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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1818 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

That is what many of us understood the basic concept of social capital to be about. Clearly, we are seeing it being reworked and redefined by this government. That is fine-it is post-modern-but we would like to know exactly what is their understanding of the concept of social capital. I did talk briefly with Mr Moore about it and he said that he could see no contradiction between competition and trust. That is really challenging some of the basic ideas of social capital as we know them. I look forward to more discussion about this government's view of actually what it is that it is doing.

We still do not have social outcomes in the key result areas. I remember that being raised in a report that the education committee produced and Mr Hird dissented, saying that it was totally inappropriate even to mention social outcomes in a budget document. We will have to see how we go with that idea in terms of how it fits into social capital. Equity, of course, is still not mentioned and that is a very fundamental part of trust in any society.

Mr Humphries said in question time today that he thought I was angry and he felt a bit sad because the government had gazumped me. Mr Humphries, you do not need to be sad about that. How I wish I had been gazumped. I would be absolutely delighted if I had been gazumped on this matter, let me assure you.

The question of social need generally still has not been analysed with any commitment by the government and I do not believe that its expenditure decisions are really related to any thorough analysis of the social needs. That is something we have said every year and I am afraid that we are still saying it.

I will speak in some detail on the environment. The government's interpretation of social capital has ignored the fact that the maintenance of a healthy environment is an integral part of building social capital. Thus, it concerns me that the government has continued to give a low priority to environmental management in this budget.

It should be noted that less than one per cent of the budget expenditure goes into managing some 53 per cent of the ACT-that is, the area of Namadgi National Park and the other nature reserves-and less than 2 per cent of the budget is spent on managing Canberra's urban parks and open space. The amount is very small relative to the other expenditure in the budget and I know that the funds of Environment ACT are spread very thinly over a number of important activities.

I note that this year the budget of Environment ACT has been increased by 4 per cent. Obviously, I support the few environmental initiatives there are, such as the money to implement the greenhouse strategy. However, this expenditure is hardly catching up with the real cuts in funding that have occurred since the election of this government. Funding increases to Environment ACT in the past have not kept up with inflation.

I note that the conservation council has calculated that environment funding has actually been cut by 14 per cent in real terms since the government's re-election in 1998. I understand that this figure includes not just cuts to the overall budget of Environment ACT but also money that has been withdrawn from its budget for departmental expenditure, such as IT modernisation. The money that is available for on-the-ground environmental management has been diminishing in real terms under this government.

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