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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 3325 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

charged only an amount that reflects the cost of collecting and maintaining the data. It should not be seen as a revenue raising proposition.

Mr Speaker, our report sets out detailed information about where PALM and the ACT Registrar-General are up to with respect to collating land information. I must say that the information provided by the Registrar-General was particularly helpful to my committee. Also of great use were the meetings we held with officers of the Northern Territory and Queensland governments. In particular, we were enormously impressed with the knowledge of Dr Eden of the Department of Natural Resources and Mines, who is the key officer handling the Queensland electronic land data system. We suggest in our recommendations that the government approach the Queensland government to see if this officer could be made available for a limited time to assist the ACT's efforts in improving our land data information systems.

Mr Speaker, this has been an unusually interesting inquiry. It demonstrates the worth of the committee system, and especially the usefulness of committees being able to initiate their own inquiries into matters they think are very important.

As members know, next week I will be attending, along with Ms Tucker, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference of Small Nations. I intend to inform the conference delegates about the usefulness of updating land administration information systems to make them relevant to today's public. For this to happen the systems must be in electronic form; they must be user friendly; they must be accurate; they must be available at all times that the public wants to access the information; and they must be flexible so that a person can pick and choose the particular information that suits them.

This is what we are after within the territory. It is what our community deserves and I hope our report goes a long way towards implementing such a land administration information system sooner rather than later. I commend the report to the house.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Report No 82

MR HIRD (10.41): Mr Speaker, I present the following report:

I move:

Mr Speaker, this unanimous report by my committee ends a long saga. In December 1999 the committee commenced the inquiry into the Draft Management Plan for the Lower Molonglo River Corridor. We held a public hearing in July 2000 at which Environment ACT undertook to revise the plan in light of the careful and detailed submission by the Conservation Council and the National Parks Association. We held

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