Mr WOOD - 2003-10-08
Minister, 1000 people in the rural area have shown opposition to your government’s silly and over-bureaucratic rules on the keeping of horses, cows, buffaloes, donkeys - not chooks - and other beasts of burden in the rural area. Bearing in mind that there are adequate controls already – there is the Health Act, land clearing regulations, Water Act, Cruelty Act and the existing planning controls – will the minister tell rural people that the rules for keeping animals will stay as they are, or is he going to support his department’s new rules, which could mean that when horses have a foal, rural residents will have to put in a development application because they have more than the approved number of horses on their block?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question and for the petition presented by the member this morning. We will provide an answer within 12 sitting days as required. However, as I said before, what is before the people now is a proposal, it is not a definite. We are going through a process, and the member knows very well how these things are addressed, and how things are processed through the Development Consent Authority - they go out for public comments. I extended the period for public comments. We have now received hundreds of submissions. The Development Consent Authority will consider submissions and will provide their report to me. I have publicly stated before that this government will consider the public opinion. We are not going to implement what bureaucrats, or any bureaucrat, wants. What we want to do is consider public opinion because, after all, these are the people who have to live with these changes. Not me, not the bureaucrats, nor any other member here.
We are talking about the proposal; the same thing that happened when the CLP was in government. They went through the same process and sometimes even ignored the will of the people. This government will consider the will of the people and, in due course, you will find out that what we are going to put there will be what the people want, not what the bureaucrats want.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his question and for the petition presented by the member this morning. We will provide an answer within 12 sitting days as required. However, as I said before, what is before the people now is a proposal, it is not a definite. We are going through a process, and the member knows very well how these things are addressed, and how things are processed through the Development Consent Authority - they go out for public comments. I extended the period for public comments. We have now received hundreds of submissions. The Development Consent Authority will consider submissions and will provide their report to me. I have publicly stated before that this government will consider the public opinion. We are not going to implement what bureaucrats, or any bureaucrat, wants. What we want to do is consider public opinion because, after all, these are the people who have to live with these changes. Not me, not the bureaucrats, nor any other member here.
We are talking about the proposal; the same thing that happened when the CLP was in government. They went through the same process and sometimes even ignored the will of the people. This government will consider the will of the people and, in due course, you will find out that what we are going to put there will be what the people want, not what the bureaucrats want.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016