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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3519 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The committee was greatly concerned that the Government's draft Bill gave authorised officers great powers, powers that went well beyond those of police officers. In our recommendations Nos 6 to 10, we said we believe it is appropriate to limit the powers of authorised officers. We have recommended accordingly. On issues of public notification and public participation, recommendations Nos 12 to 25, 42 to 43 and 47 to 49 all deal with various aspects involving the processes under which the Bill operates.

Another interesting area, Mr Speaker, is application to the Commonwealth Government. At the moment the Commonwealth Government has agreed to bind itself on what I would call the precursors of this legislation. The Assembly committee believes it is appropriate to continue to bind the Commonwealth Government under those old pieces of legislation until such time as they agree to be bound by this legislation. In that way we do not have a situation where the Commonwealth is simply not bound by environmental legislation. I hope, Mr Speaker, that that will encourage the Commonwealth to move quickly and agree to be bound by this legislation.

I refer now to discretionary decisions and appeal rights. Recommendation 28 gives the Environmental Management Authority the discretion to cancel an authorisation on account of fees not having been paid, rather than requiring the EMA to cancel it. Recommendation 37 includes appeal rights against discretionary provisions for which appeal provisions were not already provided under the Bill. Mr Speaker, we also dealt with economic instruments. The committee recognises that making provisions in the legislation for economic instruments such as tradeable permits and bubble licences is useful even if these do not become a major environmental tool in the ACT in the near future. The aim of recommendation 30 is to ensure that the focus of using economic instruments is to further the objects of the Act, not just to provide a situation where the Act can be undermined because of economic considerations.

With reference to Class A and Class B activities, the committee considered that the classification of activities as A or B needed some slight variation. In particular, the committee was of the view that the storage and production of petroleum products should be subject to the stricter classification - that is, the A classification - rather than where they originally were. It recommended a move from Class B to Class A. The committee realised, Mr Speaker, in making these decisions and putting these things in place, that sometimes you look and say, "Should it be a Class A activity or should it be a Class B activity?". Somebody goes to a Class B. The committee looked at that one in particular and thought that a great deal of ground water pollution and other pollution in the Australian Capital Territory has occurred because of storage of petroleum products in high quantities and therefore thought that they ought to be subject to appropriate authorisations.

On noise zones, Mr Speaker, we once again made an on-balance decision and will go with the Government, but we will need to monitor those. With reference to noise from motor sports, recommendation 35 lowers the noise level permitted from motor sports at Fairbairn Park. The committee could not see why our neighbours in the region, in Queanbeyan, ought to be subject to an exception and be subject to different laws from those in this Territory. They are entitled to the same level of environmental protection from noise coming from this Territory as anybody else in the Territory. We dealt with issues to do with prosecution and liability for corporate officers.

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