George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to speak to this bill on behalf of the opposition because, as I think you know, very few things excite me more than legislation concerning personal property securities.

This bill makes some minor and technical amendments to the personal property sec­urities regime, which was introduced by the government, with coalition support, in 2009 and which comes into effect later this year. The regime rationalises the current Common­wealth, state and territory laws on securities over personal property to create one national and consistent set of rules and a single, national online register. It establishes one comprehensive law and thereby removes the doubts and confusions of at times inconsistent regimes between the various states and territories as had heretofore been the case.

The personal property securities legislation arises from an Australian Law Reform Commission reference as long ago as 1990. The matter was pursued through COAG, which in 2007 endorsed the national system. The former Attorney-General the Hon. Philip Ruddock gave this issue particular priority. In October 2008 COAG signed an intergovernmental agreement to effect the proposed legislation as part of the Seamless National Economy agreement among the Commonwealth, states and territories.

The amendments proposed by this bill in particular clarify that the regime does not affect a secured party's capacity to appoint or veto the appointment of a company administrator under a transitional security agreement, confirm that the rights and liabilities of receivers and administrators in respect of pre-appointment transactions are unchanged, ensure access to third-party data for consumer protection purposes and prevent access to the register for the purpose of sale of the data.

There are also some technical amendments in respect of the powers of the registrar and to deal with accession to the regime by states which have not yet adopted the relevant version of the PPS scheme as amended in 2010 and by this bill. These amendments were recommended by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee report on the 2010 amendments.

As I mentioned, the coalition has always supported the implementation of the PPS regime—indeed, this area of law reform was largely driven by former Attorney-General Mr Ruddock—and therefore is pleased to indicate its support for this bill.