- Home
- Hansard & Papers
- Legislative Assembly
- 22 March 2005
National Parks and Wildlife (Adjustment of Areas) Bill
Printing Tips |
Print selected text
| Full Day Hansard Transcript
« Prior Item |
Item 41 of 43
| Next Item »
Page: 14743
Second Reading
Debate resumed from 2 March 2005.
Mr MICHAEL RICHARDSON (The Hills) [8.05 p.m.]: I indicate at the outset that the Opposition will not be opposing the National Parks and Wildlife (Adjustment of Areas) Bill, which is very much a tidy-up bill. Its intent is similar to that of several other bills passed by this Parliament over the past decade, the most recent of which was in 2001. This bill makes a number of fairly minor changes to a very small number of national parks. Indeed, the areas involved are small; one area is only 700 square metres. Under the National Parks and Wildlife Act, land reserved as national parks may not be revoked except by an Act of Parliament. That is an important issue, and it is absolutely essential to this bill. The Minister for the Environment in his second reading speech emphasised the fact that legislation was needed to change the boundaries of national parks, and that is exactly what is being done by this legislation.
The proposals are straightforward. Some are consequent on legislation that has passed through this House comparatively recently; others deal with issues such as dams in Kosciuszko National Park and the need, which arises from time to time, to provide for roads. A consistent theme that seems to run through the legislation is that compensation is provided for any revocations that are made under the bill. I shall deal with the revocations one by one. The first, which relates to the South East Forest National Park, corrects some boundary areas to allow roads to be used for commercial logging operations in the adjacent State forest. The roads will remain vested in the Minister under part 11 of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.
There is no compensation sought in this instance as this kind of boundary gazettal error arises in circumstances when no fault is ascribed. Certainly, the roads will continue to exist, regardless of whether compensation is provided. The only observation I make is that this issue should have been dealt with in 1996, when the South East Forest National Park was originally reserved. It seems to be somewhat anomalous that nine years on we should be passing legislation to provide for logging operations that were clearly happening in 1996 and have continued since then. If the Government got it wrong in 1996 I wonder why it did not come into this place and seek to amend the legislation earlier than 2005.
The second change proposed relates to Botany Bay National Park. In recent years it seems that a number of changes have been made to Botany Bay National Park, perhaps because it is fairly close to the centre of the city and a number of competing activities occur within the area. The bill revokes some 716 square metres of Botany Bay National Park, which will be handed over to the New South Wales Golf Club to provide some degree of safety for golfers using the sixth tee. I suspect that were this to happen without some compensation being provided by the golf club the legislation would not go through the Parliament. Some 1,354 square metres of high conservation land will be added to the national park, which is almost a two-for-one swap. Nothing is particularly objectionable about a two-for-one swap that will enhance public safety. The National Parks Association has not indicated that it is in any way opposed to this aspect of the legislation.
The third proposal relates to Talbingo Dam in Kosciuszko National Park. One of the great ironies of Australia is that one of our great national parks, certainly the jewel in the crown of the New South Wales national park estate, should coexist with one of the greatest civil engineering feats in the world, the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Not too many people could object to the revocation of areas that have been highly modified by the Snowy Mountains Authority over a period of decades. The proposal is to revoke some 184 hectares, which includes 34 hectares of Talbingo Dam's water surface. The conservation value of the land is fairly minimal. The two parcels of land that will become part of the park as compensation total 146 hectares, which is slightly less than the 184 hectares to be revoked, but 34 hectares of the dam's water surface will be transferred to Snowy Hydro. Most people would say that is a sensible move by the Government and would not object to it. Certainly the National Parks Association has no particular problem with the proposal.
The next proposal relates to Lake Innes Nature Reserve, and involves the revocation of 2.89 hectares to allow Hastings Council to construct an extension of Ocean Drive, which forms part of the Port Macquarie Ring Road Project. Often it is necessary to construct roads, and sometimes the only place to construct them is through a national park. Other proposals have passed successfully through this place to provide for exactly that eventuality. Some 2.89 hectares will be taken from the Lake Innes Nature Reserve, but another 3.98 hectares will be included in the nature reserve.
I note that a working group, including representatives from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Hastings Council, the local branch of the National Parks Association and the Koala Preservation Society, has been involved in consultation regarding construction of the road. I understand that a fauna underpass will be built, particularly for koalas, to mitigate the impact on wildlife. That has been done elsewhere in New South Wales and the world. For example, in Canada I have seen very expensive overbridges costing upwards of $CA1 million to allow bears to cross six- or eight-lane highways. That is to be commended, and the proposal is not objected to.
The next proposal is more contentious and relates to the extension of special roads provisions in the National Park Estate (Southern Region Reservations) Act 2000. This does not involve any revocations or changes to boundaries, but extends the time allowed for public road boundaries and adjustments and declarations as to the states of other roads and tracts within new national parks and reserves in southern New South Wales for two years or until 31 December 2007. The conservation movement is concerned that this does not provide a degree of surety over what has been preserved in the Act in these new national parks.
