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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1677 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Some of the land may be suitable for building. At this stage I do not have a fixed view, but obviously there is an ongoing demand for housing land. Perhaps part of the site may be suitable for the much debated prison. Perhaps some of the land could be rehabilitated back to its original native woodland and grassland. That work is being done to regenerate the 150-hectare Boboyan pine forest in Namadgi National Park back to native forest shows that this is quite feasible.

Even if some or all of the land remains as plantation, why not use native hardwood species rather than pines? While they are still a form of monoculture, native species would have more ecological value than the introduced radiata pine.

There will be some financial impact on ACT Forests from withdrawing part or all of this land, but we need to keep things in perspective. The ACT timber industry is not going to collapse because of the loss of these trees. This 500 hectares is only 3 per cent of the 16,000 hectares of pine plantation in the ACT. Pine trees are normally harvested 32 years after planting, so the financial loss from not replanting this area of pine forest would not have an effect for many years.

Who knows what could happen to the ACT over the 30-year lifetime of any replanted tree? Some 60 per cent of the pine trees burnt were below harvesting age so would not have been harvested soon anyway. I understand that ACT Forests will be receiving an insurance payout of $2 million for the loss of those trees, so we are not totally out of pocket from their loss.

I understand that plantation forestry is a pretty marginal business in the ACT anyway. It needs to be noted that other types and uses for this land may end up being more valuable to the community and the government than the forgone income from not reusing the land as pine plantation. They may also enrich our environment better than pine trees. The economic and environment implications of plantation forestry in the ACT therefore need to be taken into account in reviewing the use of this land. Paragraph (2) of my motion takes these factors into account.

I understand that the National Capital Authority is undertaking a review of the land that was burnt out along Lady Denman Drive because of its closeness to Lake Burley Griffin. In fact, much of the plantation area burnt out is on designated land that is under the planning control of the NCA. If the NCA is prepared to review the land use in one part of this area, then I think the ACT government should work with the NCA to review this whole area.

My motion raises a need to immediately stop the replanting of the area until these planning issues are resolved; otherwise, we could be wasting resources in replanting if it is subsequently decided to use the land for other purposes.

Even if ACT Forests has already committed funds to this replanting work-and I understand that $120,000 has already been spent-we need to think of the long term here. It would be short-sighted in the extreme to continue replanting just because we want to save a bit of money now, when this may lock us into using this land for plantation for the next 30 years at least. I acknowledge that my motion would delay replanting for another year, but again we need to think of the long term.

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