Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (23 May) . . Page.. 1730 ..

MR WHITECROSS (Leader of the Opposition) (5.37): Mr Speaker, Mr Moore has proposed a way forward on this amendment and a way that we in the Labor Party are happy to endorse - that is, for the Planning and Environment Committee to look at this proposal and develop it further. In opposing the proposal here, as we in the Labor Party are doing, and instead supporting the proposition that Mr Moore has canvassed, we take the view that this is an important issue. It is not an issue that should be tacked onto a Financial Management Bill. It is an issue that deserves proper consideration and perhaps, in due course, a separate piece of legislation; or some other process might be an appropriate way of advancing it.

Mr Speaker, I must admit to taking some umbrage at the approach that the Greens and Ms Tucker have taken today in speaking to this matter. I took the Greens as raising this issue in good faith, trying to advance an issue which I think is important to a lot of us. I think the Labor Party had very good reasons for not wishing to wedge this proposition in its current form into the middle of the Financial Management Bill. It does wear a bit thin, Mr Speaker. Every time the Greens propose an environmental issue, whether you vote for their proposition becomes a test of whether you are an environmentalist or not. I, in turn, put it to you, Ms Tucker, that if you are a real environmentalist you will support the Planning and Environment Committee having a further look at it, rather than rushing it through now. I think that is a more appropriate process.

Might I also say, Mr Speaker, that the Greens knew when they decided to put the current Government into power that the previous Labor Government regularly, as part of its budget process, prepared an environmental budget statement and prepared a social justice budget statement. They may not have included all the information that Ms Tucker might like, and I take that on notice. They may wish for more and, over time, we might have developed it further too; but we were working in that direction. We were working in the direction of incorporating the concept of addressing environmental issues and social justice issues as part of the overall package in the budget. It was a start.

As Mrs Carnell has said, there is not a lot of precedent for this, and there are issues of measurement there. We were starting down that track. It might have been more appropriate to have worked with the Labor Party in government to have progressed that matter, rather than to have put the Liberals into government and then been surprised when they did not take these issues terribly seriously.

Mr Speaker, we will be supporting the Planning and Environment Committee taking up this matter. I hope that the Planning and Environment Committee will have the resources and the time to give it the attention that it deserves, and I have some misgivings about that. As you will recall, Mr Speaker, at the time the majority of this Assembly was not too keen on having a separate environment committee to look at these matters. However, that is a matter that Mr Moore will have to address as chair of that committee.

Mr Speaker, these are important issues and they should not be ignored, but there is this concept of being able to walk and talk and chew gum at the same time. Sometimes we have to talk about money, but just because we are talking about money today does not mean that we are not concerned about social justice or we are not concerned about the environment. It is possible to talk about money and still be concerned about those

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .