You are hereQ: Can Armstrong Ck catchment be legally independently assessed (or do I have to be arrested)?
Q: Can Armstrong Ck catchment be legally independently assessed (or do I have to be arrested)?
thanks to Peter Campbell for the image of Armstrong Ck
Forests: Armstrong Creek catchment
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) -- A number of salvage logging coupes have now been scheduled for the catchment of Armstrong Creek, which is a tributary of the Yarra River and is currently a closed catchment. Of course, top scientists would advise the minister that salvage logging is the worst environmental outcome.
However, these logging operations may impinge on some aspects of administration that the minister is responsible for, such as endangered species legislation, water quality and the whole terms of the regional forest agreement itself, given that one of the logging coupes appears to impinge on a special protection zone. This is a closed catchment, which the public would not normally be able to enter. Will the minister organise access for me and a selected group of experts to visit these sites and assess their environmental values?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Environment and Climate Change) -- This is an unusual request, President, as you would appreciate. In Mr Barber's assumptions within his question it is implied, not necessarily stated, that I may not be interested in the science or getting some scientific advice on this matter or any other matter that falls within my responsibility. As a starting point, I would like to disabuse him of that assumption, because I am acutely interested in these issues.
On the basis of being acutely interested in these issues, I will give him an undertaking -- and this is about as far as my undertakings will probably go in response to his substantive question or his supplementary -- that I will examine the matters he has put to me and ascertain the veracity of the concerns that may be embedded within his question.
I will subsequently talk to him, and if needs be convey whatever I convey to him to the house, if that is deemed appropriate by us both, about whether any additional scrutiny needs to be brought to bear on this. Or, maybe, it will be subject to his contention in the house and my reporting back to the house of its relative merits.
That is about as far as I will be able to take it from my vantage point at this point in time, but I am very happy to be accountable for my responsibilities to ensure that we protect environmental values within this catchment. I am very happy to account to him and to the Parliament and to the people for those matters, and if there is any appropriate additional scrutiny, then I will reflect on that.
Supplementary question
Mr BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) -- Given the minister was not able to respond positively from the point of view of my own access to the site -- so that I could ascertain for myself whether these environmental values exist; and I have some training that would allow me to do that for myself -- --
Mr Jennings -- You haven't got the ticket! No ticket no start!
Mr BARBER -- That was in fact my supplementary. Given that there is no public access to these closed catchments even to go for a walk -- unless I am on the back of a D9 bulldozer -- what are the fines and sanctions under any acts that the minister is responsible for associated with someone like me just jumping the gate and going and having a look?
Mr JENNINGS (Minister for Environment and Climate Change) -- I think it would be wise for me to resist the temptation to answer this question, because Mr Barber is encouraging me to incite behaviour and to describe prematurely what the limits of the sanction may be. I do not think that it is a very wise question for him to ask or for me to answer.
