Page 271 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2010
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bill amends the Fair Trading (Consumer Affairs) Act 1973 to include, in the dictionary definition of fair trading legislation, the Eggs (Labelling and Sales) Act 2001. This amendment will provide the commissioner with inspectorate powers and enable him to delegate them to investigators in the Office of Regulatory Services who will investigate possible breaches of the Eggs (Labelling and Sales) Act 2001.
A minor amendment has been made to the Prohibited Weapons Act 1996 to clarify the sorts of items that are exempt from the operation of the act. The act exempts from the offence provisions of the act a police service or force of a foreign country which possesses or uses a prohibited weapon while taking part in a training activity conducted by the Australian Federal Police and carried out in the ACT. The Chief Police Officer has now advised that it would be prudent and appropriate in terms of police operations for this measure to extend to certain accessories. The amendment therefore clarifies that this exemption also extends to prohibited articles, which includes items such as a modified article of clothing, accessory or adornment, a purpose of which is to disguise or conceal a weapon, as well as prohibited weapons.
The bill also includes a number of important amendments to territory legislation which are aimed at achieving national consistency at both commonwealth and state-territory levels. Amendments to the Magistrates Court Act 1930 and the Supreme Court Act 1933 will implement model provisions and draft principles developed by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General for a program of exchange between judicial officers of interested state and territory courts.
While the ACT is already able to draw on the assistance of Federal Court judges to sit on our Supreme Court, the amendment provides a formal judicial exchange mechanism between different states and territories which was previously only done on an ad hoc basis in particular circumstances. The amendments will formalise these arrangements. It is intended that the program will foster a beneficial exchange of information, ideas and skills between jurisdictions.
In April 2007, the Council of Australian Governments agreed to establish a national system of trade measurement and the commonwealth National Trade Measurement Act 2008 was passed by the commonwealth parliament on 1 December 2008. It transferred to the commonwealth the full responsibility for administration and enforcement of ACT trade measurement and will become effective from 1 July this year. The amendments and repeal of the ACT Trade Measurement Act 1991, Trade Measurement (Administration) Act 1991 and Road Transport (Mass Dimensions and Loading) Act 2009 and relevant subordinate legislation included in this bill are to effect this transition to the commonwealth.
The bill also includes an amendment to give effect to another decision of the Council of Australian Governments which has resulted in the commonwealth assuming responsibility for the regulation of trustee companies. Late last year, I introduced a JACS bill which provided for the staggered repeal of various sections of the ACT Trustee Companies Act 1947 to reflect this decision.
This bill includes an amendment to the Trustee Companies Act 1947 enabling the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, ASIC, to exercise powers under
the commonwealth Corporations Act 2001 which had been created as a result of the
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