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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3217 ..

on any proposal to cultivate GM foods and, particularly as many of the sites currently used to crop GM food trials are located not far from the homes of those in my electorate of Ginninderra, it is important the public is made aware of what is occurring.

This is a sensible amendment that allows the community to actively participate in what are important decisions of government. It is particularly important to inform the community of decisions under this act, as they are not subject to judicial review and are not the province of the AAT. With such huge discretionary powers given in this legislation, we need to be very careful in exercising the exemption options without informing the public we serve of those deliberations.

MR WOOD (Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for Arts and Heritage, and Acting Minister for Health) (9.10): Mr Speaker, the government will not be supporting this amendment. It seeks to make the granting of an exemption by the minister conditional on securing an undertaking by the applicant to prevent or remedy any contamination of GM food crops in the environment.

The clause is concerned with regulation for the purpose of environmental protection. As such, the government believes—

Ms Tucker: That’s not the right amendment. This one’s about the notification of people nearby.

MR WOOD: This is your first amendment, is it?

Ms Tucker: Clause 8. It’s the one where we want public notification.

MR SPEAKER: The question is that clause 8 be agreed to.

MR WOOD: Clause 8 (1A), was it?

MR SPEAKER: Ms Tucker’s amendment on the blue sheet.

MR WOOD: All right. Yes, that is a more recent one, and I do not have any words on that. But it is not for supporting.

MR SMYTH (Leader of the Opposition) (9.11): Mr Speaker, I guess you take either the path of the moratorium and say that nothing happens in a specific area or you take the path that the government has chosen to take, which is to say you will grant permission to do certain activities. The amendments inserting 1AA, 1AB and 1AC seek to undermine that. They say that you have got to write to the occupier of land that adjoins land where cultivation is proposed under the exemption. What you get is a system that is impossible. You are going to have to bestow on the minister the wisdom of Solomon to work out who wins in the end. It will effectively undermine what the government’s bill attempts to achieve. The opposition will be opposing it.

Question put:

That Ms Tucker’s amendment be agreed to.

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