Consultation Questions

We invite your comments on the following questions:

Q1. What are the main areas of the existing strata and community scheme laws you would like to see changed?

Q2. Can you see any future issues that need to be addressed in the legislation?

50 years of strata title in NSW

Strata and community schemes have come a long way since the first scheme was registered 50 years ago. Des Mooney looks at ideas to help shape the next 50 years.

2011 marks the 50th anniversary of strata legislation in NSW. That makes it a good time to think about what might happen in the next 50 years and whether our current strata and community scheme laws will remain relevant.

LPI administers the state’s land title system and registers strata and community plans. When the first strata Act was introduced it gave unit owners a secure form of ownership for their asset. The original strata subdivisions were relatively simple, involving the division of a vertical apartment block into lots, with the rest of the building being common property.

Have your say on Strata and Community Scheme Laws

Strata and Community Scheme Laws: Making NSW number one again

New South Wales was the birthplace of strata and community scheme laws. Minister for Fair Trading Anthony Roberts wants to see the NSW laws number one again.

Community Housing regulation: Have your say

Housing Ministers across Australia agreed to a blueprint for a National Regulatory System for community housing providers.

The proposed system seeks to introduce nationally consistent regulatory arrangements to promote the growth of the community housing sector nationally.

The new system will aim to improve tenant outcomes and protect vulnerable tenants, protect government funding and equity in the sector, and enhance investor and partner confidence.

Please make a public submission or comment on the system design or learn more about the system, which is expected to begin in 2013, at www.nrsch.gov.au.

 

National Regulatory Reform Survey with the Queensland Office for Regulatory Efficiency: Extended Background

Open Forum is currently hosting a SURVEY on behalf of the Queensland Office for Regulatory Efficiency, Queensland Government. This article provides an extended background.

As Consultation Closes Debate on Australian Human Rights Act Heats Up

At 12:30pm today (Wednesday 14 October 2009) The Committee Chair Fr Frank Brennan will address the National Press Club on the findings of the National Human Rights Consultation.

Fr Brennan says in his introduction to the final report, “Never before has a public consultation generated so much interest: the Committee received more than 35 000 submissions”.

Even so, as with most public consultations it has attracted criticism for not being genuinely representative, but in this case the Committee deserves a nod for their impressive effort to genuinely gauge community sentiment.

National Human Rights Consultation: Final Report Released

Recommendation 1: The Committee recommends that education be the highest priority for protecting and promoting human rights in Australia.

Recommendation 18: The Committee recommends that Australia adopt a federal Human Rights Act.

Human Rights

Effective Human Rights = effective legal aid!  Pay for it, or lose it!  

We Need an Australian Bill of Human Rights

I am in no doubt that we need to enact an Australian Bill of Human Rights. The behaviour of State and Federal Governments over the past decade attest to that.

Thomas Jefferson’s famous aphorism ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance‘ applies to the struggle for the protection of human rights.

The struggle for a single law protecting human rights is, of necessity, eternal. There will always be people who will argue that it is unnecessary or unworkable or too costly and or deny that the unimaginable happens.

We delude ourselves when we argue that human rights abuses haven’t, couldn’t, wont, happen in Australia, committed here and elsewhere by Australians. It has happened and it will again. It is part of the human condition it seems. So we must protect ourselves from ourselves.

Freedom of Association & Human Rights

The so called "Bikie Legislation" leaves the door open to very dangerous and serious misuse and abuse of police power, particularly when people can be charged with a criminal offence "on the balance of probabilities". 

I would like to share my concern regarding the so called "Bikie Legislation". 

I wonder how many others realise that the new Laws can apply to many people outside of a "Bikie" profile? Via the police and media we are led to believe that the laws only affect bikie gangs, however if you look closer you will find that the laws extend to any particular organisation at the behest of the Police Commissioner of the States that passed these Legislations (SA, NSW, QLD). 

Which human rights and responsibilities should be protected and promoted?

When you are trying to describe human rights, think of the core values which you believe should underpin our society.

In 2005, an inquiry was conducted into the Government’s handling of Australian citizen Cornelia Rau. This inquiry brought up a number of issues relating to human rights in Australia. Namely, rights relating to immigration, detention and the rights of the mentally ill.

The inquiry and accompanying public debate raised a number of questions about our responsibilities to protect those rights. What is the responsibility of Government? Of the community? Of the individual?

Not everyone knows which human rights we have in Australia. Not everyone agrees about which rights we should have. Questions exist about what those rights should be and whose responsibility it should be to protect them.

When becoming an Australian citizen a person says: