Page 2058 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 August 2007
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I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 6 at page 2104]. I table a supplementary explanatory statement to the government amendments.
This amendment omits clause 2 of the bill, the commencement clause, and substitutes a new clause. The new clause provides that the bill commences when clause 419 of the Planning and Development Bill commences, and this new clause 2 of the bill is inserted to address the possibility that different sections of the Planning and Development Bill commence at different times. In this event, it will still be clear when this consequential bill commences. Under this new clause, the bill will commence when the existing Land Planning and Environment Act 1991 is repealed.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Schedule 1 amendments 1.1 to 1.42, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Schedule 1 amendment 1.43.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (11.08): I will be opposing this amendment. It is hardly surprising that I would oppose this clause because, as I mentioned in relation to the more substantive legislation, it appears to further centralise power in the planning minister by removing the power of the environment protection authority to request the minister to establish a panel to conduct an inquiry into a specified activity.
There may be occasions when an independent panel is the appropriate mechanism to investigate the environmental indications of a development. In many instances there is arguably a conflict of interest between the planning minister being part of a cabinet that has responsibility for infrastructure developments and also having the power to decide when a relatively independent body gets to undertake an inquiry into the environmental impact of those developments, as well as having the discretion to withhold the completed EIS from the Assembly.
This, it seems to me, is another of the many “trust us” provisions in this legislation, which could be abused in the hands of a weak, autocratic or corrupt minister—not, of course, that we have one of those at the moment.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Planning, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Minister for Industrial Relations) (11.09): The government will be supporting the clause and will not be supporting Dr Foskey in this matter. I do take her final comments to be an endorsement of my time as Minister for Planning. I thank her very kindly for making those remarks.
Schedule 1 amendment 1.43 agreed to.
Schedule 1 amendments 1.44 to 1.82, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Schedule 1 amendment 1.83.
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