Page 1027 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 May 2020

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Human Rights (Workers Rights) Amendment Bill 2019

MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong—Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Minister for Corrections and Justice Health, Minister for Justice, Consumer Affairs and Road Safety and Minister for Mental Health) (5.30): In the earlier debate on the Human Rights (Workers Rights) Amendment Bill, through oversight I failed to table the government response to the report of the justice and community safety committee inquiry into that bill. I present the following paper:

Justice and Community Safety—Standing Committee—Report 7—Report on Inquiry into Human Rights (Workers Rights) Amendment Bill 2019—Government response, dated May 2020.

Electronic Conveyancing National Law (ACT) Bill 2020

[Cognate bill:

Land Titles (Electronic Conveyancing) Legislation Amendment Bill 2020]

Debate resumed from 20 February 2020, on motion by Mr Ramsay:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

MADAM SPEAKER: I understand that it is the wish of the Assembly to debate these bills together. That being the case, in debating order of the day No 1, executive business, members may also address their remarks to executive business order of the day No 2.

MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (5.31): I will respond on behalf of the Canberra Liberals. I indicate that we will support both bills and the government amendment. The system proposed in these two bills creates an electronic land titles register for the ACT. The current system still requires face-to-face contact, exchanging paper documents and physically lodging registration. There is a better way in today’s world.

As safeguards, the bill provides that the register cannot be changed without verification of the person’s identity and proof of their authority to deal with the land. The registrar-general has the power to order audits and for parties to provide proof of identity and ownership and can refer any matters in doubt to the appropriate authority, either by their own cognition or by complaint.

While all states and territories are adopting this process, it has raised issues in the ACT context. I will briefly touch on two of those. The first is the verification of identity requirements in a human rights context. We raised this in our briefing with the Attorney-General’s office and received a reply stating that the information is very similar to that already provided. It was put to us as follows:

While we are asking people to show extra information to verify they are who they say they are when transacting, for example, passport and drivers licence, we will not be storing that information on the title for people to see.

In our view, the identification requirements are balanced by the fact that information of the same type is required in the current system. There are requirements for the


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