Woods Megan: Construction Contracts Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Construction Contracts Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:6839. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a short call on Part 1 of this legislation. Part 1 is a very important part of this legislation in that it is where the definitions of a number of the issues that we are dealing with are very clearly laid out. As my colleagues who have spoken before me have mentioned Labour is supporting this legislation. We think that it is vitally important that we get this right and critical to getting this right are the provisions laid out in clauses 4 to 8A which are where we are doing the definitional work. Some of the hard work that we see of the Commerce Committee was actually in its work when it came to consider much of the definitional changes that needed to be made.If we have a look at the change that the select committee made to the definition of “construction site” in clause 5 of the bill as it relates to related services this was in order to include the land where work is planned but has not yet begun. It is vitally important that this is captured so that work that may well be in plan but that has not yet begun is captured by this legislation. I think that this was a very important change that the select committee has made to clause 5 in Part 1 of this legislation.If we then turn our attention to clause 6 this is where the amendment was made by the select committee to add operations that are critical to the completion of or preparatory to construction—the scope of design engineering and quantity surveying work—to the definition of “construction work”. Again we have to have a very clear understanding of just what is meant by “construction work” when we go to consider the more principled parts of this legislation which are contained in Part 2. So this addition—the scope design engineering and quantity surveying work—is vitally important. We understand that that is part of the construction cycle and in this way we are making sure that we are offering the protections that are going to be offered in other parts of this legislation.The select committee did not stop just there; it went through the definitions with a fine-tooth comb. When it came to clause 7(2) the commencement date for the Act applied to related services to 1 November 2015. So where it was sensible there has been a staggering of the commencement of these provisions as it made sense under the Act.Then of course there is the work that the committee did to include new section 9(3) in clause 7 and new clause 32 which adds a schedule to the Act that makes it clear that the amendments proposed in this legislation would apply only to contracts entered into or renewed on or after the commencement date. This was a very important change that the select committee made. I think it is of course a principle of good legislation that we are not legislatingretrospectively—that we are legislating forward that we are changing the rules from the date of the commencement of the legislation and that we do not have a retrospective bill. I think the change that the select committee made there to clause 7 was vitally important.The last change that the select committee made to Part 1 of this bill was of course to insert new clause 8A which excludes contract provisions for the sale and purchase of second-hand assets and property management when they are part of a contract that includes construction work. This was excluded from the Act and there were deliberations at the select committee that made it very clear why this needed to be excluded from the Act. Although all of these changes may seem minor—and there may be a temptation even to gloss over them and not think them important—the key to getting this legislation right is having very clear definitions and having very clear definitions of what we are talking about.I think the amendments that the select committee made that I have spoken about in my contribution tonight make it very clear just how important those amendments are. So when we are talking about amending “related services” to include the land where work is planned but has not yet begun this is of course a very important part of the construction cycle. The planning is vitally important and there is always going to be work to be done. So I commend the work that the committee did to clear up many of the definitions in this bill.