'Balance, not veto’

Press, Issue 33842, 14 May 1975, Page 16

'Balance, not veto’

The Commissioner for the Environment (Mr I. L. Baumgart) told law students yesterday that he saw his job as a balancing of many factors, and not as a “vetoing job.”

He told the conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association of LawStudents that it was true that the commission had no “teeth” to enforce laws, but he suggested that it could be effective because its reports were open to the public.

“It is true that we have no real power except from the notice that is taken of us,” said Mr Baumgart. “Perhaps we have more in that we have to operate in public and all that we do is open to public scrutiny.” He said that the commission reported to the originating department, but at the same time the report was made available to the public. This meant that the public knew what was in a report the same time that the Government knew.

“This is unusual,” said Mr Baumgart. “You never hear of a report from the Treasury being made public before the Cabinet hears of it.”

When asked if he thought the commission should have stronger powers, such as approving a project or refusing to allow it to go ahead, Mr Baumgart said he did not believe he should “have the right of veto, as such.” There were occasions, when in spite of environmental damage, a project should be allowed to go ahead for the sake of the country as a whole. He saw the matter of a quality of life as a matter for the people, not for bureau-1 crats. People should work i through their elected representatives, not through f bureaucracy. Mr Baumgart said that; some local bodies were voluntarily using the commission’s auditing system to “clear the air” on environmental matters, although it was mostly used only by Government departments. However, he pointed out that most local body schemes involved a Government department at some stage. He was not greatly in favour of local bodies em-

ploying perhaps a consulting engineer to provide an environmental impact report and just sending his report to the commission. He said he preferred local bodies to involve themselves more in environmental matters than to just sign a cheque after someone else had prepared a report. “We want reports that are simple and focused on the things that matter, and we want the people who should be thinking about these things actually thinking for themselves. The purpose of getting these reports is to make people think,” said Mr Baumg rt. He said that Cabinet require 1 Government departments to supply an environmental impact report with i’ny plans for projects. The ■plan would not be considered without a report. To cut down on the number of reports the commission had to go through, Mr Baumgart said he was suggesting that Government departments themselves might [prepare draft impact reports [for the public to comment [on before they were put to ithe commission.