Page 3459 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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I want to thank the hardworking staff at EPSDD, including those within our parks and conservation service, for their dedication to protecting and enhancing our bush capital. An experienced government works with these experts and listens to their advice. What we do not do is to talk people down in our public service, attack their jobs and pretend that you know better than the experts. This is the Mr Tony Abbott playbook—
Opposition members interjecting—
MS CODY: Minister, how is conservation in the ACT contributing to the local community?
MR GENTLEMAN: By working to protect the environment, we are helping to enhance our bush capital. Many Canberrans live close to green spaces, with the average Canberran living 977 metres from a nature reserve, national park or pine forest. Indeed I am informed that no Canberran lives further than 3.5 kilometres from these areas.
This government also supports living infrastructure in our region, particularly through the healthy waterways projects, natural resource management and the parks and conservation service. Our EPSDD staff are also responsible for park assets like trails, lookouts and other public amenities, which have a combined value of $250 million. These investments enhance and promote our city.
By preserving and protecting our environment, we are also helping to grow our economy. The construction of the new Mulligans Flat learning centre, supported by a $1.6 million investment in funding from this government, will help to deliver 36 jobs during construction and another 120 jobs with flow-on employment. When the centre is up and running, there will be 12 new positions to help to manage the centre. The construction of this new learning centre, along with other jobs, also helps to bring visitors to our fantastic city, helping other businesses throughout the city.
Madam Speaker, if you care about our city and if you care about the bush capital then you do what this government is doing. Inexperience means looking out of your window and choosing a piece of open land for development without understanding the ecological impacts. We cannot allow reckless development if we are to retain our bush capital. Mr Parton has already suggested bulldozing Kowen Forest and west Murrumbidgee, depriving Canberrans of the natural spaces that they so highly value.
MRS JONES: Minister, how is the building of housing on the nature reserve at the end of Coombs, known by residents as Coombs peninsula, protecting the pink-tailed worm-lizard that that reserve was intended to protect?
MR GENTLEMAN: That is a very good question, Madam Speaker, and I thank Mrs Jones for it. It is a very important piece of work in our nature reserves to ensure that we can protect our native species. A great deal of work was done by EPSDD and our parks people to ensure that we can set aside hectares and hectares of land to ensure the safe habitat of the pink-tailed worm-lizard, and I congratulate EPSDD for the work that they do.
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