House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-03-06 Daily Xml

Contents

STATUTE LAW REVISION BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 February 2007. Page 2019.)

Mrs REDMOND (Heysen) (16:45): I guarantee that I will not keep the house long on this bill: if ever there was some rats and mice legislation, this bill is it. The bill itself, in fact, consists of just two clauses and a schedule of amendments. The schedule of amendments applies to a number of acts, notably, the Criminal Assets Confiscation Act, the Dental Practice Act, the Domestic Partners Property Act, the Fire and Emergency Services Act, the Local Government Act and the Passenger Transport Act. They all basically deal with substituting 'domestic partner' for 'spouse' or 'de facto'. So, they generally result from changes to definitions of 'spouse' and 'de facto' that really came about in legislation already previously dealt with by this house and, effectively, all they do is substitute the term 'domestic partner' in those few extra acts that were not captured in our earlier consideration of a large number of acts.

The only other act dealt with under this bill is the South Australian Cooperative and Community Housing Act 1991, and I did specifically seek detail about that at the briefing because, on the face of it, it appeared that the minister could be acquiring authority that the South Australian Co-operative and Community Housing Authority had, or the Housing Trust could be acquiring that authority but, in fact, the South Australian Co-operative and Community Housing Authority was abolished so it is really just a technical point to get rid of the reference, which no longer makes any sense anyway because the authority does not exist. So, there is nothing at all contentious that I can find to argue about with the Attorney in this bill.

The Hon. M.J. Atkinson: And if anyone could find it, you could do it, surely!

Mrs REDMOND: And if anyone could find anything in a bill to argue about, I am sure the Attorney and I would do that. So, we have no objection to wishing this bill a speedy passage through both houses.

Bill read a second time and taken through its remaining stages.