Page 1401 - Week 05 - Thursday, 13 May 1993
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measures adopted to attain and maintain any agreed national environmental protection standards, guidelines and goals. While the primary focus of the ACT state of the environment report obviously will be on our local environment, it is intended that the information contained in that report can be expanded easily to ensure that we meet our national reporting obligations.
The commissioner's annual state of the environment report will be produced by the commissioner independently of agencies responsible for environmental management. This will give greater credibility to the process of monitoring the effectiveness of the Government's long-term environmental management. The Bill provides for the state of the environment report in respect of each financial year to be prepared by the following 31 August. As this will be a significant task I intend to allow the incoming commissioner a longer period in which to prepare the first state of the environment report by delaying commencement of clause 19(1) until six months after enactment of the legislation. This should ensure that the first state of the environment report is sufficiently comprehensive and robust to provide a firm basis for future development and assessment of trends. It will also allow the commissioner to consider the considerable amount of work being done on state of the environment reporting by the Commonwealth, State and Territory governments in Australia.
The commissioner will also be required to produce a separate annual report which will essentially be an environmental ombudsman's report. This will cover the outcome of complaints and investigations dealt with by the commissioner for that year. The report will also include information on decisions not to investigate and on agency responses to recommendations and matters raised by the commissioner following investigations of complaints.
The legislation also allows for the commissioner to prepare special reports on significant environmental issues affecting the ACT. This can be at the direction of the Minister responsible for the environment or at the commissioner's discretion. The legislation will allow the commissioner to require agencies to provide information for the purposes of preparing the state of the environment report. When the information is not provided by an agency the commissioner will have the power to require the agency to provide staffing assistance. Without this provision it would be difficult for the commissioner to complete a state of the environment report. However, the commissioner will not be entitled to request information that is considered by the Minister concerned to be contrary to the public interests. This includes communication between an ACT Minister and a State or Commonwealth Minister that could prejudice intergovernmental relations, and deliberations on decisions of the ACT Executive or of a committee of the Executive. These provisions are consistent with those contained in the Freedom of Information Act 1989.
Consultation with environment and conservation groups on the legislation has met with favourable responses. Establishing a Commissioner for the Environment is a further example of this Government's commitment to accountability, both in its individual environment management decisions and in continuing to monitor overall environmental quality in the ACT. It will provide the Government with critical data which will help identify changes in particular components of the ACT environment. This will assist the Government in more informed decisions about present and future directions for environmental
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