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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3983 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

While I am on that, I might just respond to something Mr Berry said on behalf of the "premier environment party". He said that as long it was in the best interests of the community, not just in the best interests of the environment, he would look at it. I am afraid that he has just failed as the premier environment party, because these two are inextricably linked. You cannot say that anything that is bad for the environment could possibly be good for the community in the long term.

Of course, the methodology is not nearly as sophisticated for environmental auditing as it is in the economic area, but it is not until we start putting in place new approaches on models such as this that there will be pressure to trial new approaches. If we are looking at effectiveness and efficiency, we cannot separate the purely economic aspects of operations. I certainly look forward to the day when equity is included as a key aspect of audit objectives. If we wait until we have the perfect system, we will never move forward at all.

Implementing ecologically sustainable development - something every government in Australia is committed to doing - does not require just one solution. We need a multifaceted and integrated approach. Mr Berry implied that the Commissioner for the Environment could have taken on this sort of work. That again shows a misunderstanding of the fundamental essence of what we are attempting to do. We have to integrate these concerns within our accounting system, within our audits, so that we see how we are operating as a whole, on the economic, social and environmental levels. We have to have a multifaceted and integrated approach. Canada has realised that broadening the role of the Auditor-General to include responsibilities with regard to the environment has been useful in developing audit methodology and remaining abreast of state-of-the-art developments for environmental performance and other related matters. The Auditor-General would be able to work with the Commissioner for the Environment, but we have to bring that work into the whole.

The ACT can now be seen to be leading the way in taking responsibility for changing accounting systems so that they more accurately represent the total picture and the impacts of our activities as a community. It is a fundamental issue for all societies in developing countries and developed countries around the world, and the United Nations is acknowledging the critical importance of this in its work in developing indicators. I acknowledge the work of the Government in getting the paper on environmental accounting up. I am happy to give more detailed feedback to Mrs Carnell on that matter. I think it is a really excellent start.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

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