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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3454 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

I think that is not to be underestimated. Mr Speaker, we also heard from the ACT Commissioner for the Environment, who said, amongst other things:

... if we genuinely aspire to the concept and practice of ecologically sustainable development, state of environment reports must be as useful and as attractive to decision-makers and to developers as they are to conservationists. Also, they have little likelihood of a long lifespan unless they are an integral part of management planning and practices.

Dr Baker was prepared to share with us some of his expectations for the future, and you will find those in the report on the environment.

Mr Speaker, one of the other very useful devices through this conference was your willingness to make Hansard available to record the proceedings, and I tabled the transcript of the proceedings along with the minutes of the various meetings. I think it is appropriate that they be tabled and recorded in this Assembly so that somebody who is interested in such issues in time will be able to explore those in detail. We will be making our reports available also to members of parliaments in the other States and Territories who attended the conference, so that they also have a clear record of some of the useful things that came out of that conference.

Other speakers included Dr Bridgewater, chief executive officer of the Australian Nature Conservation Agency, and Mr Barry Carbon, executive director of the Commonwealth Environment Protection Agency, who is also the supervising scientist of the Alligator Rivers Region. Mr Speaker, I encourage members to have a look at the reports because I think they are a very useful background to understanding some of the issues that we need to deal with. At the end of the conference, Mr Speaker, the Queensland Parliament offered to host the next annual conference of both the public works committees and the environment committees concurrently, and we accepted with thanks.

Mr Speaker, a huge number of people are involved in the organisation of these conferences and in making them successful. I think the most significant was the secretary of our committee, Mr Rod Power, whose work, as usual, was exceptional. He had the assistance of Ms Anne Munns, who also did a fantastic job. But what was clear to me, Mr Speaker, was that they were supported by members of the Assembly Secretariat right through. At almost all levels somebody wound up doing some jobs. I think it is a great credit to you, Mr Speaker, and to the Clerk that they were prepared to pull together and make it such a successful conference. I want to offer my personal thanks to each and every one of those people because it really was a very successful conference.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

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