Page 1086 - Week 03 - Thursday, 18 March 2010
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stakeholders who provided feedback to me on this aspect of the bill. The ACT Property Council puts it very succinctly, and I can do no better than quote its comments. It says that the council’s view is that the effect of this carve-out of holding costs may mean that the respondent that is faced with a vexatious or frivolous claim ultimately ends up being substantially out of pocket, in addition to being faced with the delays.
This says it all, because it raises the obvious question: why should a respondent in a vexatious or frivolous claim that serves only to waste everyone’s time and money be expected to carry the costs of employing idle staff, hiring equipment and paying interest on loans while such a matter is dealt with? There is no reason at all. To acknowledge that, I will be introducing an amendment to the bill which will enable the ACAT to consider reasonable holding costs, including reasonable legal costs, when giving cost orders for vexatious or frivolous claims.
The next act dealt with in this bill is an amendment to the Emergencies Act 2004. The amendment extends the ability of the commissioner to appoint a volunteer to a service. It will enable, and provide the necessary protection for, a volunteer to assist in other functions, such as interactive mapping in emergency management. I did have a concern that this might be contrary to the principle that volunteers should not displace paid employees. However, I am assured that volunteers typically undertake a range of activities within the Emergency Services Agency. I might add that it is interesting that, only today, on behalf of the Attorney-General, the Chief Minister has introduced the Emergencies Amendment Bill. I do wonder why this amendment has been placed in an omnibus bill, when surely the minister must have known a month ago, when this bill was introduced, that there was another bill in the offing. It goes to my point that it is not reasonable for substantive amendments to be put in bills like this.
The next amendment is to the Fair Trading (Consumer Affairs) Act 1973, which is amended to include the Eggs (Labelling and Sale) Act 2001 in the definition of “fair trading legislation”. This will give the Commissioner for Fair Trading prosecutorial and inspectorial powers, including delegating inspectorial powers to ORS inspectors. Thus, for example, inspectors could enter and inspect retail premises to check signage compliance. This amendment fills a gap left by the ACT Greens when they amended the law for the retail display of eggs last year. Typically, the ideology was bereft of practicality, but this has now been fixed by the watchful eye of the staff of the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
The changes to the Magistrates Court Act 1930 and the Supreme Court Act 1933 again go to substantive policy amendments. They allow the exchange of judicial officers between state and territory courts. It should be noted that this already occurs for ACT Court of Appeal judicial officers, so these amendments are simply an extension of that arrangement. The Supreme Court Act 1933 is amended to remove any doubt as to its jurisdiction following a recent case in which the matter of jurisdiction was argued.
Amendments to the Prohibited Weapons Act 1996 extend the exemptions that apply for foreign police who undertake AFP-led training in the ACT. Now, as well as being able to use prohibited weapons, they will be able to use “prohibited articles” such as clothing modification to conceal weapons.
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