Page 4703 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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The effect of this, Mr Speaker, is to change the title from the "Land (Planning and Environment) Bill" to the "Land (Planning and Management) Bill". The reason for this is not that this Bill has nothing to do with the environment. This Bill is absolutely critical to the environment, as planning issues have a major impact on every part of our environment. Our notion of environment is clearly set out in the Bill. The Bill deals with environmental impact assessments and it runs through a series of environmental matters.
However, should a lay person - a lay person being somebody who is not part of the legal fraternity - be seeking to find a Bill on the environment, he or she may well turn to this Bill and waste a great deal of time. This Bill is not specifically about the environment; it is specifically about land management.
Mr Jensen: Do you want to bet?
MR MOORE: Mr Jensen interjects; he obviously was not listening to the lead-up. I said that this Bill deals entirely with the environment but not specifically. It is about land management, and land management in turn, of course, deals with many aspects of the environment. It will be self-evident to anybody who is looking at land planning and management that they are dealing with environmental issues. So, to save confusion for people not involved in legalities and who are reaching for a Bill, trying to look up what is the appropriate Bill, it would be appropriate for them to turn to the "Land (Planning and Management) Bill".
Mr Speaker, I could use this opportunity to rip apart the bureaucratic replies of Mr Bill Wood to comments made in this Assembly. Quite clearly, instead of preparing them himself, his department prepared the responses for him. They came out not as words from Mr Wood's mind, as we would have expected when we knew him in opposition, but as responses that we would expect from the Planning Authority.
The most obvious of those was the response to the comment I made that the Chief Planner should have direct responsibility to the Minister. Those looking through my amendments will see that that is one of my amendments. The response that Mr Wood made to that point - and I will speak to it further - was just the response that we would expect from a bureaucrat who felt under threat. I urge Mr Wood, when he looks at that, to take a very sensible approach and to ensure that we do accept that it is appropriate for a Chief Planner of this Territory to have direct responsibility to the Minister and not to have to answer through a chain of command, through other bureaucrats.
Mr Jensen: Which amendment are you talking to now?
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