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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 374 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

An additional initial concern was that any winding down of inspections for disease in apiaries could have had an adverse effect on commercial apiaries in surrounding areas of New South Wales. I understand that since then the Government has given undertakings that regulations will be formulated which will address these concerns.

The Opposition does maintain some concern that the ACT Government did not initially inform the New South Wales Government of its proposals in relation to this Bill. This is an important point because the issue of disease-carrying across borders from hives in the ACT to hives in New South Wales is an important one. Clearly, the New South Wales Government would be concerned about these changes if the ACT did not continue an effective bee disease control management program. There is also concern that the Bill, if it had been approved in its original form, could have had an impact on the export of bees and bee products from surrounding areas of New South Wales if there was no effective disease management program here in the ACT.

Again, the Opposition now understands that these issues have, to a large degree, been resolved in discussion between the department and the local Beekeepers Association and that the Government will be formulating regulations to address these concerns. We understand that those discussions have been fruitful and will resolve the main areas that have been raised by the people in the bee industry. On this basis, the Opposition will support the Bill.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.56), in reply: Mr Speaker, I appreciate the Opposition's support for this Bill. I think it is a quite important piece of legislation. Although it affects only a small number of keepers of animals in the ACT, namely, beekeepers, it does indicate a couple of things in a broader sense. One is that we are about reducing the volume of legislation which unnecessarily proves to be a burden for those who seek to operate particular hobbies or businesses that may be affected by that kind of regulation. In this particular case, the Apiaries Act 1928 was framed in a period when registration of beehives was thought to be an appropriate mechanism for dealing with things like the volume of bees in, say, an urban area and diseases of afflicted bees.

It is clear that times have changed and that it is more appropriate for the mechanisms generally available under the Animal Diseases Act to be applying also to bees and the keepers of bees. The Government proposes in this legislation to enable the provisions of the Animal Diseases Act to apply now to beekeepers and to bees, so that provision can be made through regulation to govern the way in which this sector should operate, and the capacity of a generally accepted mechanism for dealing with problems through the Animal Diseases Act is the appropriate mechanism for dealing with the problems in this area as well. The amendments widen the scope of the legislation to cover invertebrate animals, which I am advised include bees.

The Apiaries Act was identified as one of those pieces of legislation from the pre-1980 legislative review which required updating or repeal. That reflected the fact that, whereas some years ago beekeeping was a fairly significant occupation within the ACT - I think there was even a commercial industry operating in the ACT - that is not the

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