Page 4859 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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program at all until that review is completed, until the commissioner has concluded all of her public consultations, and the community has had an opportunity to engage with her on all of the questions which the Greens raise in their motion today.
The government will respond some time before the end of 2010 and we will then reassess our capacity to take forward the urban tree renewal program in the form or design that the government had anticipated and on which, coincidentally, as I believe the Greens are aware, we had intended to begin detailed community consultation in 10 days time or 12 days time. But of course there is not much sense in proceeding with that now whilst we are doing a full commissioner for sustainability review into all aspects of tree management which will encompass and involve detailed and significant community consultation by itself.
I think, through this process, this new process, we will perhaps tick all the boxes. There will be a rigorous, scientific assessment of all the issues that Ms Le Couteur raises in her motion today by the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. The government will not, of course, pre-empt the outcome of that. We will await the outcome of that scientific, rigorous investigation; we will await the outcomes of the community consultation the commissioner will pursue. We will not proceed with the urban forestry renewal program; we will put that on hold.
I will disband the expert reference group, because there is no need for them to meet now until the second half of next year, until after the commissioner actually brings down her report and the government has an opportunity to respond to it. Then, hopefully, there will be some unanimity within the Assembly, some agreement on the way forward, some acceptance that poor old TAMS rangers do not go out and deliberately find healthy trees to cut down because it is much more fun cutting down healthy trees than cutting down diseased or dead trees, which seems to be the view or the attitude that the Greens in particular take to the work of TAMS rangers in Parks, Conservation and Lands—that somehow they get some particular glee from rushing around finding healthy trees to cut down. Of course they do not.
There are 282 trees in this current sweep. Every time TAMS has sought to cut down a tree, this matter has been raised. I think every single one of the trees that have been cut down in the last two months has been subjected to some third-degree cross-examination: it really was not dying; it really was not dead; it really was not dangerous; TAMS just cut it down for the fun of it; they have actually got that—what do they call it?—chainsaw fever or something or other; and a chainsaw perhaps is much more fun to operate on a healthy tree than an unhealthy tree or some such. I do not fully understand it.
But the concern that is being expressed at the moment is in relation to 282 trees. It is not the urban forest renewal program that it is now being so confused in the public discussion and the political response to these particular issues that it has made it essentially impossible to proceed in this particular environment, with that particular program, until I think we can find a new start.
I have circulated an amendment. I move:
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