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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 3 Hansard (8 March) . . Page.. 672 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

papers relating to the period of a particular budget and how those outputs contributed to ecologically sustainable development. I admit that this will be a difficult task because you will be looking at the whole range of outputs across the budget papers. Nevertheless, it is a positive step that should be at least attempted by the Government. I think it will help to focus government agencies and authorities on exactly how their activities have an impact and whether they actually contribute to ecologically sustainable development.

Of the paragraphs from (a) to (e) identified in proposed section 158A(3) of Ms Tucker's Bill, I would have to say that paragraph (b) is probably the most difficult and the most challenging because it applies, at least on my reading of it, across all outputs of all government agencies and authorities as identified in budget papers. Nevertheless, as I said, I believe that it will be a positive step if this Assembly agrees to it. Paragraph (c) deals with the documentation of the effect of the reporter's actions on the environment. That is also a quite useful element of the Bill. As I indicated in relation to paragraph (a), it does give us the opportunity to see how government agencies and authorities are impacting on the environment and whether that is occurring in a positive or negative way. Again, it will help to focus the minds of government authorities and agencies on exactly how they go about their business, as they are obliged to by the government of the day, and whether they are meeting the requirements that this Assembly has generally agreed to already about the importance of ecologically sustainable development.

Paragraph (d) deals with the identification of any measures that the government agency or authority is taking to minimise the impact of actions by that agency or authority on the environment. I think that that is very important. For example, we have seen in recent months problems with landfill at the Belconnen tip and how the activities of both the government area responsible for the management of the landfill site at Belconnen and the company that was depositing the waste there could have had an impact on the environment and on the health of people in the area. It is important to require that government agencies and authorities be able to document the effect of their actions on the environment because it makes them think about what they are doing and how it is impacting on the environment and the area in which they work, and it makes them think about it in a proactive way. I am sure that in many instances that is occurring already; so perhaps it could be argued that this Bill simply formalises what government agencies and authorities already do and provides that information to the Assembly. Either way, it is a sensible course of action.

Finally, I think that paragraph (e) of the Bill is of considerable significance. It identifies the mechanisms, if any, that the government agency or authority has for reviewing and increasing the effectiveness of measures relating to the implementation of ecologically sustainable development objectives. Again, that allows the Assembly to keep a check on exactly what government authorities and agencies are doing. Are they simply stating that these principles are important, but not putting them into practice? This is where that can be tested from the Assembly's point of view. This is where non-Executive members of this place can sit in committees of this place and can sit here in the chamber itself and question officials or a Minister on the mechanisms that they have identified in their reports for reviewing and increasing the effectiveness of ESD measures and ask whether those mechanisms are adequate or, if they do not exist at all, why they do not exist, or what activities they are undertaking to improve those mechanisms.

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