Page 4871 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 11 November 2009
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I am not, Ms Hunter, as you suggested, opposing or expressing angst. I am just saying, “Okay; this is the Greens’ process.” The Greens’ process has raised a number of issues in two places—here and with the commissioner. That is a bit confusing. Let us deal with them through one process, namely the commissioner for the environment. It was your choice: you made the reference.
But then what do you want me to do? Run a parallel process? Run the urban tree renewal process parallel with the commissioner for the environment process? Why would I do that—confuse everybody, create problems, have a double process with two separate organisations, two separate approaches, confusion, lack of consensus and lack of bipartisanship on an issue that requires bipartisanship? You cannot come in here and say, “You are not supporting us. What do you object to?” We are not objecting to anything.
I am objecting a bit to the fact that you went to the commissioner at the same time as you moved a motion in here without telling other parties in this place that you had gone to the commissioner on the issue that you are raising in here. It would have been a courtesy to let us know that you were going to the commissioner with a reference and that at the same time you were raising in this place a motion on the same issue—just so that we could have a rigorous approach on this and get ourselves to an end point where we can move forward on this very difficult, controversial and emotive issue. That is what we are saying.
Don’t stand there and say, “I don’t know why you are opposing this very reasonable motion.” We are not. We are saying, “Refer the issues that you raise to the commissioner for environment and sustainability to incorporate within a reference which you have asked for.” That is what we are saying.
If I have expressed angst, I must say that it is angst at the fact that you went to the commissioner without any advice to anybody in this place and at the same time asked us to debate a motion on exactly the same subject that you want to be the subject of an independent review. What sort of confusion would that have created—sending the government off on the basis of a number of criteria at the same time as asking the commissioner to investigate essentially those criteria? How would that have given us certainty and a way forward?
This has been an aggravating issue. I want certainty. I want us all to agree. This is now your process. At the end of this process, I am hoping that you will sign up to it, because it is your process; that we will get agreement on the methodology and the way forward in relation to the removal of dead and dangerous trees and the broader, longer term, strategic issue of the replacement of our urban forest; and that we will do it without politics. That is what I am after.
I have been trying to manage this for the last year, without bipartisan support and without support from members in this place. It has led the department to unilaterally suspend the program for the removal of dangerous trees, which has caused me enormous anxiety. My department has unilaterally suspended its program for removing dangerous trees as a result of the responses that there have been to its removal of trees that it has identified as dead or dangerous. Then you stand here and
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