Page 1594 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 12 May 2015
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territory through minor legislation changes. This is, as always, an efficient mechanism to take care of non-controversial, minor or technical amendments to a range of territory legislation while conserving resources that would otherwise be needed if they were dealt with individually. Each individual amendment is minor, but when viewed collectively they make an important contribution to improving the operation of the affected legislation and the statute book overall.
Reflecting on a couple of the changes, the Road Transport (Third-Party Insurance) Act is amended in schedule 1 to enable the minister to appoint a public servant with appropriate knowledge and experience as the CTP regulator. Currently, under section 14(2) of the act, the CTP regulator is the director-general administering the act. When section 14(2) was first enacted, the directorate administering the act was the Treasury. Accordingly, the Director-General of Treasury was the CTP regulator. However, the Treasury and Chief Minister directorates were merged in 2012. Consequently, the CTP regulator is now the Director-General of the Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate. Although functions are delegated to Treasury officials, the director-general of this directorate remains fully accountable for the administration of the act.
As I indicated in my introductory speech, this is not entirely satisfactory, given that the insurance policy is the responsibility of the Treasurer, and the act and compulsory third-party insurance policy and arrangements are the responsibility of the under treasurer, as head of agency, rather than the director-general of the directorate. This amendment will therefore better align administrative arrangement responsibilities and enhance administrative efficiencies.
Schedule 2 of the bill amends sections 28, 61, 65A and 69 of the Legislation Act 2001 by omitting redundant references to the ACT gazette. These sections contain examples that refer to the gazette as a place that parliamentary counsel considers appropriate for notifying various matters if it is not practical to do so in the legislation register—matters such as the notification of laws and legislative instruments that have been made, or the disallowance or amendment of subordinate laws or disallowable instruments by a resolution of the Assembly. These examples are redundant because the gazette is now published in the legislation register.
Finally, there are a range of technical amendments of legislation in schedule 3 to correct minor errors, update language, improve syntax and omit redundant provisions. These are an important part of the government’s ongoing technical amendments program, and I thank members for their support of the bill.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.
Bill agreed to.
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