Page 2581 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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Mr Stevenson: There was not even any power there.
MR WOOD: I think events demonstrated that there was power there. Events protected the Franklin. In the past the States have had a responsibility for environmental matters, as well they should. They have been concerned with local issues, some of a lower key nature. Some, of course, are very significant. All States have developed, in varying degrees, measures for pollution control, protection of the environment and so on. But circumstances change and we need now an Australia-wide view, indeed, a worldwide view. When we consider the enormous potential impact of greenhouse, of depletion of the ozone layer, we can no longer isolate environmental matters simply to States. It has to be a national effort. The Special Premiers Conference and ANZEC are bodies that will appropriately deal with these.
A further example, of course, is the considerable attention these days to ESD, ecologically sustainable development. I note that there was a document released, I think, only yesterday out of the national process to encourage debate on this issue. A further important document released yesterday was one that my colleague in the Federal Cabinet, Ros Kelly, released concerning the need or otherwise perhaps for a national environmental protection agency. There is no such body at the moment. States have agencies under different names. It may be that we need such an agency at a Federal level.
Part of the discussion in that paper will be to see whether we are simply adding more and more layers of control to do essentially the same thing. Perhaps different agencies do not need to be employed to attend to the particular problems that arise around the environment. That paper will suggest that we need agreement on these matters. We need to look at what is the best value for money. Of course, the overriding issue is the protection of the environment; indeed, from the way Australia has developed in the last 200 years, not just the protection of the environment but the enhancement of it, the restoration of the environment.
We now look forward to the November meeting of the Special Premiers Conference. Clearly, that meeting, with its focus on the reform of the delivery of services, taxation arrangements and the future of special purpose payments as a means of financing programs, will be a significant test of the goodwill and cooperation that seems to have dominated the October 1990 and July 1991 conferences. I have no doubt that Rosemary Follett, as our leader then, as our Chief Minister, will make a creative and constructive contribution to that conference.
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