Page 4748 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 31 October 2017
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statement to be prepared under the Planning and Development Act. I will also discuss this in more detail in a moment.
Clause 1.1 of schedule 1 of the bill provides a definition for minor public works. This definition acts as a limitation on the scope of works to which had code can apply and is specifically inserted for the purposes of the code. Minor public works are small-scale works for maintaining existing infrastructure in reserves or for installing new minor infrastructure. They include such things as bush regeneration, landscaping, bushfire management works, the maintenance of roads and tracks and the installation of signs, water tanks and fences. These are important regular and minor activities undertaken by the parks and conservation service that are unlikely to have adverse environmental impacts.
Under clause 5 of the bill the code is made a disallowable instrument. This means that the code will be subject to Assembly scrutiny and will be open and transparent as to the requirements to be met before a works proposal will be considered to be unlikely to have a significant environmental impact.
This is an important improvement of public transparency compared to the current process of the conservator issuing an ESO where only the ESO decision was required to be notified. With the introduction of the minor public works code, the decision-making framework, the standards and practices that must be met and the types of works that can be completed are now made public and accessible at the start of the assessment process.
Additionally, the bill requires that the code must be reviewed at least once every five years to ensure that the requirements of the code are regularly reviewed and remain appropriate and relevant in achieving the protection of the environmental values of reserves. In preparing these amendments, an indicative draft of the code has been provided to the Conservation Council, Minister Rattenbury’s office, and Ms Lawder’s and Ms Lee’s offices as well.
My office also provided information on the expected administrative savings that would be gained through these amendments. I am advised by the directorate that following the passage of this bill the Conservator of Flora and Fauna will undertake targeted consultation on the detail of the draft code before looking to finalise it in the coming months.
As I mentioned earlier, the bill also makes complementary amendments to the Planning and Development Act and planning and development regulation to incorporate the code into the planning assessment framework. The Planning and Development Act specifies types of development that are in the impact track because they require an environmental impact statement or EIS.
This is the highest level of environmental assessment available under the planning assessment framework. Even if a proposal is exempt from requiring development approval under schedule 1 of the regulation, it would still be in the impact track and require development approval if it is listed in schedule 4 of the Planning and Development Act.
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