Page 2324 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
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MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (7.32): I must say I was reasonably comfortable with the motion as it was. Sometimes I feel we over-egg motions and duck from shadows we make ourselves, from our own imagining. But Mr Rattenbury has moved the amendment. I have some sympathy with Mrs Dunne’s position. Then again, what Mr Rattenbury is proposing is quite sensible. The government will support it.
But what has to be said is that Mrs Dunne at one level is quite right. It is in everybody’s interest for there not to be demonstrators running into reserves when there is a cull underway. We have experienced this in the past.
We do now seek to manage this issue in a way that avoids conflict, that avoids potential—we did have, most particularly on the Googong foreshore, demonstrators running around in the dark, in the middle of the night, in a reserve in which there were contracted kangaroo cullers with deadly weapons. Demonstrators were running amok. And we do now seek to manage this issue in a way that avoids that potentiality. But I think we can continue to arrange culls in a way that is safe. I have no desire or interest in withholding any information in relation to culling, and the government will support the measure.
Mr Rattenbury’s amendment to Mr Stanhope’s proposed amendment agreed to.
Mr Stanhope’s amendment, as amended, agreed to.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (7.35), by leave: I move:
(1) Omit paragraph (1)(a), substitute:
“(a) Government’s decisions to conduct a kangaroo cull in ACT reserves for biodiversity management reasons;”.
(2) Omit paragraph (1) (d).
I will speak to this one briefly. There are two essential elements in this. The first is 1(a). It is simply a brief substitution which brings the focus back on the conduct of a cull which is taking place in the context of diversity management reasons. I think that is understood from the debate. I think that is the discussion that we are having. I think it is the way in which the government has approached the cull. It is the basis on which the Greens have not opposed the cull, because it is set in a broad biodiversity context. And I feel there is some value in acknowledging that at the start of the motion.
The other is to omit 1(d). I think it is unfortunate that Mrs Dunne has used the context and the privilege of the Assembly to essentially malign community organisations. It may be that Mrs Dunne disagrees with the opinion of those community organisations, which does appear to be the case, and it may be that others of us disagree with the view they take. But as I said in my speech, I also think it is important that we continue
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