Page 358 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 14 February 2017
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
and removes the duplication of requirements to set energy efficiency targets under two acts.
The final amendment in the Climate Change and Sustainability portfolio relates to reporting of notifiable incidents under the Utilities (Technical Regulation) Act 2014. The amendment is made by clause 26 of the bill and allows for the reporting of notifiable incidents by email as well as the existing method of telephone. This represents a business improvement as regulated utilities can more easily meet their reporting requirements under different pieces of legislation through email communication. The requirement to notify the incident and the time frame to do so remain unchanged, ensuring that the technical regulator will be notified in a timely manner of serious incidents having occurred.
Having outlined those amendments I am pleased to say, as Ms Le Couteur has already indicated, that the Greens support this legislation.
MR GENTLEMAN (Brindabella—Minister for Police and Emergency Services, Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Minister for Planning and Land Management and Minister for Urban Renewal) (11.41), in reply: I thank members for their contributions and support for the Planning, Building and Environment Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 (No 2). The bill reflects this government’s commitment to ensuring that the territory’s legislation remains up to date, agile and adaptive to changing circumstances. It demonstrates the government’s commitment to best practice administration and taking opportunities to remove unnecessary red tape.
The PBELAB process provides an efficient avenue to make a number of minor amendments to legislation administered by the Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate. The bill makes minor policy, technical and editorial amendments to acts in the portfolios of planning and land management, the environment and heritage, climate change, and sustainability. As Ms Lawder advised, the bill makes amendments to the Planning and Development Act 2007, the Planning and Development Regulation 2008, the Environment Protection Act 1997, the Nature Conservation Act 2014 and the Nature Conservation Regulation 2015. The bill also amends the Climate Change and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act 2010 and the Utilities (Technical Regulation) Act 2014.
While the bill contains only minor amendments, today I propose to revisit a number of the more significant amendments contained in the bill which I spoke about when I introduced the bill to the Assembly in December last year. I would like to mention some of the other important elements in the bill.
First, I would like to talk about the red tape reduction measure in the bill. When introducing the bill, I spoke in detail about the amendment to the definition of small or medium scale generation—as Mr Rattenbury has discussed—in the Utilities (Technical Regulation) Act 2014. This definition determines whether a generator is considered to be a regulated utility service and therefore captured by the regulatory regime in the ACT.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video