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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (12 November) . . Page.. 3986 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

If this legislation and the approach that we have taken with regard to financial management reform can achieve that - and I am confident that they can - then I believe that this really will significantly improve the society that we live in. In deciding whether to buy products or services, we do not consider just how much they cost. There are a lot of other considerations as well. We all agree that that should always have been the case, and hopefully it has been the case; but in this way we can measure whether we are doing the job that I am sure we all believe we are doing. That has to be a good thing for the community generally. So we will be supporting the amendments.

MS HORODNY (11.05): Mr Speaker, as someone who has been a member of the Public Accounts Committee for the past three years, it is obvious to me that in many cases you cannot assess the effectiveness of a particular government operation without having regard to social and environmental issues. What is the economy about, after all? It should be a means to an end. We should be concerned about economic outcomes only to the extent that we achieve outcomes that are good for society as a whole. Unfortunately, we have got ends and means all mixed up, and that is why we need a new approach to economics. Economics should be the servant and not the master.

A number of audits conducted by the Auditor-General would have benefited from a broader approach - for example, the examination of the effectiveness of secondary school colleges, the examination of ACTEW, the audit of government passenger cars and the audit of streetlights. Would it not make sense to look at the potential economic and environmental benefits from initiatives such as car pooling when we are looking at government passenger car use? Surely, in all these cases the effectiveness and efficiency must be informed by the outcomes that we are obtaining. As we have said before, improving environmental outcomes is often good for the economic efficiency of operations. As resources are saved, we save money. The same is very often true for social policy, although the timeframes are obviously much longer.

Take health, for example. There is an old saying that prevention is better than cure. It is certainly much cheaper to get in early and prevent illnesses in the first place than to have to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on expensive hospital procedures. While we are not proceeding with the social aspect today, I am sure that in the next Assembly the Greens will pursue the issue of social auditing as better benchmarks and indicators are developed. As Ms Tucker said in her tabling speech, the Audit Office in Canada has taken this approach to ensure that environmental considerations are taken into account in the Auditor-General's reports to the House of Commons. They have also appointed a Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

Mr Speaker, economic indicators have become the main measure of our welfare. I am pleased to see that our constant calls for better social and environmental indicators and environmental accounting systems are being taken more seriously by the Government. This must go hand in hand with ensuring that ecologically sustainable development is incorporated into all aspects of government decision-making, policy and service implementation, reporting and auditing. We cannot just say that because we have the Commissioner for the Environment we do not need to worry about this. The whole point of sustainable development is to bring economic and environmental management and auditing procedures together. I urge all members to support these amendments.

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