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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4891 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

to go down this path the broader implications must be considered. The need for and the extent of a tree preservation scheme should strike a balance between the rights and responsibilities of private lessees on private land, the protection of life and property, the legal liability of lessees and the Government, and broader community objectives for landscape quality, amenity and environmental protection.

Because of these complex and possibly competing issues, an assessment must be made as to whether there is a need for tree preservation in the ACT. Can it be demonstrated that the environmental and landscape qualities of our urban areas are under threat because of the absence of such a scheme? I think not. Is the existing protection afforded under the Nature Conservation Act and the planning and heritage provisions of the Land (Planning and Environment) Act adequate, or is there a need for review? Are the resource implications of requiring tree maintenance and/or removal to be approved in certain circumstances justified in terms of return of benefit to the community? I have seen no evidence from the Greens that the answer to one or all of these questions is yes; and, unless the answer is yes, this Assembly should not support the amendments to the Nature Conservation Act as proposed here today.

Turning to the proposed amendments in more detail: As a matter of principle, the Government would find it impossible to support this Bill in the absence of any clear statement of objectives or desired outcomes. To gain community support, a tree preservation scheme must have clearly identified objectives. Are we preserving trees as a matter of landscape interest and aesthetic quality, to enhance urban amenity and privacy, to protect cultural heritage and ecological or scientific values, or to improve general environment quality through soil conservation, air quality benefits, noise amelioration, et cetera? I would also like to highlight other difficulties we have with the operation of the proposed legislation, in particular noting the equity implications for rural lessees.

The proposed amendments require a licence for the felling or damaging of native trees only, irrespective of whether they are on leased, unleased or rural land. By comparison, any lessee would be free, within existing requirements, to fell or damage any non-native tree on their lease. I acknowledge that there is a reasonable excuse exemption, but it is not clear what this would entail, particularly as the amendments already exempt, in some circumstances, felling and minimal pruning for safety and property protection reasons.

The size criteria that requires trees over five metres to be subject to a licence applies only to land in the built-up area. This effectively means that only a proportion of urban lessees would be subject to tree preservation licences; yet the legislation seems to require rural lessees to have a licence if they wish to prune any native tree on their leases, irrespective of the size of the tree. It should be noted that the existing right of rural lessees to use timber from their own land for fencing and other uses on the land has also been removed.

The Bill also refers to a "reasonable belief of an immediate danger of injury or damage" being necessary for the exemption to apply. This could be interpreted as requiring that a tree could not be felled without a licence on a calm, windless day, and that a lessee would have to wait for sufficiently risky weather conditions so as to justify a reasonable belief to be able to avoid the licensing process.

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