Page 4718 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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Clause 3
MR MOORE (8.22): I move:
Page 2, lines 7 and 8, subclause (2), omit the subclause.
The subclause that I am referring to states:
Nothing in this Act renders the Crown liable to be prosecuted for an offence.
I believe that that protection for the Crown in a planning area is entirely inappropriate. It seems to me that when we are dealing with planning the Crown should be liable for prosecution in the same way as a natural person should be liable for prosecution for an offence. I think it is inappropriate for us to provide that protection. The Minister tells me that he is prepared to accept this amendment. I must say that I am very pleased that that is the case. I hope that other members will join us in supporting that amendment.
MR JENSEN (8.23): The Rally will support this amendment, Mr Speaker.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (8.23): Mr Speaker, that amendment is acceptable to the Government.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 4
MR MOORE (8.24): I will take just a minute or two to speak to this clause. In my original instructions to the parliamentary draftspeople I had provided that we should add a new definition of "environment" here and that the definition should be "any part or the whole of the living or non-living surrounds of any group or individuals, human or non-human, and includes biological, ecological, social, economic, geological and aesthetic aspects". I did that, Mr Speaker, because I believe that when people are reading this legislation, to the extent that it is a piece of environmental legislation, it would be appropriate for them to have in here a definition that sets out exactly what we mean by "environment".
In my discussions with the parliamentary draftsmen I was convinced that the adding of a definition here would not be effective because this legislation takes its authority from a higher piece of legislation, namely, the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act, which provides a requirement for us to establish this piece of legislation,
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