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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2328 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Back to the environment. The conservation council has calculated that environment funding has 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that this figure includes not just cuts to the overall budget of Environment ACT but also money that has been withdrawn from its budget for departmental expenditure, such as expenditure for IT modernisation. The 4 per cent budget increase for Environment ACT will go no way towards catching up with those cuts in funding. I do not know whether the government is still adding the funding for the Commissioner for the Environment and grants to their estimation of expenditure, but I do not think it is appropriate to do that, because we are looking at the funding in Environment ACT, which has recurrent obligations and responsibilities in providing services.

Ecological sustainability means that we have to look at greenhouse gas emissions in the ACT. The government, in this budget, has $130 million in their traffic jam plan, and appears to show no concern that this plan will just increase the car dependency of Canberra residents. There is no investment projected in the development of the public transport network. Once again, it is the language of saying, "If we put money into public transport it is a subsidy; if we put money into roads it is an investment."

If we do not see a change in that approach, we are not going to be able to address the pollution-global and local-and the social inequity caused by a city that is car based. We need to remember that there are people in our community who do not have a choice and need to use public transport. They are the elderly, the young, the disabled, the poor and those who, by choice, use public transport.

If the government was serious about addressing the transport needs of Gungahlin residents, for example, it would have included in this budget the construction of bus priority lanes from Civic to Gungahlin, it would have installed smart traffic lights to give priority to buses, and it would have abolished ACTION's discriminatory zonal fare system that puts Gungahlin in a different zone to central Canberra. A government with imagination and a commitment to ecological sustainability would seek to pursue these principles across the range of government activity.

In promoting economic growth in the ACT, the government is pushing for private sector development at whatever the cost, with no consideration of the ecological sustainability of such development, or even of its contribution to social capital or ethics. In estimates I asked about the assistance package to Raytheon, which produces missiles and is currently feeding the major conflict zones around the world. Mrs Carnell assured me that it was about jobs and that ethical considerations did not come into it. She said that I need not worry, because they were not blowing up anything in Canberra. I found that a pretty amazing response. That is the way it goes. It is jobs and money at any cost, it seems.

The ACT budget has shown up the huge $8 million gift that the government has given to Impulse Airlines-or is that for the airport? We never quite got that clear. Funds in the business incentive scheme have already been allocated to Telstra, Ansett and Raytheon, which are very large companies. I do not see a strong emphasis on deciding on government assistance packages according to the social or environmental contribution of the selected businesses to our community. Because we are talking about the environment, I think that there is a real place for that point.

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