Page 3547 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 2005
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MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs, and Acting Minister for Education and Training) (12.07): I move amendment No 25 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 3619]. This amendment is in the same vein as the amendments that we have just debated.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 65, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 66 agreed to.
Clause 67.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (12.09): I seek leave to move amendments Nos 6 to 8 circulated in my name together.
Leave granted.
DR FOSKEY: I move amendments Nos 6 to 8 circulated in my name together [see schedule 1 at page 3618]. It seems to be to be an oversight in the bill that the Tree Advisory Panel lacks any expertise in ecology. Obviously I am referring here to ecological expertise based around trees and the context in which they are placed. That is why these amendments are put forward. They broaden the skills base of the Tree Advisory Panel to require that at least one member has extensive experience in ecology in addition to the current requirement that one or more members must have extensive experience in arboriculture or forestry. A forester is not an ecologist; an arboriculturist is not an ecologist; they are very different lines of training. They will not bring this expertise to the committee.
These amendments also provide scope for more than one member having experience in ecology. The Greens believe that is important to look at these individual trees in a broader context and to look at ecological issues as well. We believe that it is important to note the health and viability of the trees in the area as well as the context of the tree itself. For instance, we may be talking about deciding a tree is not significant but it may be that it is amongst a group of trees that are all dying.
There are a whole lot of questions here. There is not time to raise them all, but it concerns me that Assembly members realise the importance of this amendment as the Greens see it, because it goes to the basis, to the heart, of the bill’s environmental credentials as far as I am concerned. Ecologists are trained to be able to take the age and habitat value of the tree into account. This is my argument for these amendments and I put it really strongly and quite passionately.
I also want to commend the government on the consultation that it did in the creation of the bill. I was really surprised at the reaction of Mr Stanhope to my comments yesterday. At that moment, at the time, clearly he did go off. It was good that what has come out is the amount of consultation that the government has done.
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