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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 671 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

These concepts are not new. They have emerged through a process of debate over the past couple of decades. What is being proposed by Ms Tucker today is simply the next evolutionary step in achieving a greater level of accountability and transparency in the actual impact that government agencies will have and do have on the environment and what steps and activities they undertake to achieve and meet those principles of ecological sustainability. Those principles are not radical any more; they are principles which are accepted by all parts of this chamber, even Mr Rugendyke, who often has a complaint about legless lizards. Nevertheless, he still accepts, I am sure, the importance of the principles of ecologically sustainable development. I certainly hope that he does, anyway.

Ms Tucker's Bill outlines a range of areas where a government agency or a statutory authority will need to report on how it is achieving the implementation of ecologically sustainable development objectives and where it is having an impact. Mr Speaker, the first of these relates to outlining how any of its actions or administration of legislation accords with the principles of ecological sustainable development. That seems to be particularly important when you look at the activities of agencies such as PALM and the Office of Infrastructure and Asset Management. Those two agencies have considerable involvement in the development of the city. Indeed, the example that springs to mind most obviously is the development of greenfield estates.

The development of greenfield estates in new areas of Gungahlin and Tuggeranong has an obvious impact on the environment. The design of such estates certainly has changed in recent years. There have been improvements, but I would have to say from my own experience that there have been considerable problems with the designs of new estates. I would argue that we are not seeing ecologically sustainable development principles being applied in the development of such estates across the board. Certain elements are, such as mandatory energy ratings for new dwellings being four stars or higher. Measures are being taken to achieve that, such as the orientation of buildings to the north. That, obviously, is then reflected in the layout of streets within greenfield estates in that the streets are not aligned so that all the buildings face east-west, as we see in many of our older suburbs.

Nevertheless, there are issues which are not achieving ecologically sustainable development, issues to do with the increase in hardstanding in new greenfield developments, where considerable areas of land are covered in concrete, bitumen or paving of one sort or the other. With smaller blocks, there is a much higher percentage of hardstanding in place than with larger blocks. We have potential problems there with runoff and we have potential problems with the ability of the land to cope with the natural rainfall of the area. I do not think that those issues are being properly considered in the design of new estates and they are issues which do have a direct impact on whether we are doing everything possible as a community to meet the principles of ecologically sustainable development.

Proposed section 158A(3)(a) of Ms Tucker's Bill does provide for a greater level of accountability and transparency in trying to identify exactly what actions bodies are taking to accord with the principles of ecologically sustainable development in relation to their administration of legislation. Among the other points outlined by Ms Tucker in her Bill are issues relating to the outputs specified by the reporting agency or authority in budget

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