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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (10 April) . . Page.. 905 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (4.18): Mr Speaker, I think Ms Horodny has misunderstood my argument against this amendment. It is not that conservation officers as such have that power, as I understand it; there are other officers who have that power. This amendment extends the number of officers who have the power to enter land and carry out investigations and examinations that may affect a person's land. The argument that I put to the round table meeting was that it is not appropriate to have a large number of such people with those powers.

I cannot recall any cases in the life of this Assembly, but there certainly have been a number of cases in previous Assemblies where members have expressed concerns about officers of the government having the power to enter land with certain draconian powers to do certain things in respect of that land, be it suburban land or rural land. I am advised that other officers have appropriate power and that therefore it is not a necessity to provide for that additional power. I would ask members not to widen the number of people who have such a power.

MR CORBELL (4.19): Mr Speaker, at the round table meeting the Minister and officers of the department indicated to me that there are already officers of the department who have both the power and the expertise necessary to enter land and to understand and give directions to the land occupier. That would seem to me to be a reasonable position. As such, it does not seem necessary to extend this power to other officers. However, if in the future officers entering land do not have the necessary expertise to understand what they are giving directions in regard to, then obviously we would need to reconsider the matter. At this stage we are happy that the officers entering the land and giving directions have the expertise necessary to do that. As such, we will not support Ms Horodny's amendment.

MS HORODNY (4.20): Mr Speaker, just to clarify, my understanding is that inspectors can already go onto rural land to enforce protection - for instance, protection of endangered species. I want to ensure that those same officers in the same inspections, if they need to, can also enter that land to ensure that threatening processes - in other words, weeds or pest animals - are not threatening the very ecosystems that the inspectors may enter that land to protect. The amendment rolls more considerations into the issue of inspections. I would argue that it is important, in the overall conservation measures that these officers are looking at, to include a provision that they look at threatening processes.

Amendment negatived.

MS HORODNY (4.22): I move:

Page 4, line 12, before subclause (2) insert the following subclause:

"(1C) Section 56 of the Principal Act is amended -

(a) by omitting from paragraph (1)(e) `or' (last occurring);

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