Page 1728 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2016
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I say at the outset the Canberra Liberals will be supporting this bill today. We will be watching the implementation of this bill carefully, for reasons that I will outline. Whilst we are very supportive overall of the bill and its intents—it is bringing definitions in line with the Council of Australian Governments, or COAG, definitions, which is a positive development to reduce duplication—it makes some things obligatory, for example, some reporting where it may not be necessary. Reporting can become unnecessarily expensive and cumbersome. There may be practical issues in classifying species. For example some species may be stable in the ACT and be endangered in New South Wales.
It is a complex bill, and we will watch carefully the implementation as it unfolds. Consistency across jurisdictions in the listing of threatened species to be considered in environmental impact assessments will hopefully simplify regulation on developers, because only one list for the ACT will need to be consulted.
We have also consulted with some stakeholders and received some feedback about the bill during that process. For example:
In principle, a single operational list of threatened species/communities et cetera across the various jurisdictions and common assessment methods is a positive step forward.
Issues which are unclear are implementation and transition of the currently listed species/communities to an agreed category on the ACT threatened species list, it is not clear what the processes will be, who will be the decision-maker, or the role of the Scientific Committee.
Other feedback includes:
It would have been helpful if there had been a flowchart to enable a clearer idea of the process and how this would all work.
While it seems the intent is to ensure that species et cetera in the current list remain protected, it is unclear if there could be an outcome which would subvert the current status/listing, if there could be a downgrading of status, or if the revised common criteria could make it more difficult to achieve listing of new species et cetera which may be nominated in the future.
It might be prudent to seek a political commitment … that there will not be any downgrading of status, or species dropped from the list et cetera, through this exercise.
Under current legislation a species or ecological community is threatened if it is likely to become extinct in the foreseeable future. A process is threatening if it has the potential to threaten the survival of a species or community in the ACT region. This ACT list includes 36 species of mammals, birds, frogs, fishes, insects, other invertebrates and plants. Currently the Nature Conservation Act 2014 establishes a formal process for the identification and the protection of threatened species and ecological communities. It requires the Scientific Committee to advise the minister of native species and ecological communities that are threatened in the ACT and
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