EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES NO.66
WORLD HERITAGE (WESTERN TASMANIA WILDERNESS) REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
(Issued under the authority of the Minister of State for Home Affairs and Environment
Sub-section 69(1) of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1975 provides that the Governor-General may make regulations for and in relation to giving effect to an agreement specified in the Schedule to that Act. Among the agreements specified in the Schedule is the “Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage adopted on 16 November 1972 by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation at its seventeenth session held at Paris.”
The World Heritage (Western Tasmania Wilderness) Regulations (Statutory Rules 1983 No. 31, made on 30 March 1983) enable Australia to give effect to its obligations under the Convention.
The purpose of the World Heritage (Western Tasmania Wilderness) Regulations (Amendment) is to amend the World Heritage (Western Tasmania Wilderness) Regulations by changing the provision with respect to the offence in sub-regulation 5(3) of the principal Regulations. That sub-regulation provides -
“(3) Where, within an area to which these Regulations apply, a person does an act referred to in sub-regulation (1) without the consent of the Minister -
(a) the person in whom the area in which the act is done or the relevant part of that area is vested; or
(b) if that person is not the occupier of that area or of the relevant part of that area - the person who is the occupier of that area or the relevant part of that area, as the case may be,
is guilty of an offence and is punishable upon conviction by a fine not exceeding $5,000 unless he proves that he took reasonable steps to prevent the doing of the act.”
The amending Regulations replace sub-regulation 5(3) with two sub-regulations which specify an offence that is the same as that in the replaced sub-regulation except that the onus of proving one element of the offence is placed on the prosecution instead of the defence.