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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 18 ..

MR CORBELL (12.07): I would like to make a couple of short points on behalf of the Opposition. We certainly welcome the strategy. It is an important strategy that deals with an extremely crucial issue of the management of the environment in the ACT. The Labor Party is very strongly in support of a policy which will achieve a more effective weed control strategy than the ACT has had in the past. We welcome the strategy, because it will determine priorities for action and it will concentrate resources on those areas of priority.

We also welcome the support that the strategy has achieved from community and conservation organisations and the commitment also from jurisdictions surrounding the ACT to the control of noxious weeds. We also support the simplicity and clarity of the strategy. I note that the original approach is working well so far and that a review of the strategy will be conducted in March and September. We will look forward to that review and we will be watching closely to see how effectively the strategy is being implemented. Overall, Mr Speaker, we support the strategy.

MR WOOD (12.08): Mr Speaker, I too would like to make some brief comments in support of the strategy, which we recognise is very important. I am one of those people - I suppose, like all members - who drive around and see the cracks in the road and the untidy shopping centres. I am not being critical here, but I look at the city and see what the problems are as well as admire the good things about it. There is certainly no doubt, as we drive around the roads, and more particularly on the major highways and into the buffer zones and the bush areas, that weeds present a major problem. This Assembly has attended to that over a period of time. I recall that Mr Moore was the chair of a committee that looked at attending to the problem of feral animals and weeds. He certainly emphasised that aspect, which I was looking at when I was Minister.

I was trying to recollect the amount of money that, quite a few years ago, began the development of this strategy. I forget whether we voted $40,000 or $60,000 just to start it off. I am quite pleased that the current Government has taken that on, expanded it and carried it forward. It is going to be a long-range job to clear weeds. Perhaps we will never go the full distance; but, if we do not act in the ways described in this strategy, the problem will simply get worse and worse and we will be in a position from which we can never recover. We have to take these steps to control the problem. I think we can peg it back somewhat.

The Landcare groups and the Parkcare groups are doing good work. Mr Humphries and other members have seen around the city those people clearing the weeds. That is an ongoing job. It is going to take many years. But already you can go back to some places and see the effect of that voluntary labour. I know that many of the rural lessees are doing a very good job. Indeed, one part of the changes that came down some years ago was to see that rural lessees drew up management plans, which also incorporated attention to clearing of weeds. There is one point that I recall being criticised for when I was Minister, and that is that we used to put impositions on landowners to clear weeds from their properties but, as a government, we were not always quite so good at clearing our weeds off government controlled areas of land. I was quite sensitive to that criticism.

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