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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4402 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

due to amendments to the Act by the previous Labor Government. The present Liberal Government laid this issue to rest in 1995 through further amendments to the Act to restrict the tree protection orders. This Bill seeks to reverse these changes and also includes specific procedures for the granting of licences for cutting down trees, so that the tree protection orders can be effectively enforced.

I must point out that this Bill covers only native trees. This does not mean that some exotic trees are not worthy of protection but merely that for administrative simplicity we wanted to use the existing framework of the Nature Conservation Act, which covers only native plants and animals. Depending on how this Bill goes, we may wish to extend tree protection to exotic trees in the next Assembly. Let me also say that this Bill is not about stopping the cutting down of trees forever. What it does is require that persons who wish to cut down native trees over a threshold size of five metres in height or 300 millimetres in trunk diameter must get a licence to do so. The threshold is based on a comparison with the large number of tree protection orders already in place in various local government areas around Australia. However, there are circumstances where a licence is not required, such as where there is an immediate danger of part or all of a tree falling and injuring people or property, where reasonable pruning or trimming of trees would prevent interference with powerlines and buildings or where the trees to be cut down are in forest plantations.

Where a person wishes to obtain a licence to cut down a tree, the person will first need to obtain a report from a qualified arborist justifying why the tree needs to be removed. Such a report would cost only some $50 to $75, which is fairly minor compared to the cost of cutting down a mature tree in a built-up area, which can be around $1,000. Once an application is received by the Conservator of Flora and Fauna, a public notification process is triggered, including notification of neighbours and an advertisement in the newspaper. People will be able to put in objections to the application to the conservator. Once the conservator makes a decision on the licence, there are appeal rights available through the AAT, including third-party appeal rights by objectors. The Minister already has the power, under section 64 of the Act, to prescribe criteria for the granting of licences, so he would be able to make clear to the community when licences will and will not be granted.

As part of this Bill we have also added an amendment to require the Conservator of Flora and Fauna - the public servant who exercises many of the decision-making powers under the Act - to have appropriate qualifications and experience in the conservation of flora and fauna. It seems anomalous to us that the person who is making all the decisions about nature conservation in the ACT does not currently have to have any expertise in this area.

Our Bill makes sure that any decision to cut down a tree is not taken lightly; that there has to be good reason for it. I do not think that I have to argue in this Assembly about the importance of trees to the environment or to the bush capital image of our city. The question that will inevitably arise, I am sure, is whether we need to have legislative controls over the maintenance of trees. I believe that we do. Our office regularly receives calls from people who see magnificent old trees being cut down on private property, sometimes for the most trivial of reasons - for example, they shade the lawn too much. Sometimes it is because developers do not want any trees to get in the way of

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