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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2649 ..

MR SPEAKER: Well I suggest you will have to wait until you move to the other side of the chamber. In the meantime, your colleague, Mr Hargreaves, would like to ask a supplementary.

MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. My supplementary is: in light of the minister's comments about a media beat-up, if I arrange a meeting, will you come to down to Woden with me and meet these concerned workers and allay their fears? After all, it is your electorate. You can feel free to bring your campaign director, provided he or she is a worker in the area to whom the tales of personal violence are given. Will you come down with me?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I have never been afraid throughout my political career to face public meetings on any subject whatsoever and I do not intend to change my approach at this stage. If you want to talk to people about crime, I am very happy to be there to discuss the facts with them, and to emphasise what are the facts and what is the fiction.

MS TUCKER: My question to the Minister for Urban Services relates to the woodland in north Watson. Minister, you will recall that the Watson Community Association recently released a report on the ecological values of the north Watson woodland, which recommended that the woodland be incorporated into Canberra Nature Park. At the time you said in the media that the flora and fauna committee had visited this site and said that the site was not worthy of inclusion in the Canberra Nature Park. Could you provide us with more detail of the flora and fauna committee's assessment of north Watson? Could you tell us when the committee actually visited the site and will you table the assessment they provided to you of the ecological value of the north Watson woodland? I do not want you to tell me about the action plan for grassy woodlands-I know about that. I want to know what specific assessment the flora and fauna committee did on the north Watson site.

MR SMYTH: Ms Tucker asks a question and then says that I cannot answer it. She might not want to hear the answer but the reality is that this work was done in conjunction with action plan No 10 that relates to yellow box/red gums. That is what it was assessed under. The assessments were done across all of Canberra and, based on those assessments, certain areas were to be put aside and other areas were not to be put aside.

This is a curious situation. You have a process that ends up putting aside an extra 100 hectares into reserves, based on assessment, based on a scientific process, based on information gathered, but when it does not pick up the site that you have a particular interest in there is something wrong with the process. We have a process that has been set in place as a result of this government's legislation. This government was the first and I understand still the only jurisdiction in Australia to have completed all its action plans for endangered species or biological communities. That assessment led to 100 hectares, including 18 hectares on the other side of Antill Street, which contain valuable yellow box/red gum woodlands that need to be kept, being included in the reserve.

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