Page 1276 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 2013

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practice for agreements to make references to the trusts in their terms, and it was not intended that section 124 should have the effect of preventing any such agreements, which are otherwise registrable, to be registered on the land titles register.

The amendment to the Unit Titles (Management) Act 2011 is intended to remove all doubt about the purpose of a sinking fund and a well-developed sinking fund plan, which is to ensure the ongoing maintenance and repair of common property into the future. The amendment is also designed to prevent unit owners seeking to avoid payment of their contributions to their owners corporation on a deliberate misinterpretation of existing provisions at the expense of the unit title.

The remainder of the bill improves the statute book by clarifying the existing law and ensuring that the objectives of laws made by this Assembly are achieved. The amendments to section 50 of the Confiscation of Criminal Assets Act 2003 are an example of how the act can be amended so that the objectives are achieved.

Finally, the proposed amendments to the Magistrates Court (Working with Vulnerable People Infringement Notices) Regulation 2012 will ensure that the personal information of inspectors is protected by providing that they may provide their full name or their identification when issuing an infringement notice.

I am pleased to support the bill.

MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (4.25), in reply: I thank members for their support of this bill. This bill provides for amendments that are minor and uncontroversial but they do improve the operation of a number of the territory’s laws.

The JACS bills program is designed to improve the way that the statute book operates on a day-to-day basis. For example, the amendments to change the Land Titles Act will make life better for businesses that have been unable to register commercial leases for a technical reason not related to the purpose behind the provision. Businesses contacted government about this. We listened, considered and proposed the change.

Another example is the changes in relation to the Unit Titles (Management) Act. As members may remember, we have made changes to this act before. We have heard further comments about the need for further clarification about what goes into a sinking fund and how those clauses are interpreted. So again we have made changes to that legislation to provide for greater clarity and to reinforce the intent that the Assembly has already supported.

These types of examples demonstrate clearly the importance of JACS bills to the broader community. They improve the lot of many people in small but important ways and they are an important way of providing greater coherence and effectiveness of the territory statute book. I commend the bill to the Assembly.

Question resolved in the affirmative.


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