Page 1152 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 2013
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Service with city services. It is important that these long-term strategic decisions regarding nature conservation are not distorted by what is easiest administratively in the short term.
Turning to the issue of the effectiveness of the current arrangements, the current ESDD and TAMS structure has proven to be quite effective due to a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities and management through joint arrangements where appropriate. For example, both the Environment and Sustainable Development Directorate and TAMS have a joint research and monitoring program on aspects of fire and the environment. ESDD work closely together on species management with ESDD funding staff at the Tidbinbilla nature reserve, who manage bettongs and corroboree frog programs. The draft nature conservation strategy has recently been subject to public consultation and will, when finalised, be jointly implemented by both directorates.
The plan of management for the Canberra nature park was developed with the ESDD in the lead, and operational plans for each reserve were led by work from Territory and Municipal Services Directorate. ESDD and TAMS’s view is that the current arrangements demonstrate how a one-government model can work effectively and that further structural change should be guided by a clear justification and tangible benefit. The government will be giving further detailed consideration to these issues.
In any event, both directorates are committed to strengthening policy alignment whereby conservation planning and research guides and informs parks management and strategically builds on the experience of the parks service. They are committed to improving community partnerships through facilitators, coordinators and rangers and on delivering an integrated natural resource management activity across all land tenures.
Clearly, the establishment of a single conservation agency requires detailed consideration of the range of issues. The government is undertaking this work. The government is committed to the outcome agreed to in the parliamentary agreement and the government will move to do the work that needs to be done to allow this agreement item to be put into good effect and an effect which has a lasting benefit for the management of the environment here in the ACT.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.24): I am pleased again to be discussing this topic today, and I appreciate that Mr Smyth brought the motion forward. I am particularly pleased to see tripartisan support in the Assembly for a single, integrated conservation agency. I think it is not necessary for me at this stage to go over the benefits of this approach. It is certainly something that I have spoken about before in this place. As Mr Corbell has just highlighted, I wrote to, I believe, both chief ministers of last term in very similar terms—Mr Stanhope and subsequently Ms Gallagher—putting the view that I felt a single, integrated agency was a good idea.
Certainly that was why it was part of our election policy, which was released just about four weeks before the ACT election, in which we said that we will ensure that the ACT’s existing conservation services are merged into a single biodiversity unit so that policy, planning and research and management of biodiversity are better
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