Page 5915 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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I think these are some of the matters that we have to look at, as we also look at problems associated with weed infestation, for example. I note and support fully the comments made by Mr Moore in relation to the requirement for the ACT Government to play its role in ensuring that any land for which it has responsibility is looked after so that the rural lessees who live nearby do not suffer from the problems of weed infestation from government land.
Let me now turn briefly, Mr Deputy Speaker, to some of the recommendations of the committee's report. One of the key recommendations in relation to the current process is the need to allocate new and transferable agistments and other leases, apart from intermittent grazing, on an open market basis. I think that is a very important process. It is very important to make sure that those people who are bidding for rural leases do so on an open market, in competition with others. But I think we have to remember that there are people who have been living on some of these rural leases for some time and that they are their places of residence. I think we cover that later in one of our recommendations. It is important to acknowledge that when we are looking at the allocation of leases.
One of the other problems associated with the ACT has been overstocking. I think in general terms the officers of the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning who look after this area do a pretty fair job in ensuring that we do the best we can to not allow overstocking of our areas. We have a policy at the moment of agistment being granted to only those people who actually have an ACT rural lease, to make sure that there is potential for them to move stock around if they run into a problem.
I think we all are aware of some of the problems associated with the ringbarking of trees, particularly in relation to where horses are. Some work is being done at the moment in relation to trees like Eucalyptus macrorhyncha, or the red stringy-bark, which seems to be particularly affected in areas where horses are allowed to graze or agist.
Moving on to issues like soil erosion, I think it is important for the Government, in conjunction with rural lessees, to engage in remedial work, and not necessarily leave it all to the leaseholder, because some of the problems have developed over a period and are, I would suggest, a result of the policies that have been in place for the short term of the lease. We have recommended that the Government consider the availability of low interest loans to enable lessees to improve the soil conservation practices on their properties.
I think the issue of management plans has been discussed. It is quite clear that most farmers or rural lessees who have any aspirations to be effective and efficient farmers have developed forms of management of the land and are preparing land management plans, et cetera. As members may or may not know, some very good information has been made
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