Page 1433 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 1 May 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
One was a suggestion by Ms Follett that people would lose their jobs. I am assured that nobody has lost his or her job and that nobody will lose his or her job as a result of this closure of the transfer station. Alternative facilities will be opened at Mitchell, as we have made abundantly clear already, and it may even be that in time the expansion of such facilities will provide further jobs in Canberra. Who knows?
The second point is that, contrary to suggestions from those opposite, there will not be any threat to the capacity of litter pickers on the north side of the lake to properly dispose of the litter that they pick up. The effect of the change will be minimised through operational adjustments and alternative internal transfer arrangements for collecting litter. As a result, nobody need worry that there will not be adequate facilities for taking away rubbish collected by those people on the north side of Canberra.
Mr Wood made a good point - superficially, at least. He said that there will be a big impact on recycling in north Canberra if we go ahead with the closure of the station. He ignores one very important thing about this Ainslie Transfer Station, and that is that the vast bulk of things taken to that station are not recycled. They are simply thrown into large bins to be carted away to one of the two main tips.
Mr Wood: You ought to see the junk that goes in.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is right. A lot of junk goes into those stations.
Mr Kaine: On a point of order, Mr Speaker; can we stop this debate across the floor of the house, please? It is getting unbearable.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, Chief Minister. Please proceed, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Wood and those opposite would know that the important thing about our approach towards waste management in the ACT, and indeed in the rest of Australia, is to get Australians away from the habit of throwing away everything because it is convenient to do so. We have to get people away from the view that they can throw whatever they want away without any care in the world. We, in turn, make it so easy for them to do it that they have no second thought about recycling. That is the important thing, Mr Speaker. I am confident that, with a comprehensive restructuring of our waste services in the ACT - and the report brought down by Dr Kinloch, I think, is a good starting point in that regard - with that effort to achieve a comprehensive recycling and waste management system which takes account of that basic reality, we might have a good chance of attacking that basic problem.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .