Page 1151 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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The Parks and Conservation Service in the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate, of course, has core conservation functions through its responsibilities for operational planning and management of parks and reserves. TAMS also undertakes environment licensing and regulation and is the primary law enforcement area for the Nature Conservation Act 1980 and for biosecurity matters.
Merging existing conservation services, however, is not as easy as Mr Smyth makes it sound. Many in this Assembly will recall that conservation matters have been subject to various organisational structures in the past, including environment ACT, TAMS, the department of the environment, climate change, energy and water, and the current structure implemented following the Hawke review into the ACT government.
In 2011 the structural changes adopted by the government included transferring the conservation planning and research unit, heritage unit and transport policy from the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate to the newly established Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate. A key consideration in adopting these structural changes was the significant roles of the Conservator of Flora and Fauna under both the Nature Conservation Act and the Planning and Development Act.
The conservation, planning and research unit provides the conservator with independent scientific advice that enables the conservator to make decisions and recommendations on a range of planning issues. This has proven to be effective in ensuring that biodiversity knowledge and expertise is incorporated early into the planning process.
Submissions to the Hawke review recommended that the function of managing non-urban parks and reserves should also be transferred out of the Territory and Municipal Services Directorate, as it is not a municipal function. The Hawke review did not recommend the transfer of parks and reserves at that time, but instead suggested that the government may wish to return to consideration of this issue at a later date. It is worth noting, of course, that Mr Rattenbury, prior to his current role, also suggested in June 2011 that park rangers, biodiversity policy officers and conservator support staff should be brought together under the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate.
It is the case that these options need to be carefully considered. The Conservation Council ACT Region wrote to the government twice on this matter at the end of last year and put forward not one but four options. The first was to relocate the Parks and Conservation Service from TAMS to ESDD. The second was to relocate the conservator and nature conservation policy branch from ESDD to TAMS. The third was to create a new separate administrative unit—parks and conservation service nature conservation policy branch—reporting to the minister for TAMS. And option 4 was option 3, together with the environment protection, Conservator of Flora and Fauna and Heritage Unit.
The benefits of co-locating conservation policy, planning, research and programs with water policy, climate change, planning, environment protection and heritage need to be weighed up against the operational gains in co-locating the Parks and Conservation
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