Page 2529 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 15 November 1989
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environment", "Minister for development", and "according to administrative arrangements", although, to be fair, there was a brief suggestion that some form of enactment might be necessary.
However, with only 10 more days of sitting left before the Christmas break, and given the time that it has taken for the Government to get together some form of planning white paper and the first inkling of drafting instructions for planning, environment and heritage legislation, one would have to ask when we might be able to fit the legislation that is suggested in this motion into our program. Despite the urging of my colleague Mr Humphries on a previous occasion, we are yet to receive the details of that legislative program. I am sure you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, for being a little cynical on our being shown such enactments before 15 December this year.
The first thing that strikes me is that the aim of this proposal is not to include the community in maintaining some watchdog role over our environment but to make it easier for an advisory council - I repeat, advisory council - to ease the way for development projects by providing them with the good housekeeping seal of approval. The aim of the committee, or council, would seem to this unbiased observer to be nothing more than window-dressing to enable projects to be fast tracked through the planning and development process with only a brief consideration of the issues that affect the environment.
Let me remind the Assembly that it was just these concerns for what on the surface appeared to be a rather hasty approvals process on environmental matters that caused the issue of the National Aquarium to be raised in this Assembly and then later on in the Federal Parliament. Despite the recommendations of the Assembly's environment committee, it would seem that the current Minister in the department of the environment is still not convinced. It would have been easier in this case for him to say, "Before my time". However, concerns about the future of the ecology of one of the largest river systems of the world, a river system already racked by the adverse effects of 200 years of European settlement, have led to continued concern about the project.
While I am sure that the Government in its comments will seek to portray the Rally as anti-development because we oppose this motion, let me once again reiterate our policy on the important notion of accelerated development. This time I refer members to the schedule attached to our full planning policy released in February this year. In the final paragraph the schedule says:
Provision for accelerated development of projects will be available if it is considered to be in the long term interests of Canberra. There will still be a requirement for public consultation and such proposals will still be subject to appeal in the same way as normal projects.
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