15 February 2012

Greens streamlining environmental reports

| johnboy
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The Greens’ Shane Rattenbury is wrapping himself in the open government flag to have a stab at getting the Minister for the Environment out of the road:

The ACT Greens today moved a number of amendments to the Commissioner for the Environment Act, including a requirement that all reports produced by the Commissioner be tabled directly to the Assembly, rather than disappearing into the Minister’s office.

“We are tired of important information and reports sitting on a Minister’s desk for months and sometimes years before they’re made public,” said Greens Environment spokesperson, Shane Rattenbury MLA.

The Greens bill seeks to counter recent delays in tabling and responding to the Commissioner’s reports. Under the current Act, response deadlines are specified only for State of the Environment Reports.

“This effectively allows the Government to ignore the Commissioner’s recommendations, unless they are raised through the State of the Environment framework.

“The new tabling rules, modelled on the Auditor-General’s Act, would ensure equal access to the Commissioner’s reports by all MLAs, reducing the potential for key recommendations to fall below the radar.

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I like to think of it as democracy.

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