31 March 2009

Committee Secretary
House of Representatives Standing Committee on
Legal and Constitutional Affairs
PO Box 6021
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Sir/Madam

Inquiry into the draft Disability (Access to Premises - Buildings)
Standards

I am writing to advise the Committee of the Shopping Centre Council of Australia's strong support for the Property Council of Australia's submission to this inquiry and, in particular, the recommendations outlined at page 4 of that submission.

The SCCA supports the introduction of minimum standards for access to premises which will provide equitable access to buildings and certainty for building owners.
The draft standards tabled in December are a significant improvement in cost benefit terms on those previously released for public comment. Nevertheless some aspects of the latest draft Premises Standards still require fine tuning, as detailed in the Property Council submission. We trust that with some further commonsense modifications, the Premises Standard can be supported by all parties.

The Shopping Centre Council represents the major owners and managers of shopping centres in Australia. Our members are: AMP Capital Investors, Brookfield Multiplex, Centro Properties Group, Colonial First State Property, Dexus Property Group, Eureka Funds Management, GPT Group, ISPT, Jen Retail Properties, Jones Lang LaSalle, Lend Lease Retail, Macquarie CountryWide Trust, McConaghy Group, McConaghy Properties, Mirvac, Perron Group, Precision Group, QIC, Savills, Stockland, and Westfield Group.

Yours sincerely

Milton Cockburn
Executive Director