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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2583 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

(4) Ms McRae be discharged from attending the Standing Committee on Planning and Environment for that Committee's consideration of the Environment Protection Bill 1997 and the Environment Protection (Consequential Provisions) Bill 1997 and that Mr Corbell be appointed in her place; and

(5) the foregoing provisions of this resolution have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders.

The Standing Committee on Planning and Environment self-referred the Environment Protection Bill during the break, by informal general agreement with members of the Assembly. This formalises the process. We are seeking, Mr Speaker, to ensure that this Bill comes back to the Assembly at an appropriate time so that it can be dealt with this year. I have recently given to Mr Humphries a copy of the timetable to which the committee is working to ensure that that is possible. We have already begun our process, and this motion just seeks Assembly approval formally for that process and the way in which we wish to handle the legislation.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (11.02): Mr Speaker, I rise to support the motion that has been moved and indicate that I am pleased with the timetable the committee has set for itself and with the fact that they have decided to take on the two Bills that are referred to in the motion. The process of bringing forward this legislation has been a very long and difficult one - difficult in the sense that it has involved very extensive consultation with a large number of different organisations and groups. The result is a compromise, as is so often the case in these matters. It is obvious that the compromises made by the reference group and other bodies consulted in this process may not necessarily be the compromises that would be sought by members of this place. For that reason, it is important that the Assembly have the chance to be able to consider these matters in some detail.

However, Mr Speaker, I think the danger in having the very extensive provisions of this legislation debated in detail on the floor of this place is that much would be lost in terms of the direction and purpose of some of the provisions; misunderstanding could easily arise. I think many members would agree that, for a similar piece of legislation, namely, the Land Act, that process, as engineered on the floor of the Assembly, was not entirely successful. A process of having the details of proposed amendments dealt with on the floor of the Planning and Environment Committee, I believe, is a much sounder way of approaching this exercise.

I would urge, therefore, that members who are considering the Bill and who wish to suggest amendments to the Bill forward those amendments to the Planning and Environment Committee for its consideration. I think it would be better for the committee to have the benefit of those amendments at the earliest possible stage, at least in accordance with the timetable that Mr Moore and his committee have developed, in order that it is possible for the process to be smoothly handled at that stage.

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