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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1450 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (10.42): Mr Speaker, I present the Environment Protection Bill 1997, together with its explanatory memorandum and exposure drafts of the associated regulations and explanatory statement.

Title read by Clerk.

MR HUMPHRIES: I move:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

The Environment Protection Bill 1997 is one of the most important the Assembly will consider this year. At present environment protection in the Territory is achieved principally through the administration of five separate pieces of legislation, namely, the Air Pollution Act 1984, the Water Pollution Act 1984, the Noise Control Act 1988, the Pesticides Act 1989 and the Ozone Protection Act 1991. The Environment Protection Bill will repeal these Acts and replace them with a single law. The Bill will also provide a mechanism for the ACT to meet several of its national obligations under the Inter-Governmental Agreement on the Environment.

The first obligation is to give full effect to national environmental protection measures made by the National Environment Protection Council. Although these measures will automatically become part of the law of the Territory under the National Environment Protection Council Act 1994, in many cases more detailed implementation measures will be required. The Bill will provide scope to do this, particularly through the regulations and environment protection policies that can be made under it. A second significant national obligation which can be implemented under the Environment Protection Bill will be a move over time to a full polluter-pays charging system. I should also say that this principle reflects a key element of the Government's approach to regulation in using economic instruments and incentives to achieve environmental objectives.

Mr Speaker, I turn now to look at the Bill in more detail. The key objectives of the Environment Protection Bill are: First, to protect the environment; secondly, to achieve an appropriate balance between economic, social and environmental factors in decision-making, consistent with the principle of ecologically sustainable development; thirdly, to establish a single and integrated regulatory framework for environment protection; and, finally, to encourage the community at large to accept responsibility for their actions in relation to the environment. These objectives are set out in detail in the objectives clause of the Bill.

Consistent with its objectives, the Bill facilitates a proactive coregulatory approach tailored to specific activities. For example, the Environment Management Authority established under the Bill can work with a business to identify environmental risks and for the parties to put in place a strategy to deal with these. Depending on the circumstances, such a strategy might be implemented through a non-binding environment protection agreement, through an accredited environment improvement plan or through conditions

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