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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3982 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

in place at this stage. But you have to start somewhere, and we believe the direction is right. We are very pleased that Ms Tucker worked with the Auditor-General to sort out with him what was possible and how to put that into legislation. It has been a very cooperative approach, to ensure that the legislation we put on the table here is innovative, appropriate and enforceable.

Unless we had moved to accrual accounting, we could not have taken this next step. Financial accounting, social accounting and environmental accounting can come together if you get your systems right. Now that we have in place accrual accounting and performance indicators for the sorts of things we have measured in the past and are getting better every year, it is an obvious step forward to determine other issues, both social and environmental, that we should measure to determine what we are achieving as a society.

The Society of Certified Practising Accountants also support the concept of environmental accounting and are working on ways to bring it into effect. What we are all after now is a workable model. Additionally, the Government is studying the work of the Office of the Commissioner for the Environment on improving environmental indicators and environmental evaluation methodologies. We are also assessing ways in which these can be incorporated with financial accounts.

The Government's work to date clearly demonstrates our commitment and the commitment of this Assembly to the practical integration of social, environmental and economic frameworks in a way that will enable planning and decision-making processes to be fully informed not just on what things cost in dollar terms but on what they cost in a broader community sense. Again, unless we had moved to determine what things were costing in dollar terms, in accrual terms, we simply could not have taken the next step.

Next year we will be conducting research work aimed at developing an environmental accounting and measurement model for the ACT. To this end, I would reiterate Mr Kaine's call to members to study the environmental accounting status paper. We really would appreciate the feedback of members. To date we do not have any feedback from members of the Assembly or from associated parties. We certainly hope that that will not be the case in the future.

We are clearly signalling our intention to account more fully for everything that is important in our community - that is, social issues, environmental issues and financial issues. I think this legislation is heading in the right direction. We have a long way to go, but Ms Tucker's working with the Auditor-General to ensure that what hopefully we pass today can be put into place is another step in the process of making sure that our approach to accounting in the ACT continues to lead the world.

MS TUCKER (10.55), in reply: I thank members for their support and their comments on this very important piece of legislation. I have heard Mrs Carnell argue on many occasions that the ACT has to take some risks and take the lead. I acknowledge the connection between this legislation and the introduction of accrual accounting. When the Greens looked at it first, we could see the potential within that system to widen what we look at and bring into the web what until quite recently have been regarded as externalities - the social and environmental impacts of our activities.

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