Page 3399 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 September 2005
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This is another of the suite of amendments that seeks to change those things that cannot be notifiable to disallowable instruments. I apprehend from what has been said before that there is general agreement to amend this clause to make this a disallowable instrument.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (5.25): This amendment is the same as my amendment No 2. I will just put all my arguments for my amendment to clause 19 (2), clause 36 (2) and clause 43 (2) together because they address the same issue.
Essentially, the point of these amendments is to make the key criteria underpinning this legislation a disallowable instrument. These criteria relate to approval criteria for activities that would, or may, damage protected trees, the protection zone of protected trees or a declared site, the declaration of tree management precincts and the registration and cancellation of trees from the register. All in all, these three criteria provide the foundations of this legislation. Therefore it seems entirely inappropriate that such important criteria simply be decreed by ministerial declaration with no form of accountability. Although there are other criteria in this bill that are modifiable instruments, we have identified these criteria as particularly critical to the integrity of this legislation.
Mr Stanhope: I beg your pardon, Mr Speaker. I have trouble following my note on this. This is your amendment—
MR SPEAKER: Mrs Dunne’s amendment No 2.
Mrs Dunne: To clause 19.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella—Leader of the Opposition) (5.27): This is Mrs Dunne’s amendment to clause 19. By putting it forward in this manner, we want to clarify the purpose of the clause and to make sure that we have a far more effective bill when we finish. When we deal with this sort of legislation in detail, with amendments unfolding over the hours, it is important to check for consistency to ensure that the bill reflects the high standard of legislation that we bring to the Assembly. I see that the Chief Minister has now returned. I will just say I think this is a very worthy amendment, and I thank Mrs Dunne for bringing on.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs, and Acting Minister for Education and Training) (5.27): I thank Mr Smyth. My difficulty is that in my notes Mrs Dunne’s amendment No 2 is not the same as Dr Foskey’s amendment No 2. I understand that the amendments are the same. This is the amendment that we discussed earlier in which Dr Foskey proposes to change three of the nine notifiable instruments in the bill to be disallowable.
Mrs Dunne: Yes. This the one about prohibited groundwork—
MR STANHOPE: Yes, the three.
Mrs Dunne: which you have already said you would agree to?
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