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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3562 ..

(a) the fifteenth sitting day after receiving the report;

(b) the last sitting day before the next ordinary election under the Electoral Act 1992.'.".

My first amendment specifies that the reporting for the State of the Environment Report must not be within six months of an ordinary election. Of course, this amendment assumes that we will still have fixed election dates, which a few weeks ago was looking pretty shaky. It seems, however, that a commitment to democratic principles has prevailed and that we can safely assume that fixed election dates will be a central feature of our electoral system.

I believe there needs to be a break between the release of the report and an election, to give time for the government to respond and for the public to digest the information. If the report is released too close to an election, it could be buried under all the other political material put around at that time and its value diminished. By the same token, there is little to be gained in reporting immediately after an election, as such a report would offer no useful information to the public on the actions of the new government, and the new government may be too preoccupied with its own establishment to have the time to develop the detailed response that such a report deserves.

My second amendment ensures that at least one state of the environment report is prepared during the term of an Assembly. As I argued at the in-principle stage, it is vital to our democratic process that such a report be produced within each term.

My third amendment makes clear that the minister must present the commissioner's report to the Assembly by the end of the term. At present, the minister has 15 sitting days after receiving the report from the commissioner in which to present the report to the Assembly. Conceivably, however, there may not be 15 scheduled sitting days before the next election. One would not want to presume that a minister for the environment would ever be sneaky, but without this amendment it may be possible for the minister not to present that report to the Assembly until after the election, which would be a corruption of the process.

MR CORBELL (5.12): The Labor Party has considered the amendments proposed by Ms Tucker. We have also considered the bill as put forward on the advice of the commissioner. It is my understanding that the commissioner's preferred approach is the one outlined in the government's amendment bill. For that reason, the Labor Party is not prepared to support Ms Tucker's amendments. I take on board her concerns. However, I am confident that the commissioner will exercise the appropriate discretion in relation to reporting to the Assembly.

As the government's bill does represent the commissioner's preferred view, as I understand it, the Labor Party will be supporting the bill as it stands and not Ms Tucker's amendments.

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