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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 4 Hansard (2 April) . . Page.. 1314 ..

MS DUNDAS (continuing):

trees, we will have fewer people putting a strains on our hospital services and we will have a better, cleaner, healthier future, which will help our economy no end.

I am happy to support this motion. I hope that we will remember the triple bottom line as we approach all motions in this Assembly and look at the long-term impacts of what we are trying to achieve.

Question put:

That Ms Tucker's amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted-


          Ayes 2                               Noes 13

Ms Dundas

Mr Berry

Mr Pratt

Ms Tucker

Mrs Burke

Mr Quinlan

Mr Cornwell

Mr Smyth

Mrs Cross

Mr Stanhope

Ms Gallagher

Mr Stefaniak

Mr Hargreaves

Mr Wood

Ms MacDonald

Question so resolved in the negative.

Amendment negatived.

MR SPEAKER: The question now is that the motion be agreed to.

MS TUCKER (9.40): I need to make a couple of points. Mr Smyth repeated for members the comments I made at the beginning in terms of the turnaround that Labor has done on this issue. I did give credit to the Labor government for improving the area in terms of the amount that they said they would actually protect. I find of concern the language from the government and from the other sides of the house, to a degree, such as, "The trees are nice."These trees are pre-settlement trees. They are not just nice; they are incredibly valuable trees in the city.

A point that Mr Stanhope made over and over was that this area is not an endangered ecological community. Apart from the fact that that is not what Simon Corbell said before the election and apart from the fact that that has left the Labor government in very poor standing with the members of the community who care about this issue, because it has certainly let them down, I find of concern that we now have this language about definition. Mr Stanhope even used the word "sophisticated". I like that. Apparently, Mr Stanhope thinks it is sophisticated to say that we have to make a distinction between an intact endangered ecological community and something that is not intact, that it is about knowing how you talk about these environmental issues and this is being fair and sophisticated.

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