Page 3512 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 September 1990
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This Bill seeks to amend the Act repealing the payment of the fee. The notification of the fee has proved expensive to administer, using resources to a value well in excess of the fees paid. Also, similar fees are no longer paid in other Australian States and continuation of such a minimal fee in the ACT is considered anachronistic. Removal of the fee payment will result in a small financial saving to the Government but, importantly, human resources tied up in its administration will be released for more productive work. I now present the explanatory memorandum for the Bill.
Debate (on motion by Mr Berry) adjourned.
NATURE CONSERVATION (AMENDMENT) BILL 1990
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (10.33): Mr Speaker, I present the Nature Conservation (Amendment) Bill 1990. I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Mr Speaker, Namadgi National Park was declared under the Nature Conservation Act 1980 in 1984. The park covers 94,000 hectares in the southern ACT and is the northernmost extension of alpine and sub-alpine areas extending from the Victorian Alps, through Kosciusko National Park in New South Wales to Namadgi in the ACT. The Australian Alps National Parks Agreement covers Namadgi, and commits the ACT Government to conserve the outstanding natural and cultural values of the alpine national parks in cooperation with the other governments.
Namadgi has a wide range of plant communities and animal habitats, including alpine and sub-alpine snowgum forest, wet sclerophyll and montane forest, fragile ferns and swamps and frost hollow grassland in the valleys. There are also a variety of Aboriginal and European cultural sites in Namadgi. These include Aboriginal rock art sites, stone arrangements, artefact scatters and examples of European settlement, including pioneer and early grazing period homesteads.
Namadgi offers a variety of recreational opportunities to Canberra and Queanbeyan residents, as well as visitors to the ACT. Opportunities include camping, bushwalking, picnicking, cross-country skiing, horse riding, fishing and, of course, nature appreciation. The recreation objectives are to encourage visitors to appreciate the bush land of Namadgi and to provide a wide variety of recreational opportunities while protecting the natural and cultural values of the park. Members will be aware that on World Environment Day, 5 June this year, the Government announced the extension of Namadgi National Park to include the North Cotter and Mount Tennent and Blue Gum Creek areas.
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