced lawyers who write unit titles contracts and set up unit plans.
Some of the most experienced people in this town have said to me, “We need to delay these provisions in particular.” There are other things that people have problems with, and there are things that the owners corporations network have problems with, but they would like to see most of the changes introduced because, like all of us, we see that there are sure improvements to consumer protection in this. The minister cannot and should not portray this as a situation where he is the flashing white knight, the saviour of consumer rights in unit titles, and we are somehow the villains in the piece. In fact, if an owner or occupier of a unit title could be qualified as a maiden tied to the railway tracks, it is Simon Corbell and Andrew Barr who tied that maiden to the railway tracks. They come in here now, today, after they have driven the train over the maiden on the railway tracks, and say, “We’re the cavalry and we’re here to help.” The train has left the station.
There are problems, deep problems, with this legislation, and this minister was given an opportunity today to take a breath and to go back and talk to the people. He could talk to them himself, rather than asking his officials to do it. He could take the novel approach of actually talking to these people himself. Then he could ring some of the senior lawyers around town who will tell him what is wrong with the legislation.
What this amending bill does today is one simple thing, and it is not as Simon Corbell said. It does not deny people access to consumer protections; it delays for three calendar months the introduction of those things so that we can get our act together, so that we can make sure that these protections are the right protections and so that we can do the things that the officials admitted the other day—two weeks ago at St John’s hall in Reid—that they were not ready to do. They said, “Look, there is a whole lot of material that is on websites, but it is not particularly available and it is not particularly easy to find. Normally, if we were making big changes to legislation, we would introduce a booklet beforehand.”
That is what we did when the ACT introduced substantial changes to the Residential Tenancies Act—JACS prepared the renters book. The renters book was published and circulated before the legislation commenced. It is still used today, and it is used today because it has stood the test of time. But what we have had today from Simon Corbell is him saying, at the last minute after the horse has bolted, after the legislation is passed, “I am going to write a book. I am going to publish a book about this.” It was not his idea; it was his officials’ idea, because they have done it before and they have done it well before. This time they do not have the opportunity to do it well.
The reason why I have proposed the amendment that has been circulated is to address the issues that Ms Le Couteur has decided not to address in relation to section 75 statements. I am deeply, deeply disappointed by the Greens’ approach to this. Really what it boils down to, and Ms Le Couteur said it here today, is that they were stared down by officials. Officials said, “Ms Le Couteur, this is too difficult. It is too difficult to get it right.” Most importantly—the Minister for Planning should be held
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