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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Thursday, 13 May 2004) . . Page.. 1889 ..

between these two measures is that the first one allows the government to prevent an appeal to the AAT in the case of any licence issued by the conservator, and the second version allows this to occur only for licences related to the construction of the Gungahlin Drive extension.

The fact that the government prepared a back-up amendment simply demonstrates that they were aware of the disquiet and concern that surround this move to corrupt the Nature Conservation Act. In fact, these are just two amendments among many others. Many options have been circulating among members, in order to try and get this change through the Assembly in whichever form the government can.

We have already seen the government put through new regulations for the Land Planning Environment Act today. However, at the very least those amendments were to an act that already had a means of calling in developments to prevent them going before judicial review. However, there has never been any such provision in the Nature Conservation Act or the Environment Protection Act.

These amendments will result in a significant dent in our environment protection laws, and by moving these amendments the government have demonstrated that they believe the integrity of environmental laws and their enforcement by the judiciary are expendable. This move reduces any confidence the people of Canberra had in the Labor government’s commitment to environmental protection because it appears the government are willing to overturn those laws at the first opportunity, after they present a problem.

I have already spoken this evening about protecting the separation of powers between the executive and judiciary. I will not bore members by making those statements again, but they are equally relevant here. I restate that the Democrats reject any attempt to remove the authority of the judiciary and hand those powers to the ACT executive.

This is not about whether the Gungahlin Drive extension will be built today, tomorrow or in six weeks time—or not. These amendments go more broadly than that in the erosion of citizens’ rights. It is not about whether or not you support the road; it is about whether or not you support good law and good decision making. This bill was supposed to reduce the incidence of land clearing; there are now last-minute amendments that attempt to use it to wind back our environmental laws. The Democrats cannot support those moves.

MRS DUNNE (10.24): The Liberal opposition will be opposing the amendment moved by the minister and the one foreshadowed on the buff page as well, not exactly for the same reasons put forward by Ms Dundas. While we in the Liberal opposition generally agree that there is a role for third party appeals, we are not so wedded to the concept that we do not see that there are times when we can afford to cast them aside. We do not think that they are an inalienable right and that they occur on all occasions. When we talk about third party appeals, we are mostly talking about the impact on neighbours, and the Liberal opposition would never seriously take away those rights to people’s domestic amenity.

This is about what goes on on reserved and unleased land, and it is not to the same extent that we have this reservation. However, the reservation that we have here comes in many forms. The Nature Conservation Act does not have a regime of exemptions that override

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