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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 518 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

(2) in the course of the inquiry, the particular strategies the Committee should investigate will include:

(a) minimising light pollution having regard for outcomes for safety, security and tourism;

(b) requiring the Department of Urban Services to develop performance indicators for all of the street, path and outdoor space lighting under its control to ensure that spill light, sky glow and other wastage is minimised;

(c) tougher legislation to govern private outdoor lighting; and

(d) the basis of a cooperative Federal/ACT agreement on outdoor lighting for the ACT.

Mr Speaker, my call is for the Planning and Environment Committee to inquire into the provision of quality outdoor lighting in the ACT and to make recommendations on the most appropriate strategies to be implemented as part of an overall plan to protect and enhance Canberra's night sky.

Canberrans deeply appreciate the quality of our sky and Canberra is the pre-eminent Australian city for optical astronomy, yet we have never seriously tackled light pollution. Canberra's night sky is also an increasingly valuable economic asset. We have one of only a few observatories anywhere in the world that are close to a city and still operating as an observatory. With the opening of the Canberra Planetarium later this year, as well as the new Exploratory Building at Mount Stromlo, Canberra is set to gain an international name for astronomical tourism. Clear dark skies are essential for the continued operation of the observatory and for the success of these new tourist attractions.

Poor outdoor lighting not only pollutes visually but also unnecessarily increases greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs to the community. Studies in the United States put the annual energy wastage in the United States from bad outdoor lighting at an estimated $1.5 billion. National studies indicate that 15 per cent of light from public outdoor lighting goes directly into the sky without hitting a surface, and that another 15 per cent is reflected into the sky after hitting a surface, either usefully or uselessly. According to ACTEW, 37.4 gigawatt-hours of electrical power was used for streetlighting in 1993-94. Therefore, 15 per cent of that power usage was wasted. Priced at the domestic rate of 8c per kilowatt-hour, that means we wasted $448,000. Ironically, that was about the same as the amount spent on new light fittings in that same year.

In Canberra adequate shielding of outdoor streetlighting is required only in the streets immediately adjacent to the airport and for lights within a five kilometres radius of the top of Mount Stromlo. The best crude estimate we have, because light pollution is not measured by the Department of Urban Services, is that 90 per cent of Canberra's public

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