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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 171 ..

MS HORODNY: The eco-office.

Mr Humphries: The Commissioner for the Environment's office?

MS HORODNY: No, the eco-office.

Mr Humphries: The Environmental Defenders Office?

MS HORODNY: No. You do not know about your own eco-office? That is very interesting. I am not surprised; it hardly has a budget. Perhaps you need to talk to one of your advisers, Mr Humphries, because we do have an eco-office set up. It is funded, as I recall, to the tune of something like $4,000, which does not enable it to do any real work.

Mr Berry: You should not have told him about it; he will close it down.

MS HORODNY: Yes, that is right.

Mr Humphries: If it does not do any work, what a waste of $4,000!

MS HORODNY: The eco-office obviously could, if it were properly resourced, do a really good job in looking across the board at all public offices; looking at all materials that are used, like in photocopiers and fax machines; looking at purchasing policy; and looking generally at best practice. This Government claims to operate on ESD principles in all its areas and to have a commitment to ESD, but I do not believe that you understand what ESD is about. If you would like a briefing at some stage, I would be very happy to give you one.

Mr Berry: I tell you what; the eco-office is out the window now that you have told him about it. It was a big mistake.

MS HORODNY: Yes, it probably is. I should not have brought it up. The other thing that the eco-office should do, as well as look at environmental issues, is look at health issues so that we do not have again the sick building syndromes. That is a really important role that that office could play as well, again, if it were adequately resourced. At the moment it is a bit of a joke because it does not have the resources and certainly does not have the staff to allow it to do any of those sorts of things.

I am generally disappointed that the Government ignored all the recommendations of the committee. I believe that the committee is a good cross-section of this Assembly. The committee did a lot of work to call in and listen to individuals and organisations from the community who made some very good suggestions and had some very good ideas to input. We certainly took on board those recommendations and ideas that we thought were good. We scrutinised them very carefully. Yet it seems that none of those ideas have been taken on board. That is a shame; it is a great shame. I would urge the Government to look more closely at recommendations that committees do bring forward, because I believe that the committees do a much better job of consulting with the community and pulling together ideas and suggestions from the community that are important.

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