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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 4 May 2004) . . Page.. 1723 ..

This is an issue that has been touched on by all members. All members have spoken about the nature and the extent of the amendment which the government has introduced in relation to the suggestion—and I note it—certainly from the opposition and from both the Greens and the Democrats that they have concerns with essentially the extent and the nature of the amendments that the government proposes. The general feeling of members who have spoken to this is quite obviously, inevitably, that the amendments are too broad and too open ended.

That was not the government’s position. We believe, in the context of our need and determination to build the Gungahlin Drive extension in the face of steps that have been taken to frustrate it, that it is important that we have the capacity to deal with issues such as this. The government’s attitude in relation to these proposed amendments is not driven just by the Gungahlin Drive extension and our determination to ensure that we can get on and build that road without further delays, or by that level of frustration—and cost to the community—that has been experienced. Construction of the road has now been held up for just over a month. The cost to the community is climbing inexorably. It is now a very significant cost that is being borne as a result of the delays.

But I have to say, in the context of considering the amendments that we will move, we have looked more broadly at the implications for other aspects of government administration and government management, particularly, and almost essentially of course, on non-leased land. It is the view of the government that the capacity to frustrate the government’s capacity or its responsibility, for instance, to manage trees on public land across the whole of Canberra where routine tree removal is required to address safety issues and to maintain the territory’s roads is affected by what appears to be, to me, far too broad a provision which was not designed and was never imagined would be used in circumstances such as the essential opposition to its use in relation to the construction of the Gungahlin Drive extension and as I am told would be used, for instance, in relation to our capacity to manage trees on public land or unleased land.

I think one could imagine a range of other circumstances or situations in relation to activities undertaken at the behest of the government on unleased land where historically or traditionally the conservator has never felt the need to issue a licence, for instance, to take or kill animals. I am sure we could find myriad examples where major constructions have been undertaken by successive governments. One could name any road constructed in the ACT in the last 10 years and ask—in relation to, for instance, the construction of Horsepark Drive or the construction of the Barton Highway upgrade—whether or not in those circumstances licences to kill or take native trees were issued and whether or not it was ever envisaged that they be issued in circumstances such as the construction of any road anywhere.

Of course, the example we are currently debating, namely Gungahlin Drive, is certainly very high profile and very extreme, to the extent that it does have a very significant impact on an area of Canberra, the Bruce and O’Connor ridges, which is highly valued and highly esteemed and the disturbance of which is a matter of great regret but, in the submission of the government, simply unavoidable in order to meet our other obligations to the people of Canberra.

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