Page 1489 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 2 May 1990
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contract was coming up for renewal. What is going on in the ACT? Is there any point at all to self-government? Perhaps that is the point that Mr Duby is trying to make. If we are going to have decisions like this, made by public servants and rubber-stamped by Ministers, what is the point of having elected representatives at all?
Considering the fact that we had discussion on a matter of public importance on the issue yesterday, I draw members' attention to standing order 62 and point out that today we should be careful not to repeat the arguments of yesterday and we should look to new material. Those arguments still exist, they are on the record and I would encourage any member opposite or indeed next to me to draw my attention to any repetition by me. I shall be happy to do the same to other members also because there is no point in wasting the Assembly's time on that.
Yesterday Mr Duby suggested that about two-thirds of the Ainslie Transfer Station material was compostable. He also stated - and correct me if I recall this wrongly because the Hansard is not yet available - that about 240 tonnes a week is taken from the Ainslie Transfer Station to Belconnen tip for landfill. It seems to me that if two-thirds of that is compostable, 160 tonnes of compostable material is taken and buried at the Belconnen tip each week.
If, instead of being buried there, that 160 tonnes was separated first at the Ainslie Transfer Station and taken to be composted either at Mugga Lane tip or at the established facilities in Belconnen in accordance with the recommendations of the inquiry into commercial and domestic waste management, then the money saved from landfill - which is rated normally at about $20 a tonne in the ACT - would be about $3,200 a week. This could be saved by composting the material, the money for which is returned through the sale of the compostables. That comes to about $160,000 a year.
The figures I have presented are fairly loose - I make no bones about that - but they appear to total about $160,000 a year; almost the sort of money that Mr Duby is talking about saving. If that is the case, there is absolutely no reason to close the Ainslie Transfer Station when we could make these savings. The point I am trying to make is that what is required is a publicly available cost-benefit analysis, as outlined in subparagraph (iii) of my motion. The Ainslie Transfer Station should be reopened and the whole matter looked into appropriately. (Quorum formed)
Because of shortage of time, I shall move on to the inquiry into commercial and domestic waste management by the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment. At no stage did that committee have a chance to consider whether the Ainslie Transfer Station should be closed because it was never brought up as an issue. Clearly, if the matter was coming up for a decision then it
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