What it does
The Ralphs Bay Conservation Area (Clarification) Act 2006 performs a single, narrow, but legally powerful function: it declares the precise boundary and legal status of the Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, overriding any previous declaration and any other Act of Parliament. Section 3(1) provides that, notwithstanding any previous declaration in relation to the Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, the area of Crown land specified in Schedule 1 is the reserved land that constitutes the conservation area established under section 17 of, and item 31 of Schedule 9 to, the Regional Forest Agreement (Land Classification) Act 1998. Subsection (2) gives that declaration effect notwithstanding any other Act, meaning it prevails over inconsistent provisions in other Tasmanian legislation.
The Act does not create a new conservation area; rather it clarifies which land falls within an existing one. The area is defined by reference to a specific plan in the Central Plan Register (Plan 7395) and comprises about 171 hectares, subject to a potentially significant exception. Schedule 1 excludes from the conservation area any part of that land that the Resource Planning and Development Commission (subsequently replaced by the Tasmanian Planning Commission) may determine as necessary or convenient for the project of State significance referred to in the State Policies and Projects (Project of State Significance) Order 2006. This carve-out directly ties the conservation area boundary to the outcome of a specific development assessment.
The Act also grants the Tasmanian Planning Commission, under section 4, the power to make that determination as part of its integrated assessment of the project. Section 5 empowers the Minister administering Part 3 of the State Policies and Projects Act 1993 to give a further written direction to the Commission to undertake that integrated assessment, overriding the usual limitations in section 20(2) of that Act. Section 6 assigns interim administrative responsibility to the Minister for Primary Industries and Water and the Department of Primary Industries and Water until formal arrangements are made under the Administrative Arrangements Act 1990.