Page 137 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
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statutory authority bestowed with such important functions are appropriately followed up.
Turning to the specifics of the bill, in relation to the expanded role, the bill seeks to appropriately reflect the commissioner’s sustainability functions in a number of ways. It amends the name of the office and commissioner to the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. It inserts an objects section, absent from the current act, which clearly outlines that the commissioner is bestowed with functions to monitor, evaluate, report and educate on issues of ecologically sustainable development in addition to environmental management issues.
It also requires the commissioner to address within the state of the environment reporting framework specific sustainability criteria, including the evaluation of, firstly, the territory’s resource use and the impact of this upon the ACT’s biodiversity; secondly, the total quantity of waste generated and recycling undertaken by the territory; thirdly, the government’s carbon neutrality efforts; fourthly, the government’s use of sustainability decision-making tools; and, finally, the ACT’s progress towards sustainability goals.
Improving the tabling procedure for reports, the bill requires that state of the environment reports be tabled in the Assembly not by the minister but by the Speaker on the sitting day immediately after they are received. As for reports on investigations commissioned by the minister or initiated by the commissioner, otherwise known as special reports, the bill requires that these still be presented to the minister rather than the Speaker. Maintaining this procedure recognises that the minister will have initiated a number of these reports, hence it is appropriate that they be given to him or her in the first instance.
That said, the bill requires the minister to table special reports on the very next sitting day after they were received rather than 15 sitting days later, as is the current requirement. This is to ensure equal access to all members of the Assembly, creating greater transparency around reporting procedures and removing the potential for information to be overlooked. Further, if the Assembly is not sitting at the time a special report or state of the environment report is received, then the bill requires the Speaker to provide copies to all members of the Assembly in a similar way to how Auditor-General’s reports are circulated.
As for reporting procedures, the bill sets mandatory six-month time frames for all reports to be responded to, including special reports. Judging six months to be ample time in which to respond to any report prepared by the commissioner, the bill also removes the existing option for the minister to submit an explanation of why a response has not been provided within this time frame. As such, it seeks to ensure that reports are responded to in as timely a manner as possible.
In conclusion, this bill is the legislative fruition of several years of discussion, consultation and evolution of the commissioner’s functions and reporting procedures. It simply reflects in law what the commissioner is already doing in practice and it strives to strengthen the commissioner’s work through the removal of legal loopholes which could otherwise result in such work being overlooked. This bill is a reflection
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