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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1841 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

However, we note that the triennial report must always be released by the end of March in each pre-election year. We would expect that any government seeking the environment vote would want to make sure that they provide a good response to the State of the Environment Report before the next election.

Apart from the triennial State of the Environment Report, we still want the Commissioner for the Environment to be able to include in his annual report an update on any significant changes, or events over the previous year which had a significant impact on the environment, so that we do not have to wait for up to three years to hear about them. We also want the commissioner to be able to report each year on the implementation of the Government's response to the commissioner's report, so that, again, the Government cannot get away with stretching out its response over the three years till the next triennial report. I understand that it was just an oversight; but the Bill does not include this provision, even though Mr Humphries told us that it would. In a letter that he sent me on 5 September 1996, he said:

I have no objection to your suggestion that the Commissioner's Annual Report be required to include a report on any exceptional changes or events over the previous year which have a significant impact on the state of the ACT environment, and a report on the Government's implementation of the recommendations of the previous year's state of the environment report. The Commissioner has already made a recommendation to this effect which is supported by the Government.

The amendment that I will be proposing would insert into the Bill this provision for annual reporting. Another aspect of the Bill that we support is that the commissioner will now be able to undertake investigations by holding public hearings. The problem arose when in the Assembly in February 1996 the Greens initiated an inquiry by the commissioner into pesticide use in the ACT. It became obvious in the course of that inquiry that, while the public could provide written submissions to the commissioner, there was no mechanism in place to allow the public to speak formally with the commissioner about their submissions or the submissions of others. This deficiency will be corrected in this Bill.

While the Greens support this Bill, let me take this opportunity to make some general comments about concerns that we have with the state of the environment reporting in the ACT. It has been an ongoing concern to us whether there are sufficient financial and staff resources available to the commissioner to enable him to undertake his responsibilities as comprehensively as possible. We were certainly concerned originally that this change from annual to triennial reporting was just a way for the Government to reduce the workload of the commissioner and thus the resources that were needed for state of the environment reporting. We have received independent advice that triennial reporting will still be sufficient to show major changes in the state of the environment. However, let me put the Government on notice that we will not accept any reduction in the commissioner's budget as a result of this change in reporting requirements.

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