Page 2001 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 5 June 1990
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drivers licences and associated explanatory pamphlets. Once the material has been reviewed, the stickers will be printed and distributed. I expect to launch the scheme around the middle of this year.
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I ask that any further questions be placed on the notice paper.
ALLIANCE GOVERNMENT'S ENVIRONMENT STRATEGY
Ministerial Statement and Papers
MR KAINE (Chief Minister), by leave: Mr Speaker, I would like to announce the release today of the Alliance Government's strategy for maintaining and enhancing the ACT environment in the 1990s and beyond. We have chosen World Environment Day to release this all-important document to highlight the Alliance Government's commitment to maintaining environmental quality in the Australian Capital Territory. World Environment Day is recognised around the world as an occasion when attention is focused on environmental issues and when governments and communities are drawn together in mutual concern for the quality of life on this planet.
Today people will highlight and examine environmental problems and they will agree on the pressing need for all manner of change, but in many parts of the world environmental degradation will continue unchecked. The nature of the environmental problems that confront the world is such that the setting aside of one day a year can be no more than a token acknowledgement of an ever-present and ever-growing problem. The very fact that a World Environment Day is celebrated at all at least shows that concern for the environment has made itself felt at the political level. It shows that the environment is now on political and social agendas at all levels of government and society. In the past, lacking integrated and comprehensive policies, governments reacted to community demands for solutions in an ad hoc way, devising solutions to particular issues as they surfaced. Environmental debate tended to focus on single issues rather than on the achievement of long-term objectives.
As understanding of the interdependence between humans and the environment has grown, we have come to realise that the only effective way to resolve environmental problems is to develop long-term plans that chart and coordinate the direction of a wide range of actions. The community will no longer accept superficial responses to the environmental issues that we face. It is essential that governments take the lead in maintaining and improving our environment.
Mr Speaker, the Alliance Government accepts this responsibility. We released a comprehensive environment policy some months ago, and today I am launching a comprehensive and detailed strategy that will take
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