Page 5568 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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Clauses 109 to 111, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.
Clause 112
MR JENSEN (4.49): I move:
Page 53, line 13, omit "the prescribed period", substitute "28 days after the day on which the decision that a preliminary assessment be required is made.".
This amendment relates to the words "within the prescribed period" in clause 112 of the Bill. Under the subheading "Directions", this clause provides:
The relevant Minister in relation to a defined decision, or the Environment Minister, may, by written notice to the relevant proponent within the prescribed period, direct the proponent to prepare a preliminary assessment of the environmental impact of the relevant proposal.
That is what it says at the moment. Looking at the information that was tabled by the Minister in relation to determined criteria in matters to be prescribed when the legislation was tabled in this place, the time period proposed to be allowed for this clause was 28 days. All I am seeking to do is to place that figure of 28 days into the legislation just to, if you like, put into place the decision that has already been taken. I will be interested to listen to comments by the Minister as to why he thinks that is not appropriate when, in fact, he was proposing to prescribe that himself.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.50): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, this is the fairly standard procedure that has tended to operate in these matters. It has been clear during this debate that Mr Jensen does not accept the standard procedure and, I suppose, why should he? We do not have to accept the way it has always been. I acknowledge that.
These are the sorts of pinpricking, unnecessary arrangements that we go through. It is this sort of amendment that is just bogging down this Bill. Not only are you clogging up the passage of the Bill; you are making it very difficult to get through it all. It is just not necessary.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (4.50): Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, in this case I support Mr Jensen. I had hoped that the Minister might, if he did not agree with it, say why 28 days was not long enough, because one of the things that we are doing in this Bill is putting timeframes on things - times within which actions must be
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