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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 742 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

a whole-of-government approach is not only about having a Commissioner for the Environment; it also means that departments and bodies with responsibility for financial matters must have expertise in social and environmental issues. We have general agreement that integrating environmental, social and economic policy is a good thing for a government to do; but, as I said earlier, we have very few practical examples in Australia of how this is actually implemented.

At the same time as I proposed the amendment I am proposing again today, I put forward the idea of environmental accounting. That was also rejected, although there was an agreement to have a Planning and Environment Committee inquiry into the issue. So, less than 12 months since I was told that there was no way we were ready for environmental accounting in the ACT, the Government has recognised the potential benefit from looking seriously at this issue. In fact, I was at a forum about two weeks ago - the Landcare Means Business forum - where the Minister for the Environment, as part of his speech about what his Government is doing, brought up the issue of environmental accounting. That statement from the Minister reinforced my belief that if you are persistent enough you can get the result, even if someone else takes credit for it along the way.

Hearing the Minister speak about the Government's willingness to take on environmental accounting, after an initial lukewarm response, has given me greater confidence that the issues before us today could also receive a more thoughtful and considered response. Maybe in another 12 months or so a Minister may stand up in a public forum and say that his or her government is responsible for overseeing a process whereby the Auditor-General's Office of the ACT is leading the way in Australia in terms of integrating environmental and social auditing techniques into performance auditing.

I would now like to inform members of the approach that has been taken by the Canadian Government in relation to broadening the role of the Auditor-General. Brian Emmett, the Canadian Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, was recently in Canberra. He became Canada's first Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development as a result of legislation that was passed in 1995 requiring the Auditor-General to give increased attention to environmental issues as part of value-for-money audits. The objectives of the Canadian legislation include ensuring that environmental considerations in the context of sustainable development are taken into account in the Auditor-General's reports to the House of Commons, and requiring departments' sustainable development strategies to be prepared and tabled in the House of Commons. The legislation also requires the appointment of a Commissioner for Sustainable Development. The commissioner's role is to provide sustainable development monitoring and reporting on progress towards sustainable development. Brian Emmett, the commissioner, said this legislation has been effective in helping to raise awareness of environmental issues and promoting increased government accountability with respect to the environment and sustainable development.

In Canada, they have recognised that broadening the role of the Auditor-General to include responsibilities with regard to the environment has been useful in developing audit methodology, remaining abreast of state-of-the-art developments for environmental performance and other related matters. The ACT Audit Office has an important role in the ACT with regard to performance audits and performance indicators, so these

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