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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Tuesday, 9 March 2004) . . Page.. 921 ..

Debate resumed.

MS TUCKER (4.39): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 4 at page 937]. This amendment requires a building certifier to withhold approval for work made with materials that contravene provisions of the act.

The second amendment that I shall move establishes provisions for sustainability guidelines. By identifying particular materials in those guidelines, builders wishing to gain approval for their work would be required not to use such materials.

There are provisions in these amendments to allow for the fact that building approval also applies to demolition—it would be impractical to rule out any specific building materials in that context—and small-scale repairs, such as repairs to architraves originally manufactured from such materials. This is, in effect, a fairly simply enforceable system, although it does not pick up on the large number of unapproved structures such as fences and so on.

My first inclination was to make a very simple requirement that rainforest timbers not be used in approved building work in the ACT but it became clear to me that the issue of what materials ought to be proscribed was perhaps a little broader than that, and undoubtedly changing all the time. So it seemed more useful to put in place provisions for materials to be excluded rather than simply specifying a list.

I should point out, however, that it does not need to be a complex process. One of the guidelines from the residential development part of the Leichhardt town plan reads:

Leichhardt Council promotes greater energy efficiency and ecologically sustainable development by requiring the careful choice of building material. Choose building materials that take account of the following environmental consideration:

energy efficient materials with low embodied energy;

recyclable and reusable materials;

renewable or abundant resources;

durable materials with low maintenance;

non-polluting materials;

environmentally-acceptable production methods.

In the construction of housing, specify plantation or re-growth timbers, timbers grown on Australian farms or state forest plantations or recycled timbers. Rainforest timbers or timbers cut from old growth forests are not to be used.

The Leichhardt City Council does not seem to have any problem in being very direct in pursuing those guidelines. The minutes of a council meeting on 29 April 2003 state:

That Council grant consent to [development application] subject to the following conditions: To minimise the damage to the environment, no rainforest timbers or timbers cut from old growth forests are to be used in the construction of buildings. The Construction Certificate is to specify the timbers to be used. These are to be limited to plantation timbers grown on Australian farms, or State Forest Plantations, or recycled timbers.

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