Page 4786 - Week 11 - Thursday, 20 October 2011
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provisions that were coming through. I thank the attorney for following through on that, because the consequence of that process has been the bill we have come to today. It does a lot to improve the legislation and has dealt with a number of outstanding issues and clarified issues in many places. The discourse amongst the various stakeholder groups on unit titles is way better now than it was, say, in late 2008 and the early parts of 2009. I thank the attorney for following through on that process.
As the attorney has commented on previously, the bulk of submissions made to the review focused on the difficulty people had in interpreting the act. From the constituents and stakeholder groups the Greens have consulted with on this bill, I can certainly echo the comments of the attorney on that front. One of the major sources of frustration amongst stakeholders was the difficulty in reading the act. This is a problem for any type of legislation but especially this one that needs to be read and understood by a wide range of people.
As more and more people begin to buy and live in unit complexes, it becomes more and more important to get the legislation right and to make it readable. I am pleased to have heard comments from many of the same constituents that they think this bill is a significant improvement, as I said already. Many of them now feel more confident in understanding the law and what it requires of them.
Two of the important stakeholder groups are the Owners Corporation Network and the Strata Managers Institute. The OCN have raised no problems with the bill and have been very complimentary about it in meetings I have had with them. I think this reflects very well on the review process and the work of the directorate staff. It is, of course, appropriate at this time to recognise a job well done on that front. The Strata Managers Institute ACT have a number of very specific concerns with the bill and how it is intended to operate, and Mrs Dunne has spoken to that to some extent. I have sought a briefing from the directorate on the bill and we went through the concerns in some detail.
I am also advised that the same directorate staff have since met directly with the institute. What has emerged from weighing up the concerns of the institute and comparing that to the information provided by the directorate is that at the heart of the concerns is the need for clarification. In many instances the concerns of the institute have been addressed; it is just that the overarching intent of the changes could be stated more clearly in plain English.
I will not go through the precise concerns of the Strata Managers Institute as I am aware that all three parties in the Assembly have been provided with the submission made by the institute. We have also since been provided with the detailed response the institute have received from the attorney, and I know, as Mrs Dunne has touched on, that the Canberra Liberals have been provided with the response as well.
I believe the issues boil down to showing the need for some slight clarifications. Where the institute would prefer that done by further legislative amendment, the position of the government is that preparation of fact sheets would achieve the same purpose, and the Greens agree with that suggested approach. We believe it provides a constructive way forward. Because the clarifications needed are essentially restating
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