Page 5689 - Week 17 - Thursday, 5 December 1991

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Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 200 and 201, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.

Proposed new clause 201A

MR JENSEN (4.23): I move:

Page 93, line 17, insert the following new clause:

"201A. Where the Conservator submits a draft Plan of Management to the Minister under section 201, the Minister shall, within 7 days of receiving the draft Plan, forward -

(a) a copy of the draft Plan;

(b) a copy of the reports referred to in paragraphs 210(a) and (b) relating to the draft Plan; and

to an appropriate committee of the Legislative Assembly.".

This is a requirement for the Conservator, when submitting a draft plan of management to the Minister, to forward all the documentation to an appropriate committee of the Legislative Assembly. Once again, I reiterate that we do not have a review system within the ACT, and this is a very appropriate use of the resources of the Assembly by way of its committees. We will continue to support this proposal.

MR MOORE (4.23): The advantage of this proposal is that the information would be publicly available. Whatever the committee, it could work in the same way as the Public Accounts Committee works when it gets reports from the Auditor-General: Where it is necessary to investigate further, the committee takes on that responsibility. Where we accept what the Auditor-General has written, a brief statement is made to the house. Even that is not required by this amendment. It simply makes sure that the information is available. Should members decide to take an interest in it, they can do so. For that reason, it is a very sensible amendment.

MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.24): The Government opposes this amendment, for the reasons that we have argued a number of times thus far. I think we are going to break down that committee system, somehow.

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