Page 3867 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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Moreover, it is a document which allows people to respond both at the government level - that is, at the territorial level - and also at the level of their local communities or their individual households. At the back of the document there are extensive sections dealing with what you - that is you, the individual - can do. That is an extremely valuable contribution, I think, to the overall debate. We have to have that long-term strategy. It is not just one that we can afford to implement in the term of one government or the life of one assembly. It is, rather, Mr Speaker, the culmination of collected knowledge on this area which we collectively ought to implement.
Air quality is one of the areas of government action. This Government intends to amend the Air Pollution Act to regulate the use of ozone depleting substances in the ACT. The Government is also investigating methods of improving the public transport system to reduce private vehicle usage and provide cleaner means of transport. Once again, those sorts of things are not changed overnight; they are not easily effected, and they do entail, on many occasions, very difficult decisions. I think it is worth reflecting on the debate earlier this afternoon concerning the problems of an environment strategy with respect to domestic and commercial waste management to see how difficult it is to get in place some major innovations that affect the amenity of people in the city.
People expect certain things to happen. While they expect to be able to travel to their local tip with some ease, they expect even more so to be able to climb into their cars and travel wherever they want, particularly to work in the city, without a second thought. It is that kind of assumption and that kind of ethos that we need to challenge in the course of addressing environmental problems. ACTION, our bus network, for one, is negotiating with manufacturers for the use of compressed natural gas on a trial basis as a way of contributing towards a reduction in the pollution content of its activities.
The Government has also issued its paper on developing an ACT strategy to respond to the greenhouse effect. It is significant in that we are responding to a global issue at a local level. Our goal is to achieve a community which produces only minimal air pollution and which minimises its contribution to global problems, such as the greenhouse effect and the depletion of the ozone layer. I think the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment continues to address the problem of emissions from wood-burning stoves in the ACT, which is another important contribution to finding solutions to that problem.
It is very easy to make grand statements about the environment and say that we are going to be the you-beaut salvation of these particular issues and find solutions to all these problems. As I have indicated, making people
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