Page 3613 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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amendments were also made to 19 acts and regulations to apply the new definition across the statute book.
This bill makes the same consequential amendments to apply the definition in 16 acts and regulations in the JACS portfolio. The amendments ensure that legislation within the JACS portfolio is consistent with the rest of the ACT statute book.
The bill also makes a number of amendments to the Prostitution Act to update the language used. Specifically, amendments replace references to “sexually transmitted disease” with references to “sexually transmissible infection”. This change in terminology ensures consistency with terminology in national policy across Australia. An amendment has also been made to the heading of section 25 of the act to ensure that it more appropriately reflects the content of the provision.
More substantive amendments are made to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act and the Magistrates Court Act to ensure that the legislation continues to operate effectively. The amendments to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act will clarify an ambiguity in the act in relation to the appointment of temporary presidential and non-presidential members to the tribunal. The amendments will disaggregate the generic reference to the temporary appointment of tribunal members referred to in the act by describing the way temporary appointments apply to each type of member. Temporary appointments will be permissible for a term of not longer than 12 months.
The amendments to the Magistrates Court Act will ensure that there is a consistent procedure for dealing with a failure to attend court in response to a summons. Currently, there is a gap in the law for how the court is to deal with an accused person who has attended court in response to a summons but has failed to attend any subsequent adjourned hearing on the same matter. The amendments ensure that the process that applies in issuing an arrest warrant if an accused person fails to appear in the first instance also applies to the situation where the accused person appeared once but failed to appear in a subsequent adjourned hearing. The amendments will not remove any protections which currently apply to accused people in relation to the issuing of an arrest warrant.
I thank members for their support of the bill and commend it to the Assembly.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.39): Pursuant to standing order 182A(b), I seek leave to move an amendment that is minor and technical in nature.
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