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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4174 ..

Schedule, as amended, agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

[COGNATE BILL:

Debate resumed from 15 May 1997, on motion by Mr Humphries:

That this Bill be agreed to in principle.

MR SPEAKER: Is it the wish of the Assembly to debate this order of the day concurrently with order of the day No. 3, the Environment Protection (Consequential Provisions) Bill 1997? There being no objection, that course will be followed. I remind members that in debating order of the day No. 2 they may also address their remarks to order of the day No. 3.

MR CORBELL (8.13): Mr Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening on behalf of the Labor Party to address the Environment Protection Bill. This is a significant piece of legislation and, as this is the first formal opportunity which members in this place have to address the Bill in detail, I will take the opportunity to make a few comments.

This legislation has been introduced by the current Government. It was, I think, initiated under the previous Labor Government and there has been a consensual process from both sides of the house as well as the crossbenches in reaching this stage. There is no doubt that this is an important piece of legislation. It has been said before that this is perhaps the most significant piece of environment protection legislation to come before this Assembly. It is certainly one of the most complex pieces of legislation I have seen, and it is comprehensive in its ambit.

There are some important concepts in this legislation and I would like to outline a couple of those this evening. Labor is very supportive of these concepts. Perhaps the most important and most fundamental one in this piece of legislation, which is a progressive and significant step in the protection of the environment in the ACT, is the concept of legislating for an environmental duty. For the first time in the Territory we are about to pass into law a requirement for every citizen of this Territory to take due care of the environment. It is a requirement under law to protect the environment and people must ensure that their individual actions do not affect the environment adversely in any way which contravenes the Act. That is a very important step. It is a step to be welcomed because it places on the books for the first time the understanding that all of us in this community have a legal obligation as much as a moral obligation to protect our environment and to work to enhance it.

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