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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 376 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

What we are going to do as an alternative to registration is to have a regulation under the Animal Diseases Act requiring hive owners to mark their hives with their name and address. That would allow a trace-back mechanism for diseased or abandoned hives, which would be useful in the event of a serious disease outbreak. It would also allow people to see whose hives are causing problems. Some hives are kept in people's backyards; but other hives are kept on what could be public land, which is good in that it is away from urban areas and means that people are less likely to be swarmed or stung, but probably it constitutes an illegal use of the land. In any case, if the bees are being kept there, we should know at least who it is that is keeping those bees on that site, so that they can be spoken to about any problems that might arise. The Parks and Conservation Service will be working with the Beekeepers Association to ensure that information on good beekeeping practices is widely available.

Mr Corbell also commented on the winding down of inspections in this area. I have had some concerns expressed by the Beekeepers Association about that issue as well. I really need to put on the record that a decision was taken quite some years ago to wind down the level of inspections of beehives and bee regulation generally in the ACT. It occurred probably four or five years ago and is not a recent phenomenon, and apparently has been a matter of little or no comment by beekeepers until quite recently. I maintain that we need to regulate in this area to some extent. I am not pretending that we should vacate the field, by any stretch of the imagination; but we do need to make sure that the means of regulation are appropriate and up to date. Clearly, the present Apiaries Act of 1928 does not meet our contemporary requirements, and I would suggest that this legislation, under the mainstream control of the Animal Diseases Act, is a much better way of being able to achieve those purposes. I thank members for their support, and I commend the Bill to the house.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Leave granted to dispense with the detail stage.

Bill agreed to.

Debate resumed from 26 September 1996, on motion by Mrs Carnell:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR BERRY (12.06): Mr Speaker, this Bill is characterised in the explanatory memorandum as a Bill to correct a number of omissions and errors of a technical nature that have come to light over the period of the operation of the Act. In addition, the Bill streamlines the process for making amendments of a technical nature to the public sector management standards. Mr Speaker, if you look at the Bill as a whole, that is true; but, if you examine it a little more closely, it has some more significant effects.

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