Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 192 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

input or do they not? Mr Smyth said yes to that. He said, "We have the concept for the region. We acknowledge that the flora and fauna committee sees it as an important concept. We have input from Environment ACT". But we are not allowed to talk about it here Somehow, we are totally out of line in even having a view and requesting the New South Wales Government to look at that view because we happen to be near neighbours and happen to share an environmental and biological region which does not respect lines on a map. The two statements do not fit together at all. Either we have a position of involvement or we do not. Clearly, we do. Brendan Smyth has said that we do, but somehow he is drawing a distinction about the political actions that we can and cannot take.

I have clarified the situation. We are not imposing our view. We are not in some way saying to the New South Wales Government that it has to do something. As if we would say that? We have no power to do that. We are saying to the New South Wales Government that we have a view on the subject, that many people in the ACT community have a strong affection for and connection with the region. For that reason, as Australians, we thought we had a place in the broad discussion. Apparently, that is not so; it does not suit the Government to take that line at the moment, although, as people have said, they chose to talk to France when it suited them.

I need to add a little to what I said initially in terms of what has happened on this matter. At the end of January the New South Wales Government released its proposal for a regional forest agreement for southern New South Wales. That proposal contained five options for the south coast subregion and one option for the Tumut subregion. This motion relates to the options for the south coast subregion.

The reserve proposal put forward by the South East Forest Alliance most closely matches the proposal of the Government, producing 32,000 cubic metres of sawlogs per year, which is the lowest production option of the five options. However, the New South Wales Government has not given any commitment to exclude the woodchipping of non-plantation forests that would not be included in the reserved areas. That is why it is important for the Assembly to support this motion, rather than just supporting a particular option presented by the New South Wales Government in its draft RFA.

On the issue of the RFA, Mr Smyth is obviously a blind supporter of the process. That is not what happened in Queensland. There was a very interesting series of events there whereby there was an agreement made which had the support of unions, conservationists and government, all coming up with something that was more constructive and creative in terms of employment.

I have probably addressed most of the arguments that have been put, so I will move on to making a comment about the critical environmental and economic issues at stake in this discussion. Those matters will have an impact on the ACT. We do see this Government acknowledging that economic issues in the region have an impact on Canberra because it is a regional centre. Therefore, I will talk a little about some of the issues related to the economic argument.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .