Page 1584 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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However, a draft management plan was published in 2005 and it was circulated and open for consultation. I suppose the problems have arisen since then. It has been over two years since the publication of the draft management plan and the arrival of the revised draft management plan of the minister and its subsequent sending to the Assembly planning and environment committee.
The planning and environment committee—this is on the public record—has decided that it will conduct an inquiry into the revised draft management plan. It does not have to; there is nothing in the legislation that requires the committee to do so. There are published terms of reference which relate to the consultation process itself—to the joint management committee set up by the Liberal government in recognition of native title aspirations over Namadgi national park and the preservation of biodiversity and other related matters. They are the general sense of the terms of reference.
Without revealing anything that has been said, I suppose the mere fact that, as a member of the Assembly who happens also to be a member of the planning and environment committee, I have moved this motion today indicates that I, at least, have some concerns about the process that has gone on. I have taken advice on the steps that I could take regarding the concerns I have about the conduct of this inquiry.
I could have done nothing; I could have waited until the end of the process and made dissenting comments in any report that the committee might have produced. I thought for a long time that that was the only course of action open to me. But eventually, on advice, I have decided to take this course of action as well, in order to highlight to the Legislative Assembly that there is a committee inquiry going and the principal document that we have to refer to is not available to the public for comment.
This is now on the public record courtesy of the National Parks Association, who, in an open inquiry, have commented adversely on the fact that they are substantially constrained in what they can say and do and in the contribution they can make so that there is the best possible outcome for the management plan for Namadgi national park, because they are unable to see the revised draft management plan.
It is also on the public record that the National Parks Association—therefore I presume this is the case for other people who have expressed an interest—have received one of the consultation documents that goes with it, which is actually a summary made by the bureaucrats of the consultation, and the revisions they have made to the draft management plan as a result of that. The name of that document currently escapes me. However, it seems to have created more confusion in the minds of the National Parks Association than if they had nothing at all.
My concerns are manifold, but one of them is that it is clear from the evidence given by the National Parks Association that the consultation process—one of the things that the committee has said that it is inquiring into—is flawed. And the committee itself has made that consultation process so flawed. This goes back to the way that committees deal with the publication of documents. And, yes, we know that standing order 241(a) says that a committee may receive and authorise the publication of
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