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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 10 Hansard (13 October) . . Page.. 3088 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

simply have doctors advising her. Mr Speaker, this is the inconsistency in the Government's approach. There is no reasonable justification why the Conservator of Flora and Fauna should not have the equivalent qualifications in their area of expertise that we expect from the DPP or, indeed, from the Chief Health Officer.

The Standing Committee on Urban Services, in its report into the draft management plan for Canberra Nature Park, made some comments about the role of the Conservator of Flora and Fauna and its relationship with the Executive Director of Environment ACT. Without getting into the debate about whether or not those positions should be separate - that is another issue to perhaps address at a later date - we do have to look at what the Standing Committee on Urban Services said. It believed the role of the conservator was first and foremost to protect and conserve the ACT's natural environment. And the conservator, therefore, has a very clear obligation to ensure that the relevant requirements of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act and the Nature Conservation Act are being enforced, adhered to and implemented across the Territory.

Mr Smyth has outlined a range of issues he believes warrant the maintenance of the status quo. The Minister's argument here today is an argument about, "Let's keep the status quo - it works at the moment, why change it?". No-one is questioning the dedication, expertise and ability of the staff who work in Environment ACT. The Minister outlined a range of programs and initiatives that all of us in this place would welcome, as sensible, forward looking, effective - if they are properly resourced - initiatives to address nature conservation issues in the Territory. But we need to come back to first principles in this debate.

We need to decide that if preservation of the natural environment is important; if having expert officers making assessments about the preservation of the natural environment, is important, then should we accord similar prerequisites to the position of the Conservator of Flora and Fauna as we accord to other similar positions? The Conservator of Flora and Fauna is a statutory position, under the Nature Conservation Act; just as the Chief Health Officer is under the relevant Act governing that area; just as the Director of Public Prosecutions is under the relevant Act governing that area.

The Commissioner for the Environment, as Mr Humphries would know, performs a different function from the Conservator of Flora and Fauna. The Conservator of Flora and Fauna has statutory obligations under the Nature Conservation Act. The Commissioner for the Environment has statutory obligations under the Commissioner for the Environment Act. The question we are debating here today is the qualifications of the Conservator of Flora and Fauna. And the Conservator of Flora and Fauna should have similar qualifications - or perhaps we should say, level of qualifications - to those other statutory positions I have mentioned.

To take a broader approach, we expect, when we are recruiting people into positions, that we recruit people with knowledge and expertise of the positions. There are indeed positions within the ACT government service where that occurs, such as when we recruit people into the Planning and Land Management area of the Department of Urban Services. Within PALM, we do not automatically require people to have qualifications if they are already in the position. But when we are recruiting new people, or when we