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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3981 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

was originally drafted, because it also included social costs and benefits. It is not that I disagree with Ms Tucker in putting up that social costs and benefits should be taken into account by the Auditor-General. But, because the Auditor-General works on pragmatic indicators, it is important that we have sensible indicators which he can measure against; otherwise he would be making a series of value judgments, which is the role of this Assembly. We have to make the value judgments. We have to ensure that we have the appropriate indicators and then proceed. That is why Ms Tucker's amendments to the legislation so that it will concentrate for the moment on just environmental indicators is a major step forward.

There is a second leg to this, as I see it. We must take the social indicators - or the "social cash", in dry economic terms - into account as soon as we possibly can. Just as we have been establishing environmental indicators, we have to ensure that we have proper social indicators. I have personally done quite an amount of work on health indicators, which will be part of the social indicators, so I think some groundwork has already been done. I hope that when Ms Tucker comes into this Assembly next time she will be prepared to work with other people in developing social indicators.

I heard Mr Berry claim that Labor is the premier environmental party.

Ms McRae: Who put in the wheelie bins?

MR MOORE: That will be for environmentalists and environmental voters to determine. Let them make their decision as to who has worked and delivered most on environmental issues. It was not so long ago that an Assembly committee worked together on environmental legislation that all members of this Assembly can be proud of, rather than trying to play games about who did most to get the legislation through. It was a coordinated effort.

I am pleased to hear today that there is also going to be a coordinated effort on environmental indicators. The matter was originally raised by Ms Horodny or Ms Tucker with the Planning and Environment Committee. We looked at environmental indicators, we reported on them and the Government has responded. Work is being done on them and now it is appropriate for the Auditor-General to further his role. No doubt, in the initial instance those environmental indicators are not going to be perfect. Economic indicators are not yet perfect either. There will be an ongoing process of improving indicators, including social indicators. I think this is a landmark piece of legislation that really takes us to the next step of how an Auditor-General should operate to ensure the healthiest possible society, and that is why I am keen to support it.

MR SPEAKER: I would like to welcome students from St Francis Xavier High School in Florey. Welcome to your Assembly.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (10.50): Mr Speaker, the Government will be supporting this Bill because, as part of our commitment to environmentally sustainable development, we are moving to adopt environmental accounting and performance reporting, as everyone in this Assembly knows. As Mr Kaine said, we have some concerns about the methodology for conducting performance audits according to the principles of ecologically sustainable development, because there is no methodology

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