Page 4868 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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know the importance of this issue, that this is a long-term issue and that we do need to get it right. The motivation behind this motion was to get it right. It should not have come as a surprise. This is a revised motion, but the previous motion, which was very, very similar, has been sitting on the notice paper for some time now. This, the revised motion, was sent up to Mr Stanhope’s office yesterday. I guess I am surprised that there was not a discussion in that time and that there has been such a reaction here in the chamber. The motion has been on the notice paper; it has been there for people to see what was happening.
I do go back to the point that, as a third party in this chamber, we do have the right to write and put forward opinions or ideas to commissioners who, when I last looked, were independent. I would just like to say that I support what Ms Le Couteur is doing here, and I do see it as an incredibly important issue that needs to be responded to well in the early stages if we are to do a good job in the next few decades.
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (4.39): I must admit that when I got up this morning I thought that this was going to be a tripartisan agreement. The motion I had written was fairly straightforward, about the principles, about managing trees. What is obvious from this debate is that we all think it is a really important issue and that it is really important to get it right.
It is really important for the Assembly to put on the record that the Assembly does feel that it is important and does want to see that this program—which is going to impact on our city for at least the next 60 years, if not longer—is done well. To be charitable, I suppose that the reason for Mr Stanhope’s outburst might be that he sees this as an important program.
I would like to comment on some of Mr Stanhope’s statements. Mr Stanhope says that I am trying to politicise this. That is not at all what I am trying to do. If I was trying to politicise it, I would be going out and saying that the program is wrong. I have not gone out to say that. I have concerns that it needs to be done properly; that is what this motion is about.
The reason we referred this issue to the commissioner was—again, it was along the non-politicising line—that a number of people have come to me and said that they have problems with the program as it is implemented outside their house, on their nature strip or next door. I do not claim to be an expert in tree management. I have been thinking about what we can do. We thought, “There is an independent expert who works in environmental areas in the ACT. She’s called the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment.”
I understand that it is the right of all citizens of the ACT to suggest to the commissioner what she might wish to inquire in. The commissioner herself makes the decision as to what she actually does inquire into, although I believe that the government can direct her. The Greens are not part of the government and are not in a position to direct the commissioner as to what she may inquire into. We have made a suggestion. As a result of this debate, I feel even clearer that it was a good and timely suggestion, because there has been a considerable amount of angst on this.
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