Ministerial Statement

TORRENS TITLE

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON (Croydon—Attorney-General, Minister for Justice, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (17:25): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: I rise to draw the attention of members to the approaching 150th anniversary of the system of landownership known as Torrens Title. It was on 1 July 1858 that our first Real Property Act came into force, beginning the system of land titles registration that still flourishes today. A symposium in honour of this anniversary is to be held at the University of Adelaide Law School on Friday 20 June. The Torrens Title system was championed by the redoubtable Sir Robert Torrens, a member in this place and briefly the premier.

Mrs Geraghty interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Torrens is quite right; and a great Irishman he was. It was championed with the support of various helpers, including the legal scholar, Dr Ulrich Hübbe, one of our German settlers, as well as Mr Anthony Forster, the then editor of South Australia's first newspaper, The Register, and many others. As well as advocating the system in the colony's principal newspaper, Forster was also a member of another place where he had the carriage of the bill, while Torrens himself steered it through this place having stood for election on a platform, including land titles reform. Herr Hübbe, for his part, distributed to the members of this place a book he had written pleading for the introduction of a more rational system of land titles that certainly helped the cause of reform.

Indeed, Torrens acknowledged the help he had received from a variety of early South Australians, including both British and German settlers, in the adoption of the new system, making this an example of what can be achieved by people of different origins working together. The Torrens system superseded the cumbersome and uncertain old system in which land transfers depended on the tracing of documentary chains of title back through history. That system was, of course, remunerative for lawyers but burdensome and unsatisfactory for the buyers and sellers of land.

Much work was needed under the old system to establish what encumbrances affected the land and whether the seller was in a position to pass good title. If a mistake were made the buyer might well lose his money. The old system had been, of course, inherited from English law, but it soon became clear that it was wholly unsuited to South Australia. Whereas in England only a few could aspire to own land, migration to South Australia was fuelled by the reasonable expectation of landownership. This meant that the process of land transfer was of vital interest to a great part of the population.

New settlers could not accept that, in some cases, the cost of the legal work needed to buy land was as much as the cost of the land itself, and that even after they had paid it they could not be entirely certain of owning clear title to the land. In the 1850s, hundreds of miners were returning to South Australia from the Victorian goldfields, some newly rich. They, too, wanted to buy land. German settlers were also familiar with more rational systems of land titles in the lands of their birth and found it difficult to understand how a new colony could have made land titles so complicated so soon.

By the 1850s, of the 40,000 properties in the province, the original deeds for more than half had been lost and for some 5,000, the state of the title was unsatisfactory. It is not surprising, then, that public agitation for reform increased and that this historic measure became law within a year of the first elected parliament in this state.

As members will be aware, under the Torrens system, the former researches into the chain of title are needless. Title to land depends on registration. The prospective buyer can rely on the register, the accuracy of which is guaranteed by the state and backed by an assurance fund. This makes land transactions far quicker, simpler and cheaper than under the old system and protects against the risk that the seller might not be able to pass good title.

It is a tribute to the public servants who have administered the act since 1858 that the assurance fund has always had far more money than it has needed to deal with the very few mistakes that have been made in administration. Indeed, no further contributions to the assurance fund have been required from users of the system since the end of 1988.

First adopted in South Australia in 1858, the Torrens system of land title was soon taken up by other jurisdictions. In 1862, only four years after its adoption in South Australia, this system had proved to be such a success that it was taken up by two much richer and larger colonies; New South Wales and Victoria, in the face of campaigns by some lawyers to preserve the old system in the interests of keeping legal fees high.

By its 17^th anniversary in 1875, the Torrens system applied throughout all the Australian colonies and in New Zealand. It has continued to spread and it is now in use in seven of the ten Canadian provinces—the Torrens registry in British Columbia opened for business as early as 5  April 1861—and in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, as well as in some countries in Africa and the Caribbean. There are also reports of its existence, more difficult to confirm, in countries as diverse as Madagascar, Tunisia and Iran. Torrens title has been described by Associate Professor Greg Taylor of Monash University as 'South Australia's most successful intellectual export'.

Mr Venning interjecting:

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: The member for Schubert says that his great-grandfather campaigned for Torrens title. His name?

Mr Venning: William Jasper Venning.

The Hon. M.J. ATKINSON: Although 150 years old, Torrens Title remains a thoroughly modern invention. As I have mentioned, it was intended to promote and does promote the wide ownership of land by all sectors of society and thus contributes to a more egalitarian society. Yes, one day we may even break down the Venning estates and hand them back to the peasants.

More than any other system of landholding, it lends itself to computerisation. Australia is now working towards a national electronic conveyancing system that builds on the Torrens system and will yet further improve the speed and convenience of land transactions. It may well be that, as electronic commerce advances, we will in future see more jurisdictions adopting Torrens title as a simple and reliable system for land transactions.

The Torrens system's recent extension to cover almost the whole of Ontario and its adoption in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick at the start of the 21^st century is largely attributable to its suitability for computer-based operation. This is a remarkable thing indeed for an invention that is 150 years old and a tribute to the soundness of the principles upon which it is based.

I commend this great South Australian achievement to honourable members, an example of what, with foresight and determination, can be accomplished in this place and by South Australian society.

At 17:35 the house adjourned until Thursday 5 June 2008 at 10:30.