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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 04 Hansard (Tuesday, 30 March 2004) . . Page.. 1305 ..

looking to work for a solution when the road was to be built on the western alignment. Now that they have been forced to roll over and build the road on the eastern alignment, they no longer care about the work that was done in relation to the western alignment.

It has been a very disappointing outcome, with the government refusing to listen to any of the concerns being raised about the eastern alignment of the Gungahlin Drive extension and refusing to do the work to address concerns, as they did for Aranda residents about the impact on their homes, and come up with the solutions. That is one of the most disappointing aspects. When a government is elected on such promises as: a vote for Labor is a vote for a western alignment; a vote for Labor is a vote for a code of practice on environmental impact assessments; and a vote for Labor is about consultation to see whether or not we need environmental impact statements, it is most disappointing to see that these things have not happened.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, and Minister for Arts and Heritage) (4.25): Environmental impact assessments are undertaken to ensure that environmental, social and economic considerations associated with a proposed development are fully integrated into the process or, where trade-offs are necessary, these are made explicit. The outcomes of these assessments are typically presented in a consolidated form that are called different things in different places and have different levels.

In the ACT most environmental impact assessments are presented in the form of a preliminary assessment—a PA; while ‘statement of environmental effect’ and ‘environment impact statement’ are commonly used terms in other jurisdictions. The ACT government supports such processes and responds in detail to the requirements. Here, as elsewhere, particularly since the 1970s, the development of the environmental impact assessment process is driven by a growing concern at the increasing impact, in terms of both intensity and extent, that development is having on the physical and social environment. Many governments felt that there was not appropriate weight being placed on the environment when development was sanctioned. In addition, there was a concern that planning systems could not cope with the complex and interrelated nature of the impact on the environment from development.

As we have seen here, the environmental impact assessment provides a mechanism to assess the environmental, cultural, economic, social and health impacts related to significant development proposals. It is a process of investigation and evaluation that supports an informed understanding of the effects of an action or series of actions on the environment, and the conclusions drawn are then used to inform planning and decision-making. An environmental impact assessment is a process to inform decision-makers of the environmental impacts of the activity. It is not a decision in itself.

A primary focus of any development should be to minimise environmental degradation. An environmental impact assessment process is designed to help do this in two ways: an environmental impact assessment is the first step in ensuring that planners and decision-makers have good information about the environmental and social consequences likely to occur from a specific proposal. The second step is making sure that due weight is given to that information and that consequent decisions lead to an integrated outcome in terms of the environmental and developmental imperatives.

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