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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (26 February) . . Page.. 474 ..

MR HIRD: Mr Speaker, as a supplementary question: Can you, Minister, give an undertaking that such tourism initiatives will not be undertaken at the expense of the environment?

MR KAINE: Through you, Mr Speaker: Yes, I can give that assurance. The whole thrust of the move to use those natural resources better has been predicated on the necessity to balance, on the one hand, the desire of people to go and see them and, on the other hand, the necessity to maintain that environment in its present state so that it is not degraded. That was the principal thrust of the report of the Economic Development and Tourism Committee, a report submitted by the committee when I chaired it. The objectives were shared by Mr Wood, I know, and Mr Osborne, who is not here at the moment.

The objective, of course, is to set in place the proper controls. That requires, first of all, that management plans be in place for each of these regions so that we know exactly what we are prepared to allow to happen and what we are not prepared to allow to happen. That will be supplemented by a system of licensing and accreditation of tour operators, for example, who want to go into those areas. They will have to be accredited; they will have to be licensed; and they will go into these areas only under strict conditions as to what they can do, how many people they can take there and what they can do when they are in there. I think we can guarantee that the environment will not suffer as a result of allowing tourists to go and see them.

MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, in posing my question to Mr Stefaniak, can I take as long as Mr Kaine did?

MR SPEAKER: Just proceed, Mr Wood, and do not provoke me.

MR WOOD: Mr Stefaniak, the Auditor-General has queried the procedures followed to hand over the management of the Dickson pool to former employees. I quote from page 22 of his report:

As a result of the tender evaluation the management of Dickson Pool was awarded to Messrs Kennedy and Graham who are former employees of the Bureau of Sport, Recreation and Racing. The employees worked in the management of the pools for the Bureau and were made redundant following the outsourcing of the management of the pools.

The review of the tender process found that the two referees for the former employees' tender were:

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