I understand that there may be—as set out in a briefing note provided by the Minister—some unforeseen difficulties such as undertaking survey work in rough terrain. But the Government could have got it right, and should have got it right, in the first place. I go back to the correction of the boundary errors of the South East Forest National Park, which was gazetted nine years ago. One would have thought that in the intervening nine years the Government could have got it right. Section 10 of the National Park Estate (Southern Region Reservations) Act, which provides for an adjustment of description of land transferred to national park estate, states:
(2) The description of any land in Schedules 1-6 may be adjusted from time to time:
(a) to alter the boundaries of the land for the purposes of the effective management of national parks estate land and State forest land, including adjustments to enable boundaries to follow distinctive land features, to provide access to land or to rationalise the boundaries of similar areas of land, or
(b) to adjust the boundary of any land adjoining a public road, including adjustments to enable the boundary to follow the formed path of the road or to provide an appropriate set back from the carriageway of the road, or
(c) to include, remove or change a description of any easement or a restriction to which the land is subject.
(3) An adjustment of the description of land is to be made by the Director-General of National Parks and Wildlife by a notice published in the Gazette that amends Schedules 1-6.
(4) A notice under this section may only be published with the approval of:
(a) the Minister administering the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, and
(b) the Minister administering the Forestry Act 1916
I would ask the Minister to clarify, if he could, that any adjustment of boundaries under section 10 (2) (a) to alter the boundaries of the land for the purposes of the effective management of national park estate land and State Forests land, including adjustments to enable boundaries to follow distinctive land features, to provide access to land and to rationalise the boundaries of similar areas of land would have to be signed off by him as both the Minister administering the National Parks and Wildlife Act and the Minister administering the Forestry Act, and whether that adjustment would have to be gazetted.
The New South Wales national parks system has some 12 parks as well as a number of State parks and historical sites that were gazetted with the original National Parks and Wildlife Act in 1967. Honourable members may not be aware that all those parks exist by definition of what is known as a miscellaneous plan, which is almost a mud map that is drawn in ink on a piece of parchment. Two of these pieces of parchment are extant for each park in New South Wales. One is held at the National Parks and Wildlife Service headquarters in Hurstville and the other is held by the Department of Lands.
It is my understanding that there is constant activity relating to the interpretation of those boundaries, because simply having a line drawn on a map with no relationship to contours, rivers or trig points is very difficult. The scale of these maps is around 1:136,000, and it is often difficult to identify details on those maps. That is an issue the Government could take on board. Those 12 national parks include some of the icon parks—since they go back to 1967 perhaps they could all be classed as icon parks in the national parks system—such as Morton National Park, the Royal National Park, the Gibraltar Range National Park and Blue Mountains National Park, which I am sure the Minister is very familiar with.
All of those parks are gazetted by way of miscellaneous plan, and adjustments are made from time to time. I assume that those adjustments are made by an Act of Parliament, particularly if part of one of those national parks is revoked. I repeat that the Opposition does not oppose this legislation. It seems sensible and I am sure that when we are next in government there will be occasions when we want to alter the boundaries of national parks along similar lines.
Mr BOB DEBUS (Blue Mountains—Attorney General, and Minister for the Environment) [8.21 p.m.], in reply: I thank the honourable member for The Hills for his support for the legislation, which is indubitably sensible. It is of a kind that we pass through this Parliament from time to time as necessary to do the housework, the small variations in boundaries to national parks for legitimate reasons. I am not sure that I can answer all of the issues raised by the honourable member in respect to miscellaneous plans on parchment, although if he allows me to take them on notice I shall be able to do so. I should mention, with respect to the provisions concerning the South East Forest National Park, that we are talking about roads that are not new. We are talking about existing roads which were unable to be used at all after, at least in one case, December 1998. It was only after that time that State Forests detected the error. These roads are related to commercial logging and therefore are not compatible with inclusion in the national park estate.
The extension of deadlines for the determination of road boundaries will simply allow the Department of Environment and Conservation, the Roads and Traffic Authority, the Department of Lands and local councils to do the necessary survey work to rectify cadastral anomalies. It is not all that surprising in practice to find that from time to time—especially when one is dealing with very rugged country and there have been a great many transfers of land between various agencies of government in a particular area in a relatively short space of time—these small anomalies will arise. It is appropriate that they are included in omnibus bills of this sort, which are only introduced to Parliament every couple of years. It would not make much sense to introduce bills to cover matters of this modest nature exclusively. I thank the honourable member for his support for the bill and have pleasure in commending it to the House.
Motion agreed to.
Bill read a second time and passed through remaining stages.
Last modified 05/12/2007 16:33:21 : Update this page