Page 4739 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
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severity of punishments should information not be provided that ought to have been provided. We do accept the government’s arguments in this case.
I would like to thank the groups that we have consulted. There is a bit of a gang of them: the Law Society, the Bar Association, the Human Rights Commission and, indeed, the Attorney-General’s office. Once again, although the Attorney-General and I have certainly some differences of opinion—and I outlined some of those this morning in response to his ministerial statement, and I am sure he enjoyed that—when it comes to these sorts of bills I do appreciate the advice and the cooperation that he provides to my office. I would like to also thank those staff in my office, particularly Ian Hagan who has, again, been very thorough in meticulously going through this legislation to make sure that what the government is telling us is, indeed, what appears in the bill that they have presented.
Noting all those matters, the Canberra Liberals will support this bill. But I put the Attorney-General on notice that further amendments provided in JACS bills that essentially degrade or weaken potentially the FOI Act I would rather see in an FOI bill to amend that act specifically so that we can have a more substantive debate. I think any further omnibus bills will be problematic.
At 6 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly having been put and negatived, the debate was resumed.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (6.00): As with the other regular justice and community safety bills, this bill makes minor amendments to a range of legislation relating to justice and community safety. I do not intend to discuss all of the changes as they are largely positive and relatively procedural, but I do want to make some brief comments on a few in particular.
The amendments to the Legal Profession Act 2006 will allow the Law Society and Bar Association to summarily deal with a complaint against a practitioner. Thus where there are multiple instances of unsatisfactory professional conduct against one legal practitioner, the matter will no longer need to be automatically referred to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal. This will enable the Law Society to more effectively deal with complaints and ensure that matters that can be dealt with administratively do not go to ACAT. Furthermore, by reducing resources spent on the Law Society’s disciplinary proceedings, more funds will, naturally, be available for other things such as grants to legal aid and community legal centres. Of course, that is a positive outcome.
The changes to the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 will automatically disqualify a person from managing an incorporated association when they have already been disqualified under commonwealth law. Incorporated associations are often not-for-profit or non-profit organisations that play an extremely important role in our community. It is essential both for public confidence and for the operation of the organisation that office holders of incorporated organisations are not disqualified at a commonwealth level yet are still able to hold office at a territory level.
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