Page 2972 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
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You assess how you feel about that. The criteria to be established if we declare a threatened species are to be purely scientific, are to be purely objective; and, heaven forbid, from time to time in this Assembly there may be non-scientific judgments and arguments used. We are not doing anything of this nature to the exclusion of public consultation or of community input, because the Bill lays down quite clearly that, in establishing these criteria, the Flora and Fauna Committee will engage in a community debate and will seek input. So, the public input is there and is part of the process. But, once that scientific data is established, then for the purity of the system and, might I say, for the toughest ecological line for us to take a stronger standing defence of the environment, I believe that it is appropriate that it not be a disallowable instrument and therefore subject to some of the vagaries that may occur from time to time in this Assembly. Let us establish the criteria through public consultation, let the committee establish them, and they are then the criteria that have to hold as decisions are made. That is the background, and I think that is an eminently sensible and appropriate approach.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Bill agreed to in principle.
Detail Stage
Bill, by leave, taken as a whole
MR STEFANIAK (11.01): Madam Speaker, I move:
Page 14, line 18, clause 8, proposed new section 23E, after "17", insert "18".
Just briefly in relation to Mr Wood's arguments, I actually thought Mr Wood could do better than that. However, I will just address some of the arguments you make. This would be one of the few instruments that are not provided for in section 23E, as I think my colleague Mr Moore said. There are a large number of instruments there that are disallowable. Why not this one? Your main objection would seem to be that, whilst this Assembly might be environmentally sound, a future Assembly might not be. If a future Assembly was not perhaps environmentally unsound, it might be unsound in other ways, which would bring into question its ability to review any instrument that is currently disallowable. Why have disallowable instruments, on that view, if you cannot trust a future Assembly? With respect to you, Mr Wood, I feel that your argument is a nonsense argument and this, like any other instrument, should be placed on the floor of the Assembly for review.
It may well be that the situation never arises for any of the criteria in section 18 to be amended by a future Assembly. But that essential protection, which is fundamental, I would think, to what democracy is all about and that proper consultation with the community and proper review, should not, I feel, be excluded from this particular matter, and section 18 should come within the criteria of section 23, just like all the other disallowable instruments.
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