Page 3843 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (3.42): Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise with some particular interest in this debate because, as members might recall, I was the chair of this Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee before 5 December last year and my interest in the matter is very great. That was not always the case; I do not know how I got that job and I was less than impressed to be on that committee, since my interests did not lie in that area to begin with. I was significantly uninterested in the kinds of issues that were to be dealt with by the committee, including big bins and garbage and things of that kind. However, I have to say that my uninterest evolved very rapidly into a fascination for the area concerned, and I was extremely interested in the area by the end of my period of service and, indeed, I was very sorry not to have been able to see the report through to completion. I congratulate Dr Kinloch for taking over in difficult circumstances and steering that committee through to a report. He picked up a number of very difficult and quite contentious issues and synthesised them into a comprehensive and cohesive document within a short period of time after that change of leadership and change of membership of the committee. I believe, Mr Deputy Speaker, that you also took a role in that committee at short notice.
There are a number of things in this document that I would like to comment on, Mr Deputy Speaker. The first issue is the very first recommendation mentioned in the Government response, that is, the recommendation that the Government contract for a weekly door-to-door collection of recyclables, including glass, plastics, et cetera. The response the Government has given to that recommendation is not support, and I have to say that I fully endorse the Government response in this regard. In respect of this debate, it has never been my position that either door-to-door collection of recyclables or big bins in isolation were or are the answers to the questions that this community has to face up to in this area. The issues are considerably more complex than that. My personal view - and I know it is a view shared by other members of the committee, or at least it was when I was on the committee - is that lateral solutions have to be considered and, if possible, we should harness innovative ways of dealing with these problems.
Mr Wood: You had some very good ideas.
MR HUMPHRIES: Yes, a host of very interesting and valuable ideas came before this committee. There are a very large number of communities, both within this country and elsewhere in the world, particularly in the United States and in Western Europe, where people are experimenting with very exciting ideas which I believe we would profit greatly from emulating, or at least monitoring. I am not suggesting that someone go on a junket to Europe or the United States to look at those things, but I do think we need to be very careful not to reinvent the wheel or to
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