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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3847 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

out a range of groups that may well be interested. The community is against this amendment, and we should vote against it in line with what the community thinks.

MR CORBELL (8.47): The Labor Party will not be supporting this amendment of Ms Tucker's. This amendment is consequential on Ms Tucker's proposed amendment 6. Amendment 6 sets out a consultation process for codes of practice. Ms Tucker has not made out a case for a requirement for the type of consultation process she is setting out.

It is already a requirement of the act that consultation be conducted, but the act does not specify how it should be conducted. Ms Tucker proposes to set out how that process of consultation will be conducted, but I do not believe she has made a case as to why it is necessary to specify how the consultation should take place.

Ms Tucker has not identified any problems with the way consultation has been conducted to date. The Labor Party is not convinced it is necessary to specify how the consultation takes place. We are satisfied to support the existing provisions, because there is a requirement for consultation and there has been no evidence that that process has been conducted in an inadequate manner.

Proposed new clause 5A negatived.

Clauses 6 and 7, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Proposed new clause 7A.

MS TUCKER (8.49): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name, which inserts a new clause 7A [see schedule 8 at page 3914].

This amendment rewrites section 23, which is about the duty of persons to notify the Environment Protection Authority of actual or threatened environmental harm. Currently this section applies only to the persons conducting the activity that may be causing or has caused environmental harm. It does not apply to the persons who may observe the activity and realise that it is environmentally harmful.

This is a limitation. There is a problem in just relying on the person conducting the activity to report environmental harm, as they may be reluctant to do so if they think they have broken the law. It would be unfair to expect persons who are not knowledgeable about environmental matters to have to report environmental harm if they do not know the implications of what they observe.

The amendment, therefore, includes a defence of having a reasonable excuse in not reporting the activity and a defence of believing that the EPA was already aware of the environmental problem.

MR MOORE (Minister for Health, Housing and Community Services) (8.50): In my consultation with the community about this, they were particularly concerned about being mandated-

Mr Rugendyke: If you have spoken to the community, name one person. I bet you have not.

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