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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3855 ..

MS TUCKER (9.18): I move amendment 12 circulated in my name, which inserts new clauses 8A to 8M [see schedule 8 at page 3914].

This amendment represents a major change to how environmental authorisations are prepared. At present a person applies for an environmental authorisation. The authorisation is put out for public comment. After comments are received, the authority decides what to do with the application-for example, to refuse it or approve it without various conditions, or to seek further information. Once the decision is finally made, it is publicly notified.

The concern has been raised with me that public input into this process is quite limited as the public have no role in the details of the authorisation that is finally approved. Most authorisations are not simple "approved/not approved" statements but set out a range of conditions that the person must comply with in order to minimise the environmental impact of the activity. People such as the conservation council who monitor environmental authorisations are more interested in having an input into what conditions the authority places on an activity than in just being able to comment on the application itself.

My amendment therefore changes around the process currently described in sections 48 and 49 so that, once an application is received, the authority, if it is not refusing the application or seeking further information, prepares a proposed authorisation. The application and the proposed authorisation are then put out for public comment. Once comments are received, the authority then makes its final decision on the authorisation. The amendments are fairly complicated, but they are designed to keep in place where possible the existing provisions, which are quite convoluted, particularly those in section 49.

MR CORBELL (9.20): The Labor Party will not be supporting these amendments from Ms Tucker. As with an earlier amendment, Ms Tucker is trying to take the step of engaging third parties in the process of what goes into the environmental authorisation. We think that is a step too far. Again, the Labor Party's view is that there is an appropriate level of oversight of the final details of an environmental authorisation, so that people can see what is in the authorisation and can see what the conditions are. If they have concerns about it, there are ways of raising issues directly with the government, the authority or the Assembly.

There is satisfactory recourse where people are unhappy with the conditions of an environmental authorisation or with the approach of either the party to the environmental authorisation or the Environment Protection Authority, but no-one has ever raised with me a concern about what is in an environmental authorisation. Ms Tucker is proposing something when there is no problem to remedy.

Public interest is protected through oversight, but it not appropriate, in our view, to change the process in the way Ms Tucker is proposing-by creating an added level of complexity of administration-when there is no immediate problem that needs to be fixed and when the public interest is protected by oversight provisions.

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