Page 1433 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2016
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In summary, the bill proposes a number of minor policy, technical and editorial amendments to acts and regulations, as an omnibus bill should. I suggest to members that the amendments make good practical sense. This bill demonstrates the government’s commitment to effective and responsible use of the omnibus bill process to ensure that ACT legislation is agile and responsive to changed circumstances. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for Planning and Land Management, Minister for Racing and Gaming and Minister for Workplace Safety and Industrial Relations) (4.11), in reply: I thank members for their contributions and their support for this important bill. The bill is a prime example of the ACT government’s commitment to ensuring that its legislation remains up to date, agile and adaptive to change in societal trends and best practice administration.
The PABELAB process provides an efficient avenue to make a number of necessary minor amendments to environmental and planning legislation in a single bill. The bill makes minor policy, technical and editorial amendments to acts in the Planning and Land Management portfolio, as well as the Environment and Climate Change portfolio.
In the planning portfolio the bill amends the Architects Act 2004, the Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payment) Act 2009, the Electricity Safety Act 1971, the Heritage Act 2004, the Planning and Development Act 2007 and the Planning and Development Regulation.
In the Environment and Climate Change portfolio, the bill amends the Environment Protection Act 1997, the Environment Protection Regulation 2005, the Nature Conservation Act 2014, the Utilities Act 2000, the Utilities (Electricity Transmission) Regulation 2006—which will be repealed—and the Utilities (Technical Regulation) Act 2014. The bill also amends the Work Health and Safety Regulation 2011.
While the bill contains only minor amendments, I propose to discuss a number of the more significant amendments contained in the bill. When I introduced the bill into the Assembly in April, I spoke about a number of important amendments relating to environmental protection, nature conservation and heritage. Today I would like to recap some of those, and also talk about some of the other important elements in the bill.
When introducing the bill, I spoke in detail about clause 22, which amends section 55 of the Environment Protection Regulation, controlling the use of agvet chemicals. The amendment provides an exception to an offence against this section where the person is a vet, or acting on instructions from a vet, and acts in the course of treating an animal under the vet’s care. The amendment is necessary to allow vets and their customers to treat animals in a safe way and according to accepted industry practice.
I also spoke in detail about changes to the Nature Conservation Act concerning the power of the minister to declare a controlled native species, and the consultation process on a subsequent draft controlled native species management plan. The
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