Page 3258 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 November 1992
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In all the recommendations agreed to by the Government, Madam Speaker, there are no definite timeframes spelt out. What guarantees are there that the recommendations agreed to will be implemented? How does the Government propose to keep the Assembly informed as to its progress? These are the unanswered questions which the Minister may care to enlighten us about later. As I said, Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party is delighted to say that the Government has agreed to most of the recommendations of the report, and we thank it for so doing.
MR MOORE (11.35): Madam Speaker, I think the Government's response to this report, if we put it in perspective, is overwhelmingly supportive. I think it reflects the good work done by the standing committee of the previous Assembly, which I was fortunate enough to chair. The discussion that went on with rural lessees at the time led to all these recommendations. However, it is not surprising where the Government has chosen to respond in the negative. If one were to take an overview of the Government's response, basically, where the Government is going to be out of pocket and cannot see a fair return for that money it has responded in the negative. That is my interpretation of the Government's response to the report as a whole. That certainly fits into the range of areas - the low interest rates, using government equipment to assist with soil erosion, and so forth.
There is an emphasis here, though, that has the same emphasis as the report, and that is to give more control to the lessees. I can see the Government's perspective in saying, "Well, we are going to give them more control over their areas, their leases". You are also going to allow them to take the responsibility, and with that goes the financial responsibility for the lease. That is the way I would summarise the way the Government has responded.
Mr Wood: You have taken my response from me.
MR MOORE: Mr Wood interjects that I have taken his response from him. We might save some time in the Assembly this morning and get through the rest of the heavy business schedule today, but I shall continue my comments. Madam Speaker, I can understand that response. In all the reports that come down in this Assembly members are very conscious of the fact that we do not just go for the notion, "Okay, spend everything". We could easily bring down reports that say, "Look, if you do this and this and this, every problem will be solved because there is an unlimited supply of money". In fact, the committees of this Assembly almost always - I cannot think of an exception, actually - have been very conscious of the fact that there are financial questions associated with the recommendations they make. In this case the committee recognised that but still felt that it was appropriate to make some recommendations which would have incurred some minor cost to government. One example is the low interest rates.
Mr De Domenico has taken up a number of the issues that were not agreed to and I would like to reiterate one or two of them. One is the recommendation that we examine whether the habitat and existence of rare marsupial animal species are being threatened by the number of eastern grey kangaroos in the ACT. The response is that there is no evidence. Of course, had there been no evidence the committee would not have made a recommendation on that. There was evidence presented to the committee that that was the case. It may well be that,
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