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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (21 November) . . Page.. 2203 ..

MS HORODNY: My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning, Mr Humphries. In relation to management of Australian alpine areas covering parts of the ACT, New South Wales and Victoria, does the Government support a World Heritage nomination for the Australian Alps national park and, if so, will you be actively working towards such a nomination?

MR HUMPHRIES: I thank Ms Horodny for this question because it is an issue that has come across my desk in recent days. I opened a seminar of transborder alpine management authorities a couple of weeks ago at the Pavilion Hotel. It was looking at issues concerning management of national parks. In the context of that particular issue, I was asked to look at the question of whether the ACT should support nomination for World Heritage listing of our element of the alpine national park, that is, Namadgi National Park, as part of that chain of three national parks going down the Australian Alps.

The answer basically is that yes, the ACT Government does support the nomination. It is not a matter that has been discussed in detail, however. As I understand it, at this point in time it is exceedingly unlikely that such a nomination would proceed. My advice is that, although the position of the New South Wales Government is not clear, certainly the Victorian Government strongly opposes the listing of its element of the alpine area as part of a World Heritage listing. In the circumstances, it is very unlikely that the Commonwealth would proceed to list any of those three elements, with the resistance of one government.

However, I believe that it is an appropriate issue to continue to raise. I think there are some advantages in World Heritage listing, and I will certainly take the opportunity, when I next have it, of talking to my colleague in Victoria about how we can best proceed to protect the values of those areas in our respective national parks. If World Heritage listing achieves that, then I am sure that ultimately the parties will realise that they should support nomination in those terms.

MR BERRY: I direct this question to Mr De Domenico in his capacity as Minister for Industrial Relations. Along with the appointment of Mr Houlihan, your proposal to put all senior executives on individual contracts - the cry of the New Right - and your tactic of approaching directly all ACT public servants, dealing directly with the workers rather than properly through their unions, why is the Government following the CRA example of moving away from collective bargaining and towards individual contracts with all staff?

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