Page 3846 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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We simply cannot go on the way we are. It requires us to sit down and to reconsider very carefully the kind of "ethos of disposability" that I have mentioned. One way of overcoming that problem is to emphasise the costs associated with the disposal of rubbish to the community. Tips are not operated for free. They cost money. They cost taxpayers money and, in particular, they cost the people who use them money. It is worth thinking of the environmental implications of having people think twice about using tips. Certainly, the weekend ritual of a trip to the tip is part of our way of life; but it is not, in an environmental sense, a very sensible way of proceeding with the management of our environment. (Extension of time granted)
Mr Speaker, we have to think about ways of overcoming that problem. I believe that the recommendation, as put forward in that committee, was a sensible one.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Berry! I believe that it is not part of the proceedings to read the paper in the chamber.
Mr Berry: I was reading about an adulterous director of the Logos Foundation, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you; I do not need to hear about that. Please proceed, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: I certainly see a benefit in that recommendation and, in the circumstances, I can accept the Government response of not supporting that recommendation at this stage. It is quite clear that the response from the public was not very favourable to that recommendation; I think unreasonably.
There is one other point that needs to be brought out very clearly here, Mr Speaker, and that is the role of the so-called environment movement in the deliberations of this committee and in the public response to the recommendations of this committee and the ongoing debate in this area. Quite frankly, I was appalled and disgusted by the lack of support that the committee received from the environment movement on that recommendation, because I was on the committee when the recommendation was made to the committee from environment groups, in particular, that ACT tips attract a fee. I was there when they said that.
Mr Jensen: And the TLC.
MR HUMPHRIES: And the TLC, indeed. I had to wonder, in amazement, at how quickly those groups went to ground when the recommendations became public and Hector started to feel the heat about them. The fact of life is that there were good grounds for those recommendations. They ought to have been properly considered; not buried quickly under a - - -
Mr Stevenson: A load of rubbish?
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