Page 5916 - Week 18 - Wednesday, 11 December 1991
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available through the New South Wales department to assist farmers in carrying out an assessment of their property with a view to developing a management plan. My understanding is that the ACT service is taking that up with its New South Wales counterpart so that some of the information from that can be made available to people of the ACT. I would encourage them to make full use of it. That is a rather key issue, Mr Deputy Speaker, that we need to look at.
The issue of tenure has been discussed. We need to make sure that the responsibility for management, in terms of environment and ecology of the leasehold, is undertaken effectively and efficiently by the owner of the leasehold. You will find that once the recommendations of this committee are digested we will see, in conjunction with the Territory Plan, longer-term leases being made available to the rural lessees in the ACT. That will be an important start in improving the environment around the ACT, particularly in relation to noxious weeds and other problems like feral animals, which do cause problems within the environment.
Lastly, Mr Deputy Speaker, I think the issue of the maintenance of heritage sites within rural areas in the ACT is very important. The ACT started as a rural area from the point of European settlement, and I think it is important to make sure that we maintain a representative section of that type of activity in the ACT. On this basis, while the Government should oversight the maintenance of, and accept responsibility for, heritage sites which are not being maintained by the lessee, we also have to insist on some Federal role in this.
We all know that heritage grants are provided to the ACT when an area is listed by the National Trust, for example; but I think it is important to provide money as well at the same time to enable proper conservation plans to be prepared for these sites. One prime example is the old dairy in Belconnen. It was listed by the National Trust, but unfortunately no money was available to prepare a proper conservation plan for that site. By the time we get around to putting in a grant, excessive damage, just by virtue of time, may have occurred to that set of buildings, which may cause us some problems in the future. I think the issue of heritage is very important, and this is an area that all governments, Federal and State, have to look at on a joint basis to make sure that a representative section of our heritage, particularly our rural heritage, is maintained for future generations.
MRS GRASSBY (3.31): I am going to make this very short because there is another speaker after me. I want to thank the committee people who worked on this and who did an extremely good job. Also, I thank the people who came in and gave evidence. I did not get the opportunity to go out to the farms because, as I am on so many committees, it was impossible.
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