Page 1149 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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Merge the ACT’s existing conservation services into a single Conservation Agency to achieve better integration of biodiversity policy, planning, research and management;
On the face of things, this matter is perhaps the one issue that has triparty support in the Assembly. I look forward to everybody voting for my motion. But I see that Mr Corbell, of course, will move the spoiling amendment. You only have to look at other areas like the Hawke review. The Hawke review itself I think makes the case to have the integrated unit. I think if you talk to people out there in the community—for instance, the conservation council—they have been asking for this to happen and asking for it to happen very quickly. The Hawke review supported a unified agency, noting:
The operations of PCL—
parks, conservation and land—
which cover urban and non-urban parks, are not readily unraveled and have been the subject of a recent and significant internal review. In this context, the Review does not recommend structural separation.
I think it is important to get them back together and I think it is important that we do it quickly. It is some five months since the election. Both the Labor Party and the Greens have signed the agreement. Yet we do not, on the face of things, see a great deal of movement towards it. You have to ask the question: what is the commitment and what is taking the time?
What this motion simply says is that by 30 June, the end of the financial year, some three months and 11 days away, the government will actually implement this part of their agreement. It does have triparty support. It should be relatively simple to do. I wonder whether there is just some sort of fence post marking by ministers as they mark out their turf to see which minister is really in charge and which minister is more green than the other.
If that is happening, it is coming at the expense of the environment and putting undue pressure on the staff. That is unfortunate. If this cannot be achieved by 30 June I will be very surprised. I simply bring the motion to the attention of members. I ask that they consider that here is an opportunity for all of us to show our commitment to the environment, to support the rangers and all the staff in the great work that they do, to make sure that we get better environmental outcomes, and that it happens as quickly as possible.
The fact is that we have already had five months since the election. If it did not happen before 30 June, which is another three months away, I do not think there is any reasonable case to say that it takes eight months to change these arrangements when, for instance, we had the outcome of the Hawke review. We saw how the government was able to implement some changes very quickly and muddy the waters in the lead-up to the budget, annual reports and other things.
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