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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4895 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

a community asset. All the trees in our landscape are obviously an important community asset. We have chosen natives because of their importance to our native species. We know that birds frequent species other than natives in our landscape, but they are generally not the species that are most at risk, the species that are most vulnerable. There are species of birds, particularly, but mammals as well, that do require native trees as habitat. They are species that are more vulnerable and rarer. It is important that we protect our native species. That is the reason why we have started with native trees.

Other members have pointed out that if we are to put preservation orders in place we should include exotic trees. Obviously, exotic trees would have to be dealt with in a separate Bill because we are dealing with the Nature Conservation Act here. Obviously, this Bill applies only to natives. We do not want to bring forward exotic trees at this stage because there are a lot of issues around exotics that are very complex. Obviously, we do not want to have protection orders in place for exotic trees that may also be invasive, for example. We need to look very carefully at species of trees to ensure that we are very selective about the exotic trees that we choose to protect.

Members have talked about consultation. Obviously, people in the community have not been ringing other members of the Assembly as much as they have the Greens. Perhaps we have been the only ones getting the calls and letters from people - - -

Mr Berry: Did you get 300,000 calls?

MS HORODNY: We have had a huge number of calls and letters. I can show you the files in our office, if you like. We have been working on this issue virtually from day one. We have been consulting with community - - -

Mr Moore: And you introduced the legislation last week.

MS HORODNY: We put it together in recent weeks, Mr Moore. Part of the reason for that is problems with Parliamentary Counsel. That has often been the reason for our legislation not coming up as early as we would have liked. We have been speaking with many residents and community groups. In fact, there is a community group that started in recent months. I believe they have been going for about six months. It is a coalition, I suppose, of various groups of residents, for example. Various members of different resident groups and conservation groups have come together to form a group whose main aim has been to try to put in place a tree protection order and, as well, to put together, in consultation with other people in the community, an education kit on the topic to convey to the community the importance of protecting these ecologically important trees.

Mr Moore has said once again that his reluctance to support our Bill is that it may work to prevent people from planting trees. He says that they will be reluctant to plant trees because they may find it difficult to remove them should they want to do so in the future. Our experience, from talking with people from other jurisdictions where there are tree protection orders, is that that is not the case. There are many jurisdictions around Australia that do have tree preservation orders in place, including Queanbeyan,

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