Page 1732 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2016
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The IUCN has developed the IUCN red list categories and criteria and associated guidelines. The IUCN categories and criteria for species have been developed, trialled and adjusted iteratively over 50 years. This provides an easily and widely understood system for classifying species at high risk of global extinction. The general aim of the system is to provide an explicit, objective framework for the classification of the broadest range of species according to their extinction risk. The IUCN category and criteria are applied in the ACT through the Nature Conservation Act and relevant statutory instruments.
Madam Speaker, the adoption of a common assessment method would ensure consistency of process and outcomes for listing assessments. It would also provide greater certainty to the community that statutory protection for threatened matters is assigned efficiently and appropriately across Australia. A listing assessment undertaken by one jurisdiction using the common method could be adopted by any other state or territory or the Australian government, removing the need to reassess threatened species and ecological communities in every jurisdiction. This would speed up listing processes and reduce the misalignment of listed matters that exist under the current arrangements.
A common assessment method and mutual recognition of assessments will streamline and improve efficiencies in government listing processes. Consistency across jurisdictions in the listing of threatened matters will simplify regulation on developers, because only one list for the ACT will need to be consulted.
There are no significant financial implications with this measure. Costs of assessment are likely to remain the same for the ACT over the longer term. It is not expected that the numbers of species or ecological communities requiring assessment will increase significantly.
There are some costs in implementing the reforms to deal with legacy species and ecological communities, those species and communities that are already listed. However, I understand that transitional arrangements will minimise these costs and any residual costs will be absorbed from within existing budgets.
But those economic issues aside, the benefits of the reform largely relate to having consistent threat categories and assessments. This is something that I think is particularly important in terms of making sure that we are focused on genuinely protecting those species that are facing the risk of extinction. We have a significant job to do to reverse the trends we have seen arise in Australia, particularly since European settlement. We are threatening species on an almost daily basis. We have a lot to do to reverse that trend. These reforms are a part of that. Having a consistent approach, having the opportunity for species to be listed more quickly, means that we are able to respond more quickly to that threat, and that can only be a positive thing in seeking to reverse that possibility of extinction. I am very pleased to support the Nature Conservation Amendment Bill today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Capital Metro, Minister for Health, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Climate Change) (11.17), in reply: I would like to
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