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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 7 Hansard (21 June) . . Page.. 2285 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Mr Speaker, amendments are also proposed to the disciplinary provisions to enable the Commission to take action against the casino licensee if their staff use force on patrons that is unlawful.

A number of other minor amendments have been proposed to correct technical problems or errors that were discovered with the Act. These include improvements to the exclusion provisions and clarification of the provisions relating to the procedures for the conduct of disciplinary action.

Mr Speaker, the Casino Control Amendment Bill 2001 is an important piece of legislation. It corrects some unexpected errors in the critical legislation that controls the operations of the casino. It is essential that the Government, through the Gambling and Racing Commission, has the appropriate power to properly regulate activity at the casino. The proposed amendments give force to the powers that the Legislative Assembly originally intended.

I commend the Casino Control Amendment Bill 2001 to the Assembly.

Debate (on motion by Mr Quinlan ) adjourned to the next sitting.

Environment Protection Amendment Bill 2001

Mr Smyth, pursuant to notice, presented the bill and its explanatory memorandum.

Title read by Clerk.

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Business, Tourism and the Arts and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (10.34): I move:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

Mr Speaker, it gives me pleasure to bring to the Assembly today a bill to amend certain sections of the Environment Protection Act 1997. These changes will implement the recommendations of the recent statutory review of the act. As part of the review process, it was felt that the name of the Environment Management Authority should be changed to "Environment Protection Authority", thus bringing the act into line with other jurisdictions. The name and functions of the Environment Management Authority are not always clearly understood by the public at large and a name change to "Environment Protection Authority" will convey more clearly the work that is done under the Environment Protection Act.

The majority of the changes are of either a minor or a technical nature. They include clarification of definitions, clarification of interpretation clauses and a requirement that environmental improvement plans should have regard to best practice. The bill will remove the word "territory" from the objects clause of the act, which will make the ACT's responsibility for cross-border environmental impacts explicit. A small change has been made to the time lines for auditor reporting in relation to contaminated land and contaminated sites to align the ACT with requirements in the New South Wales legislation. Minor changes also have been made in relation to remediation plans for contaminated sites, again to bring the legislation into line with New South Wales.

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